Dirty Work

In the words of the old Steely Dan song: “Times are hard, you’re afraid to pay the fee/So you find yourself somebody who can do the job for free.” It’s a song with a lover’s lament for its refrain: “I’m a fool to do your dirty work.” (The video below shows Phoebe Snow with the band at New York’s Beacon Theater in 2007.)
Yesterday gay blogger John Aravosis performed the diehard left-winger’s version of the song for President Obama. Aravosis lamented Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs’s harsh words for Obama’s left-wing critics:

Joe and I are upset with Obama, and we, for example, raised nearly $43,000 for the man, According to the White House, our money now doesn’t count. Great, would they like to give it back? I for one, would love the $1000 back that I personally donated to the Obama campaign. Joe gave even more. I suspect a lot of our readers wouldn’t mind their contributions back too, since apparently they’re not appreciated.
Then there’s all that work we did for the campaign, all the dirty work they asked us to do – and we did it, gladly, and quietly – none of that counted either, apparently.

As Kristinn notes at Free Republic, Aravosis does not detail the “dirty work” he and “Joe” did for the Obama campaign. Aravosis did indeed perform a truly despicable hatchet job or two on behalf of Obama in 2008. In years past his specialty in the service of the gay agenda has been the outing of homosexual Republicans.
Aravosis’s lament raises a few follow-up questions, such as precisely what dirty work the Obama campaign asked Aravosis to do. I am quite sure we’re never going to get the answer to such follow-up questions. Aravosis is not exactly a man of sterling character, so it wouldn’t be right to take his words at face value either. In any event, Steely Dan has the appropriate comment on Aravosis’s lament.


Incidentally, for what it’s worth, I don’t think Aravosis’s lament is warranted. Not by a long shot. Aravosis is a fool, but not because he did Obama’s dirty work. He got good value for it, whatever it was.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses