17th Century English Drinking And Politics

The Awl:

Drunken Whigs, in other words, were billed as the Ted Haggards of their time. Even the Whig commitment to (partial) sobriety worked against them. Here's how the Tories managed that, in one of the most impressively self-sabotaging feats of political spin you're likely to encounter: When Whigs called Tories Catholic (worst possible insult, by the way—for a 17th-century Godwin's law, swap “Papist” for “Nazi”), the Tories retorted that at least they preferred wine to women.
The Tory message, spelled out, is this: we drink too much to get it up, therefore the whoremongers who are destroying society with their working penises are obviously Whigs.
“Sober Whigs,” Jones explains, “threatened respectable wives and daughters with their 'presbyterian itch', and were a danger to good society and to innocent women. Again, the evidence was against them, for any man not in the alehouse or tavern drinking himself incapable, as any loyal subject would be, must be available for whoring—and must, therefore, be a Whig.”
That's right: subjects proved their loyalty by drinking themselves into impotence, and “the refusal to drink a loyal health marked out the seditious and could lead to threats of violence in ballads and in real life.”

Wow. Just wow.  That doesn't seem like a good comeback.  I do like the part about substituting 16th century use of "Papist" for late 20th and early 21st century use of "Nazi."  Ah, merry England, why I hate you.