Riehl World View

Via Ben Smith at Politico. Towleroad is not CBS. There are several issues colliding here and they shouldn't all be conflated into one big mash.

That's ridiculous. The gay blog Towleroad, not typically an arm of the right-wing conspiracy, has been cheerfully speculating for months. Republicans on the Hill decided last year, when two open lesbians were considered for the court, that they wouldn't make an issue of it. And that's a good political decision: Most Americans don't think sexual orientation should be a factor in hiring.

It's a transitional moment in public life, and a mildly uncomfortable public moment results, but it's hard to see much more going on here.

UPDATE: The author of the original post doesn't get why it's such a big deal either.

As the lines between blogs and media continue to blur, one would hope that establishment media would still believe in accuracy and some semblance of personal privacy. Based on the record, Ben Domench can fairly defend his posting the item he did on his blog. But as an establishment media outlet, CBS was wrong to publish what seems to amount to an unconfirmed rumor. Neither CBS, nor Domenech should have the right to out someone, if that is in fact what has happened here. Kagan's sexuality should be treated as her business, unless she cares to share it with the world. If Ben knew the item was headed to CBS, he demonstrated a lack of judgment in writing it. And either way, CBS demonstrated an even larger lack of judgment in publishing it.

Turning it all into, some well, hey, shouldn't we be able to discuss this today argument does not excuse the poor judgment and lack of standards and ethics at the heart of it. CBS should not be in the business of publishing rumors.

As I told Howard Kurtz, and I say again here, I offer my sincere apologies to Ms. Kagan if she is offended at all by my repetition of a Harvard rumor in a speculative blog post. It still seems odd to me that the White House would single out this statement for attack, adamantly slamming closed a door that nobody was trying to open, as opposed to issuing a mild correction. As Yglesias notes, "I'd like to think we're past the point where saying someone's a lesbian counts as a dastardly 'accusation,'" and it certainly was not intended as such.