Y'know, this just hasn't been a good news cycle for conservatives.
Intimigate:
Rather a catchy title, that, though the whole "-gate" scandal naming convention is rather played at this point. Eighty percent of Americans polled today consider the treasonous - and it is treasonous - outing of an American intelligence official to be a "serious" matter. Nearly seventy percent said that a special prosecutor should be appointed, rather than see the Justice Department involved. More information
at the Left Coaster (link). Furthermore, embarrassing quotes from prominent Republicans dating back to the Clinton years have surfaced regarding the appropriateness of the Justice Department investigating the White House. An example from John Ashcroft his own self can be found
at Eschaton (link). Meanwhile, conservative pundits are parsing, spinning, and generally sounding like Democrats did in 1997. Examples are everywhere.
Rush Limbaugh:
Rush, after making a racially-charged (if not outright racially hostile) comment on ESPN's NFL Sunday show,
according to the network (link) . Meanwhile, Drudge has posted that the rather disreputable National Enquirer is going to print with a story claiming that Rush is
a drug addict (link). I don't have much confidence in this one, but the circumstantial evidence is compelling, to say the least. This story is beginning to be noticed by the mainstream media as well.
Arnold Schwarzenegger:
This actually isn't "new" news - many of these allegations have been around for years upon years. But the Los Angeles Times
is reporting (link) (registration required - free) that as many as six women have come forward with stories claiming that the Austrian movie-star-turned-gubernatorial-wannabe is a serial groper, having groped and fondled several women on numerous occasions and in diverse situations. It remains to be seen what effect this will have on the California recall, where polls have shown Schwarzenegger with a commanding lead in the race to replace Gray Davis.
Summary:
This has been a nightmare day for conservatives. It's quite apparent that many of these stories are very similar in tenor and tone to the stories that hounded Bill Clinton during his second term. The emergence of these and similar memes, though, may in fact be why so many influential conservative pundits and columnists have lately noticed - quite out of the blue - that vitriol has replaced reasoned discourse here in America. Many of these same commentators were leading the charge against Clinton during the Whitewater scandal and its successors - but now, all of a sudden that a Republican is feeling some heat from a revitalized Democratic congressional caucus and a formerly prostrate national media, now these commentators want to have everyone play nice again. Good idea, won't happen. The other shoe - shoes, actually - is dropping and the Bush administration is directly in gravity's path. How this plays out, with a national election a year away and the administration's credibility and popularity already at an all-time low, is anyone's guess.