Crediting Andrew Sullivan for "outing" Charlie Crist in May 2008, is like giving me credit for outing Rip Taylor just now.
The Broward
New Times, for example, carried the story back in February (
link), and before that, in 2006 (
link). The number of former partners and eyewitnesses that have come forth over the years leaves no doubt.
Comparing
The New Times to professional journalism is like comparing an IPod to the sound system of your favorite dance club.
The New Times is an entertainment/lifestyle weekly more interested in reviewing the local music scene, movies and area restaurants. It is picked up, free of charge, from boxes found near the downtown nightlife district (and probably on the many college campuses in the area). Most of the classifieds are for prostitution or pill doctors (pages and pages and
pages).
The editorial/news staff seems to be comprised almost exclusively of college undergrads affecting "hip", smarmy attitudes distasteful of everything (while publishing 10,000-word screeds) and columnists who rant and bitch into the dark. It has exactly zero influence on the political scene because no one reads it for more than a guide to cheap eats and whores (excuse me, beautiful, exotic masseuses for discrete, professional gentlemen).
As an Anarchist (which I am), you'd think it would be right up my alley. But it is so soporific, so sensationalist, so "yeah, dude!" that even I don't bother with it, and I'll read almost anything.
Crist's sexuality is one of the worst-kept secrets in Florida, for sure. But anyone who gets his/her political information from an 8000-15,000 word article printed between ads for head shops and strip clubs really, truly doesn't care.
I rarely agree with Andrew's perspective, but read his blog daily because his topics interest me. And he is one of the most influential political thinkers and writers on the web today, perhaps because he generates so much controversy while writing so damn well (most of the time at least).
I would accept the partners' accounts if they produced phone records, texts, letters, pictures - anything. Crist isn't batman

wink

, it shouldn't be that difficult to produce some tangible evidence. :shrug:
When and if he is seriously considered (beyond pundit speculation) as a serious candidate for McCain's running mate, it will all come out.
Florida is in many ways still a conservative, southern state. But the West Palm Beach/Ft Lauderdale/Miami/Key West corridor, Tampa/St Pete and Jacksonville are moderate, live-and-let-live kind of places (mostly: this is not Boston or San Francisco).