ational Committee chairman Lee Atwater would accuse a respected politician of such a thing. Newsweek (June 19, 1989) described the allegation as "dirtball," "squalid," "scurrilous," and "a wretched excess," and further noted that the "victim" was "one of the most decent men in American politics." Time (June 19, 1989) characterized it as "vicious," "designed to humiliate," "an outrageous charge that would be devastating if true" and a case where "sorry was not enough," and further noted that Foley had "the bearing and rectitude of a parish priest." What explains the emotion-laden language used to report all three stories? On the surface, it may seem to be due to the novelty of the stories; but novelty alone does not explain shock. Rather, two other factors seem also to have been at play: First, the focus in these articles was not on seemingly "fringe" characters, as gays and lesbians often had appeared to be in coverage during the 1970's, but rather on influential figures: in sports, in the military, and in politics. The more powerful the figure, the more extreme the shock. Second, the newsweeklies routinely presumed that homosexuality was inherently negative, so that declaring oneself gay or lesbian would automatically be seen as a "confession," while being falsely accused would render one a "victim" of a truly libelous accusation. When the AIDS story surfaced in the 1980's, the notion of the "promiscuous homosexual lifestyle" then began to appear in both Time and Newsweek. On September 6, 1982, Time opened its second AIDS article with: "It began suddenly in the autumn of 1979. Young homosexual men with a history of promiscuity started showing up at the medical clinics of New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco with a bizarre array of ailments." No sources were cited until the next paragraph, when the following was attributed to the CDC: "75 percent [of the 547 people...
