Jerry Falwell's straight story.

One of my estimable colleagues wrote in to suggest that the Cretinism posted earlier tonight was unfair to Chris Matthews. As regular readers will have noticed by now, I have a sneaking affection for the towheaded motormouth of MSNBC. By some strange homeopathic logic, I find his manic hyperactivity relaxing at the end of a long day. The cretinism here is the escalating silliness of Falwell's answers to Matthews' cross-examination. The whole exchange exposes the absurdity of the notion of "choice" as applied to the question of sexual orientation.  ... 11:37 p.m.

I hadn't gone looking for one of these in a while, but if you flip on a news channel in prime time, the search takes about five minutes. Tonight's comes from Hardball, where Chris Matthews cross-examined the Reverend Jerry Falwell:

Matthews: Did you choose to be heterosexual?

Falwell: I did.

Matthews: You thought about it and you came up with that solution, that lifestyle?

Falwell: Well, put it this way, I was taught as a child that that's the right way to be.

Matthews: But did you feel an attraction toward women?

Falwell: Oh, of course.

Matthews: But when people are born and they find themselves having an attraction to somebody from the same sex, do you think that's a choice?

Falwell: I think you can experiment with any perversity and develop an appetite for it, just like you can food. […] I don't think anybody is born a bank robber […]