Earlier today, Gawker ran a story titled, “I Had a One-Night Stand With Christine O’Donnell.” It’s an anonymous first-person piece by a guy who claims he went bar-hopping with O’Donnell on Halloween three years ago, and ended up making out with her and getting naked but not having sex. He makes a joke about her pubic hair, which Gawker is so proud of that they make it a pull-quote. And he says she ended up dating his roommate for a year, but as far as he knows they never had sex either.
Apparently Gawker thought this was a good story because… I’m not sure why, exactly. Not because it exposes her as a hypocrite, certainly, since she didn’t have sex with the guy. Maybe just because it gave them an excuse to run a bunch of pictures of her drunk and laughing in a ladybug costume? Maybe because they think anything is permissible as long as it embarrasses a conservative? Maybe because it’s Gawker and they actually get a bonus for being soulless assholes?
The most suprising thing is that the left-wing blogs are just as disgusted by it as normal people are.
Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwen — best known for getting thrown off the John Edwards presidential campaign, way back when that was considered a bad thing — both express grudging outrage. Sure, O’Donnell is the worst person who’s ever lived, they say, but even a Republican shouldn’t be treated like that.
Funny actor and left-wing jerk* James Urbaniak, who once hassled me for defending Willow Palin when she went to a baseball game with her mom and ended up the subject of David Letterman’s hilarious rape joke, tweets:
Hey, @Gawker, you can address Christine O’Donnell’s social conservative hypocrisy without being misogynistically invasive.
I’m not sure they actually can, but maybe I’m just being cynical. In any case, it’s good to know Urbaniak has some standards.
Jessica Coen at fellow Gawker Media site Jezebel goes on for 600 words about it, and I think she comes down on the side of “We shouldn’ta oughtta done that.” Or maybe not. It’s hard to tell, which is always a sign of good writing.
One of the good guys, TV’s Andy Levy, says it best:
Memo to Gawker: Sometimes something is an “exclusive” because nobody else is pathetic enough to run it.
It’ll be interesting to see what this does for O’Donnell’s fundraising. She raked it in when Karl Rove said she sucks. She might raise even more money now that Gawker says she doesn’t.
*I know what you’re saying, but that’s not necessarily redundant.
P.S. Coons campaign condemns Gawker story about opponent Christine O’Donnell.