Josh broke the original story here.
Dan Flynn of Flynn Files points us to statements made by the author of the Lincoln book:
DR TRIP: “If you go out and masturbate dogs – I was very good at this when I was a boy-the dog will love you to pieces because the dog has no efficient way to masturbate. He loves the orgasm as much as anybody else but he can’t self produce it. Now you just do this a time or two. The dogs do various things. You try this on all the neighborhood dogs, they all turn out to be different. Some dogs will always expect or try to talk you into doing it. They’ll come to you. Other dogs will come to any human and say, please touch me here in a certain kind of way.”
It may be an overgeneralization, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that someone who jerks off dogs for fun can’t be trusted to present sexual matters honestly.
I am no dog masturbator; never have, never will, and no one ever said I did or would. Nonetheless, just because a guy likes to give hand release to Spot doesn’t mean he can’t be a good historian. I just hope he washes his hands before going out on book signing tours. I really don’t think this injures his credibility as an academic, as distasteful as spanking the doggy’s monkey is.
The problem here isn’t history, but Tripp’s INTERPRETATION of history. His interpretation suggests that President Lincoln was gay: a sexual issue. Tripp’s love of whacking dogs off is also a sexual issue. By most people’s standards, giving Rover a handjob is a pretty unacceptable act. Tripp’s sexuality is clearly deviant, and when viewed through that prism (rhymes with…oh, never mind), it seems clear to me that he can’t be trusted to discuss sexual matters with any degree of authority.
As for the disclaimer at the beginning of your comment, I find it somewhat questionable.