Atrios suggests Roberts is gay

Just a day after I denounced conservatives for manufacturing a conspiracy to suggest that John Roberts is gay, Atrios has made the same suggestion, even though the judge allegedly described in the story was reportedly removed from contention:

I Wonder Who This Was?

And did he wear plaid pants?

Amid the political hullabaloo surrounding white-bread Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, gay activist Michelangelo Signorile remembers a much more colorful candidate.

"There was a contender for the federal judiciary in the George W. Bush administration who I began receiving information ... about him making sexual advances on men in gyms in Washington and other cities," Signorile told us Friday. Immediately after sex, "he would ... go into a religious tirade and then tell them how morally wrong all this was. His record was really conservative."

...Having heard the stories about the would-be federal judge, the writer made a few calls to the White House.

"They said they'd have someone call me back, and they didn't," Signorile laughed.

"The upshot of it was, this person was just quietly no longer a contender!"

I'm revolted.

Update 7/25: A commenter suggests that maybe Atrios is mocking the blog post in question. It's possible. But then why does he repeat the Signorile rumor? Also, the comments I read on the post appeared to be taking the suggestion seriously.

Update 7/26: Atrios says it was a joke in comments. It wasn't clear to me given that the "joke" was combined with a suggestion that he wants to out the judge in the Signorile story, nor was it clear to his commenters who read it the same way. But fair enough; I'll take his word for it. I've updated the title above to reflect this clarification.

Update 7/26: A further thought about this -- you would think Atrios would understand why his intent might be confusing when he jokes about a phony conspiracy to suggest Judge Roberts is gay while endorsing the outing of a gay conservative in the same post. Those two ideas don't fit together particularly well.

Comments

[Greg Greene]

Brendan:
Call me a simpleton, but Duncan's quip seems open to interpretation. He could just as easily have meant the "plaid pants" line as mockery of the conservative blogs that had latched onto reporting of that detail as constituting a prima facie insinuation of homosexuality.

Another point: if the candidate Signorile has in mind was "just quietly no longer a factor," then he likely never made it to the federal bench. Presuming that Signorile knows that — and that Duncan Black knows too — does it make sense to finger that post as a snark at John Roberts, when Roberts would seem logically excluded from the list of possibilities?

[Justin Gardner]

Does it surprise you that the commenters on Atrios are taking it seriously? It's the bluest of the blue over there. Maybe he was being silly and maybe the commenters are being too, but you can never know when you have a site that partisan.

[Atrios]

Once an idiot, always an idiot Brendan. The plaid pants joke was... a joke about the so-called grand liberal conspiracy to out judge roberts. the article in question was, of course, not about roberts, but a multiple sourced story about someone else.

In any case, I don't find gay people to be revolting. Do you? Apparently. That's what's revolting.

[ahem]

[splosh]

That's the sound of Brendan jumping the shark.

[spiritraveller]

"Atrios suggests Roberts is gay"

You have very bad reading comprehension.

If for some reason you originally got the impression that it was about Roberts, the final sentence should have cleared it up for you.

"The upshot of it was, this person was just quietly no longer a contender!"

Roberts was and IS a contender. He is the nominee. Hello?!?!?!?! Bueller???

[Scott Ferguson]

I think the problem with rhetoric on the left is that they LOVE to engage in innuendo; and when challenged, they crawl back and whine, "It was only intended to be humorous!"