Flory brought up Althouse again, so it's her fault entirely that I saw this, which would be Miss Havisham Winebox's explanation for why David Brooks is a great big sillygoose for revealing that "I sat next to a Republican senator once at dinner and he had his hand on my inner thigh the whole time":
I'd make a joke, but, well, what can you say? How can you possibly improve, comedy-wise, or creepy-wise, upon the adverb "technically" in that particular sentence? Please, just marvel. This is not Art, precisely, but it is nevertheless fondling Art's balls under the tablecloth. The rest is good too:
Why wouldn't we believe this? Or are we supposed to believe that powerful men don't get away with public groping precisely because (1) they are powerful men, and (2) it's in public? Maybe if there were a still photograph of the thigh touching, we would be able to parse this all more precisely, but then again, Brooks probably had it coming, as I'm sure he was deliberately flaunting his tits.
(Is anyone genuinely startled that Brooks would have submitted to sexual abuse on the part of an abuser in a position of power...? I sure ain't. I'd have hit the guy, and if it had been her, my wife would have hit the guy, and neither of us would have done squat to protect a sexual predator: which is part of why, I suppose, we're just bloggers, not Elite Opinion Journalists. Dude, David, if you're telling the truth, you're protecting a monster -- speak up, asshole. Because sure as hell there is someone else who needs to be spoken for, and who has a hell of a lot more to lose than you do by going public. I mean, the more I think about this -- ha ha, a Senator gropes you in a public place, but no names, they're all like that -- I mean, Christ, this gets less funny and far more revolting.)
And with that I retire, because I have thought about this too long and I want to kill myself. And I thought being a Mets fan sucked.