Who You Gonna Trust, an Underage Hooker or a US Senator?

Strictly a rhetorical question of course, hookers are much more forthright than Senators, and much less experienced at lying.

I was looking at Stacey McCain's post on the Sen. Robert Menendez scandal devolving in Washington, New Jersey and the Dominican Republic.

Careful to avoid the Reverse Ratfuck, then, I ignored the anonymous e-mail accusing Menendez of pederasty as probably being a trick, until I saw the pained earnestness with which the New Jersey Democrat denied having banged any hookers in the Dominican Republic:

DANA BASH: One last question. Can you just answer the allegation that has been out there that you…
SEN. MENENDEZ: The smears?
BASH: … that you were with prostitutes there?
MENENDEZ: The smears that right-wing blogs have been pushing since the election. And that is totally unsubstantiated. It’s amazing to me that anonymous, nameless, faceless individuals on a Web site can drive that type of story into the mainstream. But that’s what they’ve done successful.
Now, nobody can find them. No one ever met them. No one ever talked to them, but that’s where we’re at. So the bottom line is all of those smears are absolutely false and, you know, that’s the bottom line.

Let me translate that for you:

“How dare you acccuse me — a suspiciously divorced Democrat who hasn’t been plausibly linked to any woman in a post-divorce romance — of desiring contact with the hot moist nether regions of a young Latina in a country where prostitution is legal!”

That is to say, the denial seems a bit too adamant and comprehensive. Not only does Menendez deny having done the dirty deed with illegally young hookers, he denies doing any hookers at all, as if his only reason for visiting the Dominican Republic was to relax in the warm Caribbean sun with an iced rum cocktail or two.

Shockingly, I disagree with Stacey, whose instinct for seeing the worst in politicians (particularly democrats), is generally pretty good.  I don't really see a denial there.  What I see is Menendez saying "You haven't proven it yet" and the usual crap about the mysterious right-wing blogs pushing the story, just like in, say, Edwardsgate, Monicagate and Weinergate, in which right-wing blogs pushed the truth until the "mainstream media" could overlook them no longer.

When it's finally proven beyond a shadow of a MSM doubt (which might require a video of the hooker consorting with Menendez, including his leaving a traceable fingerprint or some DNA on the camera, and her displaying a Dominican Republic ID showing her to be 17), he'll point to the statement above and say "I didn't lie; I just said the charges were unsubstantiated.