You Have The Right To Remain Silent

Some political controversies are fun, because of the sense of confused mystery they generate:

A comment by a strategist for Gov. Rick Perry that the Republican Party shouldn't act like a brothel to lure new voters has infuriated prominent GOP women in Texas and given Perry's primary rival, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, fuel for their election fight.

Perry is trying to distance himself from the remark, published in The Dallas Morning News, by consultant David Carney, who said he agreed the Republican Party needed to attract new voters. But, he added, "that doesn't mean you take your principles and throw them out the door and become a whorehouse and let anybody in who wants to come in, regardless."

Former Republican National Committee member Denise McNamara is leading a group of GOP women demanding that Perry apologize for and repudiate the comment.

"As businesswomen, community leaders and mothers, it is always concerning and disheartening when we see people resort to behavior aimed at belittling women," they wrote in a letter to Perry on Tuesday. "Therefore, you cannot imagine how appalling it was to see your campaign's chief strategist liken our Senior Senator's primary campaign to `opening the doors of a whorehouse.'"

Perry spokesman Mark Miner said Carney was not speaking for the governor or referencing the gubernatorial race.

Hutchison's campaign didn't buy it.

...McNamara told The Associated Press in a phone interview that Carney's remark demonstrated a lack of class. "This kind of remark should ostracize social conservatives and people who appreciate civility in politics," she said.

My problem is that I don't know exactly what "become a whorehouse" means in this context.

Does it mean just adopt willy-nilly any principles that any faction of people might have? But surely a political party has to be somewhat responsive, and change its positions if its membership demands. Or is it a subliminal dig, associating Senator Hutchison with the trade, so to speak? Doesn't seem subtle enough, somehow. Or does it mean not charging people by the hour, but like the credit cards do, with an annual fee? Squalid either way, I'd say. Or does it mean not being discreet, since most whorehouses are discreet and feature relatively low-key advertising? Or maybe he's following Groucho Marx's dictum - "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members" - and hopes that the Texas Republican Party can find desirability through exclusivity? But whorehouses can follow the same practice: just ask Heidi Fleiss.

I'm not sure what the comment means, and David Carney probably wishes he had remained silent - like a good ho instinctively knows how. Maybe he can put on his poker face and be the Texas Republican Party's bouncer instead.