A Shafer classic – and not too comfortable for Moyers. There’s a gem in it about Goldwater’s refusal to exploit the gay sex scandal that once bedeviled top Johnson aide, Walter Jenkins:
According to Robert Dallek’s Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President, Goldwater declined to take political advantage of the arrest. Dallek writes, "When reporters on his campaign plane pressed him for a comment, he would only speak ‘off the record.’ ‘What a way to win an election,’ he said, ‘Communists and cocksuckers.’ "
Well, Karl Rove lost the commies as a weapon, but he sure made up for it with the other thing, didn’t he? As for Moyers, it’s not very fair to beat him up for cultural mores many years ago, given his clear support for gay equality today. But he really should have a better memory, don’t you think?
The Dish 