Led Zeppelin and the Overwrought Defense
“I took her love at seventeenA little late these days it seems
But they said heaven is well worth waiting for.”– Robert Plant/Jimmy Page
Those of you that have been paying attention to the news have undoubtedly heard about the controversy surrounding Matt Gaetz. The embattled Florida congressman always seems to find himself in the center of some controversy. A lot of this is self-inflicted. The details are a bit circumspect at this point, but I’ll do the best I can.
At the center of it all is a report that he had a sexual encounter with a 17 year old girl (thus the Led Zeppelin reference). Gaetz is currently in his late thirties, but I’m not sure when this sexual encounter supposedly happened. Unless it happened when he was 18, he is in the same hot water politically. Legally, it might be a whole other matter.
Meanwhile, Gaetz is spinning yarns about a blackmail scheme that is at the heart of it all. He is defending himself of charges that haven’t even been levied. I’m sure the psychologists among us will opine about what that fact means. I have had some psychology training, but I’m going to leave that nugget to the professionals among us.
Oddly enough, I find all of this to be a huge Rorschach test. For those unfamiliar with the term, it refers to those nebulous ink blots that we are supposed to interpret for the therapist. Supposedly, our answers say a whole lot about us. In this case, I think they say more about our particular feelings for these individuals than it does about us specifically.
Gaetz is a polarizing figure. Conservatives love him and everyone else seems to hate him. So, it makes perfect sense that those particular groups would handle these allegations differently. When I look at Matt Gaetz I see a jackass. So, it isn’t that difficult for me to imagine him doing anything like this. The fact that he is awkwardly defending himself tends to be icing on the cake. Still, there is always the possibility that everything he is saying is true.
We can see no greater contrast than looking at the situation Andrew Cuomo is in right now. We could throw in the likes of Al Franken as well. The level of sympathy we feel for any of these guys is directly proportional to the level of animus we felt for them before their controversies. In plain English, if we like them we tend to believe them. If we hate them we already see them as guilty.
Make no mistake. Matt Gaetz is a jackass. I’m sure in a proud moment he would admit to that. He might not use that exact word, but he has made his bones acting in an obnoxious fashion. Maybe he would call himself spirited or a gadfly. Then again, he might not be smart enough to get the gadfly reference. Either way, he already has one foot in the jail cell for many Americans. It will be hard to resist the temptation to push him in. However, we must do it if we ever expect anyone we like to be given the same consideration.
Not an early april fools joke! This article has a sister story that I happened to come across today only minutes ago in seminole county FL regarding a newly elected ersatz tax collector’s impossible run of crime including among others; theft of funds for personal use, crossing state lines with underage teens and a personal connection to Matt Gaetz
Delete the link if not allowed
1https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/the-even-weirder-backstory-behind-the-bizarre-gaetz-sex-trafficking-investigation-story-109411909553
I don’t think “circumspect” means what you think it means. Good analysis though. Thanks.
2Two things I’ve read today suggest gaetz is searching for a defense but as of yet, what he’s saying won’t make him innocent. First, even if he was being extorted, that won’t help him if he took a 17 year old girl across state lines for a sexual encounter. Second, another report suggests that any extortion was not being done by the DOJ or FBI investigators. Again it’s no defense for what he’s accused of.
3If a democratic congressman were accused of the same actions, the likes of gym jordan and Q ueen green would be non-stop calling for a resignation.
No wonder he suggested he’d not run for congress again because the hand writing was about to come out.
Cuomo has numerous accusers. He should go.
My senator, All Franken, had numerous accusers as well. I expected him to be my senator for multiple terms and was pleased. However, after several different accusers stepped up, resignation was the right thing. Neither man is a victim but they’re not criminals either.
Gaetz is sleazy and criminal if these charges are proven. Well, he’s sleazy regardless of what’s proven in this particular case. He’s as slimy as an old car’s oil pan.
4She was just seventeen
You know what I mean…
Gaetz might not have taken McCartney’s advice, and kept it on the dance floor.
5Gaetz: not the brightest lump in the bowl of oatmeal.
6tonedeaf post. i don’t know of anyone defending cuomo.
this isn’t a left/right thing. this is a do you believe women and the fbi thing.
7Someone feels sympathy for Andrew Cuomo?
8For the record, I never defended Cuomo.
9Just noting for the record, the age of consent in the UK was 16 when Led Zeppelin and the Beatles wrote those lyrics (and maybe still is).
10I don’t want to hear about Gaetz until they stick a fork in his…
11https://twitter.com/Redpainter1/status/1377454007887757315/photo/1
This didn’t age well.
12That’s really not a good look even if all of this removed. I think he’s ultimately an awkward guy. He does have a fiancee’ and I guess you have to feel for her in some way. I suppose a part of me will always connect with these stories on a human level. Of course, I connect mostly with the victims, but this whole thing is just bizarre.
