Village Secrets

by digby

I’ve been away from the TV for a while and so I missed this amazing confession:

Earlier this week, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote about how “the dignity code” has been “completely obliterated” in Washington, DC. Discussing the concept on MSNBC today, Brooks recalled how he “sat next to a Republican senator once at dinner and he had his hand on my inner thigh the whole time”:

BROOKS: You know, all three of us spend a lot of time covering politicians and I don’t know about you guys, but in my view, they’re all emotional freaks of one sort or another. They’re guaranteed to invade your personal space, touch you. I sat next to a Republican senator once at dinner and he had his hand on my inner thigh the whole time. I was like, ehh, get me out of here.

HARWOOD: What?

BROOKS: I can only imagine what happens to you guys.

O’DONNELL: Sorry, who was that?

BROOKS: I’m not telling you, I’m not telling you.

It’s pretty clear from his subsequent comments that it wasn’t a woman, which of course still leaves dozens of GOP possibilities.

Let me ask you something. If someone puts his hand on your inner thigh, do you just sit there? Even if he is a Senator, I’m pretty sure I would move the hand — or stab it with a fork. Do these media parasites value their access so much that they are willing to grant any kind of “access” themselves? And here I thought the term mediawhore was a metaphor.

If this is such common behavior among Republican Senators that national columnists just sit there and allow themselves to be fondled at dinner parties, it goes a long way toward explaining why nobody in DC thought Larry Craig’s toilet stall foot signals were that big of a deal. They are obviously used to much more aggressive behavior than that.

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