emptywheel

IT IS THE DEFINITION OF WHATABOUTISM. If this behavior is supposed to be abhorrent in general, why in the world are we trying to compare and contrast it with previous examples of it? You’re basically making the argument that moral relativism needs to be injected into the convo.

LOL. No. But thanks for sharing your hysteria.

Cool, why don’t you go ahead and, I don’t know, explain how saying “we need to compare this bad thing to other bad things other people have done” is different from whataboutism?

Do you not understand that us giving a pass to those "other people" who did the bad things is how we arrived here, at this moment in time, with this level of blatant & out in the open corruption to begin with? They shouldn't get to rebrand as The Resistance.

How is holding people to ONE STANDARD giving people a pass?

Is your concern not that Cohen's misdeeds are being portrayed as "garden variety DC sleaze?" Where is the whatboutism here? The entire story of the Trump admin is that they do corruption in your face, while those that came before were also corrupt, just more sneakily/politely.

My concern is that comparing what’s different about what’s been “acceptable” conduct in the past versus this conduct downplays the fact that this shouldn’t be acceptable in the first place, now OR then. It waters it down into vs instead of right vs wrong.

Well, I don't think that was the point anyone was trying to make here. They werent pointing out others did it to give Cohen a pass. They were pointing out others did it lest we forget this shit isn't new, & us not doing something then is what led to now.

Preach. Thank you.