Of Tribal Loyalty and the Corruption of Power.

The Al Gore Scandal continues apace.  Ann Althouse has these observations:

The woman said Gore's "Mr. Smiley Global Warming" persona differed from his actions and made her afraid....


After the alleged incident, the woman said she was dissuaded from contacting the police by liberal friends of hers, whom she refers to as "The Birkenstock Tribe," and of which she counts herself a member.

"It's like being the ultimate traitor," the woman said.

It's painful when your own hero falls. Quite aside from global warming, what about feminism? If the massage therapist's story is true, we are looking at the same problem we saw with Clinton. There are politicians who give the appearance of caring about the equality of women. It's a principle that, conceptually, is a necessary part of a political ideology they need to appear to hold. But maybe they don't really believe it at all. What a dirty secret, thinking that women exist to serve you!

ADDED: What makes a man treat a woman like that? Generally, I think it's because he's done things like that before, many times, and gotten away with it. We're talking about an older man, with a big reputation and a lot to lose. Why would he proceed in such a crude fashion? I would guess that his sensibilities have numbed over the years, as women acceded to his moves. The moves became less and less elaborate.

In some ways it sounds like the classic sexual harassment scenario.  The tribal loyalty acts as grooming, and the experienced harassers are often crass and gross in the way attributed to Gore. 

But this kind of thing doesn't happen in a vacuum.  If Gore did act as crass, gross and corrupt as he's described, then he's been doing it for a long time, and there are people who are going to have suspected that he was "kind of weird."