I just back from my stint at Webelos Camp (lot's of fun, wish I could have stayed longer) so I'll just post my letter to Andrew Sullivan (that he didn't include on his letters page) in response to his posts (post 1 and post 2) about Larry Speakes:
Andrew you knucklehead, Larry Speakes isn't making cruel jokes at the expense of the sick, he's trying to squelch "far-right crackpot" Lester Kinsolving.
Look again with fresh eyes.
Your first transcript has Lester asking about a "gay plague" Larry hasn't heard about – Larry's probably thinking "there he goes again." So he keeps needling Lester about being gay – do you have it, are you sure, no personal experience here, don’t put it those terms ("I love you Larry"). And Larry comes out and says what he's really thinking: "I thought I heard you on the State Department over there. Why didn't you stay there?" The only straight (sorry) answer Larry provides is in the following exchange:
Q: In other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke?
MR. SPEAKES: No, I don't know anything about it, Lester.
Larry could have added that he only looks on Lester as a great joke.
In the second exchange Lester starts by asking about quarantining military personnel based on saliva transmitting aids. Lester let's the cat out of the bag when he notes his questions about AIDS have provoked "much jocular concern" – whereupon two people from the audience pipe up with jokes at Lester’s expense ("It isn't only the jocks, Lester" & "Has he sworn off water faucets?") In other words, the other reporters have been laughing at Lester and his questions about AIDS, not just Larry Speaks. So Larry brushes him off with "I have not heard him express anything on it" – it being quarantining military AIDS patients. Of course Lester has to keep pushing by asking a follow-up, so Larry again goes to squelch with "Have you been checked?" – and then we could quarantine you.
So by all means Andrew, let’s ask Larry Speaks about why he mocked Lester Kinsolving twenty years ago when Lester asked questions everybody in the room was laughing at.
