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June 24, 2004

Saletan: Hack.

Will Saletan's been getting a lot of flak lately.

After this piece of bilge about the Ryan case, it seems clear he deserves it.

This piece is so vacuously...words fail...stupid on so many levels, it makes you wonder - did Slate lay off all their editors?

Saletan "analyzes" the GOP's "spin" on the Ryan case, trying to find a specious parallel between the Ryan case and the impeachment of Clinton (it was all about sex, you know!).

  • Ryan claimed it was to protect his family. Saletan claims that this is disingenuous: "Ryan didn't mention the "political aspirations" he had raised in his 2000 filing when he complained about Jeri Ryan making their marital troubles public. And according to the Chicago Tribune, "in September 2000, Anne Kiley, an attorney for Jeri Ryan, said in a court filing that one of Jack Ryan's attorneys had told her a few months earlier that Jack Ryan wanted parts of the file blacked out, removed, or sealed because he was 'concerned [it] would negatively impact his political aspirations.' "" News flash: Either way, it's perfectly valid. If I were to file a lawsuit against Will Saletan, and in a fit of picque claim that Saletan used to molest donkeys, I'm thinking Saletan would find it harmful on several levels - his family, his personal life and much more than just his career. Why is Ryan exampt from this? Does having political aspirations exempt you from basic decency? Remember - he broke not one law.
  • It wasn't illegal. Saletan doesn't favor us with any reasons this is wrong.
  • It's irrelevant to public office - which it is. Note this: In no part of this episode did Ryan do anything absolutely immoral, to say nothing of illegal. Whether you approve of Ryan's suggestion or not, there was nothing remotely illegal about it. Was it unethical? Let's consider the wisdom of publishing codes of sexual conduct, explaining what is and is not acceptable from politicians within the privacy of their marriages. How's that sound?
  • It's a left-wing conspiracy. Saletan states this in the usual mocking tone, noting the mistake in the Illinois GOP's talking points that "This judge was appointed by Jerry Brown, the most liberal governor of California in history." That is untrue, technically - Judge Schnider was appointed by a panel of judges who were appointed by Brown - but made a full judge by Gray Davis, who wasn't much of an improvement over Brown. Don't expect the likes of Will Saletan to explain that.
  • Saletan closes with a mocking "The woman's discomfort is no big deal." If the worst that can be said about Jeri Ryan's situation is that she was "uncomfortable", then it was a tame divorce indeed. And indeed one fact that has remained buried was that Jeri Ryan did, apparently, far worse: "Robert Novak, the conservative commentator, said on Crossfire, "The judge allowed joint custody of their now nine-year-old son to the two parents. Number two, it was Mrs. Ryan, not Jack Ryan, who was guilty of adultery. … Jack Ryan, unlike Bill Clinton, did not commit adultery and did not lie." This is important on a couple of levels. Judges rarely "Grant" joint custody of children; it is almost always granted as a result of an agreement between a divorcing couple. So - while Jeri Ryan put a lot of intensely prejudicial stuff into her custody pleadings, she then turned around and agreed in the final marital termination agreement to share custody of their son with Jack Ryan. Given the advantages women have in custody cases, and the credulity courts grant women with any sort of accusation at all, this would seem to indicate that the charges in the original petition served more as ammunition than substance.
Saletan closes the piece with the sort of smirky quip that could grace some idiot lefty blog:
Now we know why Bill Clinton got impeached. He was in the wrong club.
Well, yeah. He was in the "lying under oath, and trying to cover up the evidence" club.

Unlike, it seems, Jack Ryan.

His bad.

Posted by Mitch at June 24, 2004 06:52 AM
Comments

Saletan beats the snot out of that straw man I tell ya...

Posted by: HH at June 24, 2004 09:18 AM

Was there any attempt to prove or disprove these allegations at the time? Aside from the fact that it was Jeri Ryan who was unfaithful, I hadn't read any attempt by Jeri or the press to prove Jeri's allegations.

Wouldn't this fall under liberal qualifications to say ' THE AP LIED!!!' ?

Posted by: Aodhan at June 24, 2004 10:08 AM

Slate in general has gotten really dismal over the past year or so, and it's disappointing to see Saletan mirror that.

It's always been smug in that latte-charged-Tech-boom kind of way, but it's become insufferable. I'd say 75% of the articles it runs today subscribe to the theme of "That thing you and a lot of people like? It sucks and here's why".

Saletan, IMO, used to be somewhat above that. Now we have the insufferable musings of people who sneer at EVERYTHING: The military (F. Kaplan and Carter), movies (Edelstein), government (Lithwick), candidates (Noah and Saletan), etc.

They sound tired and crabby, like someone substituted decaf. The only reason I read it now is to hopefully catch the occasional Hitchens screed, even if I fundamentally disagree with it.

Posted by: Steve in Houston at June 24, 2004 01:41 PM
hi