13“Awkward guy” is the wrong term for someone like Gaetz. “Awkward” is too often applied to (white) men who have misbehaved sexually, as if they were really the shy boy in 8th grade, the one with sweaty palms and too much grease on his hair, who doesn’t know the basics of girls. In reality, Gaetz is an adult man in his late 30s who has had ample experience outside his home town, including in the US Congress. He’s not “awkward” at all: he’s openly mean, slickly mean.
He’s also dishonest and a constant potential security threat in Congress (remember it was Gaetz who organized that “raid” on the House’s Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility by Republican representatives in October 2019.) He obeys only those rules he agrees with.
(I have an adult autistic son who is far more polite, helpful, and harmless than Matt Gaetz but who is still–thanks to that developmental disability–socially and physically awkward, naive in many ways. Still improving, but still recognizable as “not average” in the awkward sense. )
As for Gaetz’s fiancee…if she were smart, she’d dump him immediately, right now. But she’s a stone Republican woman, blonde as well, so…she probably won’t.
14Trust a professional writer like EM to come up with a succint and completely apt phrase: “openly mean, slickly mean”. That nails Gaetz and applies to so many politicians now that dark money and TV commercials dominate the political discourse in the US.
Of course it applies mostly to Republicans, but there’s a few Democrats that fall into the category.
15Greetings to everyone!
I would not include Al Franken in that bunch. While he did stupid guy stuff, he also apologized, took responsibility and stepped down.
Cuomo has not and Gaetz never will. They’ll have to drag his sorry sad fanny off to jail.
Have a beautiful holiday week for those who celebrate!
Thank you for your consideration.
Annie
16One thing for sure. Gaetz’s future as a lawyer is over. After this performance, who would hire him?
17I’m obviously out of the cultural milieu of the rich and well-known — but this combo seems odd to me.
Gaetz is 38. According to Newsweek, fiance Ginger Luckey is 26. The proposal was the end of December 2020 at Mar-a-Lago. Luckey said “the wedding would likely take place in 2024.”
Why would someone want an engagement to last longer than an entire Congressional term?
18Excellent point Elizabeth. I think my use of the word awkward is more of an attempt to look for a psychological reason for behavior and not an excuse for behavior. As you pointed out, there are numerous awkward people that are not morally deficient at all. Many of my students are autistic and awkward would be one common characteristic they share and yet they are usually among my better students.
I suppose the thought process here is that you have a man that seems incapable of relating to women his age. Even his would be wife is considerably younger. I had a Facebook discussion on this topic and someone pointed out that many predators are awkward but we should be careful to extrapolate that to mean that most awkward people are predators. It is similar to the assertion that many mass shooters are mentally ill. It doesn’t mean mentally ill people are inherently dangerous.
I’m sensitive to this from any number of angles. Obviously, teaching special education students makes me more sensitive on that end and yet I see how male teachers are often treated and sometimes falsely accused of things. Obviously, some of these accusations turn out to be true, but many do not.
It is hard to strike a balance between wanting to let the situation play out and wanting to avoid seeming like I am defending anyone be it Gaetz, Cuomo, or Franken. BTW, I too love “sickly mean”. I might have to steal that phrase at some point.
19I’m no fan of wokeitude, and this post didn’t help.
Franken’s mobbing was a bad mistake.
Waiting on Cuomo, but he’s done, exactly, what?
Gaetz is a pustule on the elephant’s butt.
I married at 45, 35 years ago. My wife is 62.
Take your simplicity of dumbitude out with you.
20Gaetz seems to be trying to burnish his image by announcing engagement to a very lovely lawyer.
21I think the real point is how soon we can get Gaetz out of Congress. He was already talking about a career in propaganda TV before this broke, but now Fox, Newsmax et al. are backing away. Maybe he can become the funny sidekick on Steve Bannon’s podcast.
22Rick @5, the age of consent in FL is 18, with a Romeo and Juliet exemption if the minor is 16-17 and the adult is 2 years. Two reasons. We started talking marriage 3½ weeks after we met and announced engagement a month later. It reassured our families that we didn’t go straight to the altar. Also, I had two more years in grad school, so we set the date when I was supposed to be finished. (I wasn’t finished yet, but we still got married.)
23I prefer “obnoxiously mean, sickly cruel” to describe a drunk driving sex trafficker…
24I’m all for due process, something Franken didn’t get, thanks to th Democratic circular firing squad, and which Andrew Cuomo is insisting on, good for him.
However, I can’t deny there is entertainment value in all the sleaze coming out about a guy we all knew was a shady opportunist who picked the wrong guy’s butt to kiss.
If even a tenth of what is now coming out is true, he’ll be out of politics forever and back to taking an allowance from Dad. That’s a really good thing.
25Yeah, well a lot of people are saying . . . at least the crowd I run with . . . that Matt Gaetz is, in reality, the bastard son of Newt Gingrich. Yeah, I know. Hard to believe.
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