The world Josh Duggar was in when he was 14 years old and did the things he did that made the news yesterday.
It seems to have happened around the time that his father was campaigning to run for Senator.
Jim Bob was a State Representative at the time.
I don’t know if that _explains_ anything but it’s easy to forget that the guy’s face whose picture is plastered over the news wasn’t the guy who did those things. I mean, he was Josh Duggar then and he’s Josh Duggar now – but he’s also Josh Duggar, 14 and Josh Dugger, 28.
This is before the TV show began. Before she won “Mother of the Year” in Arkansas. Before any of us _heard_ about the family.
Perhaps the WHOLE SERIES was a gigantic case of “methinks she doth protest too much”; showing the world “look, we’re good! Here’s lots of proof!” before the bombshell finally broke, knowing political careers would go *poof* the moment they did.
[snippet]
“But Mr. Hutchinson is also facing an opponent in the Republican primary on May 21. He is State Representative Jim Bob Duggar, another conservative Southern Baptist. Mr. Duggar says he was ”called by God” to run against Mr. Hutchinson.
Mr. Duggar, 36, the father of 13 children (”14, really, since my wife is pregnant and life begins at conception”), is not regarded as a serious threat to Mr. Hutchinson’s renomination.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/15/us/senator-running-on-family-values-has-a-tough-race-after-divorce.html