Don't get me started on ex Florida Rep. Mark Foley and how the whole sordid affair is playing out - just get on with it already, Speaker Dennis Hastert, Majority Leader John Boehner and all the rest of you; I refuse to talk about it on ATB.
One of Michelle Malkin's readers echoes my sickened sentiment:
I am sick and tired of people turning everything into a political issue. Foley is one sick individual who should have never been in congress in the first place. I couldn't care less if he's a republican or democrat, he's a deeply disturbed man.
But back to politics. I liked the New York Sun's headline 'General Schumer's Secret Agenda'. The Sun picks up on Schumer's quote, "This is war" and rather skillfully addresses the main reason for my state of despondency:
His metaphor was a dagger aimed at the heart of those many moderate and independent-minded Americans who want to fight a war on Islamic extremist terrorists, a war on cancer, a war on poverty — but not a war on Republicans. Mr. Schumer is described further in the article [Friday's Wall Street Journal] as among those arguing that the Democratic Party should keep its agenda secret from the voters. "For more than a year, Democrats debated what platform to have for 2006, or whether to have one at all. Mr. Schumer was among those mostly content to bash Mr. Bush," the Journal reported.The newspaper quoted General Schumer as saying, "For us to put out a big range of ideas gives Republicans a target and gets the message off George Bush."
General Schumer is a lot of things, but he's not stupid. So if he wants to keep the Democratic Party's ideas secret from the American people in a closely fought election, it just may be that he realizes how unpopular his party's ideas are with the American people. The Democrats want to cut and run in Iraq, retreat into a defensive crouch in the war on terror while making good relations with France the top priority in American foreign policy, impose huge tax increases on American businesses and families, and appoint judges who are soft on violent criminals but easy on ambulance-chasing plaintiff's lawyers. With those kinds of ideas dominating his party, it's no wonder General Schumer wants to keep them a secret from the voters.
That's it, isn't it. The 'smart' opposition intends to hoodwink its more thoughtful voters, hoping that the 'Bush-lied-people-died' smear campaign, with all its offshoots, sufficiently distracts from real issues and from the debate as to how the Democratic Party is proposing to tackle them. Michael Barone observes this morning that....
...Their pit bull attacks on President Bush, their constant references to the Abu Ghraib abuses as if they were typical, their opposition to letting the NSA listen to conversations from Al Qaeda suspects to persons in America, and to letting interrogators of unlawful combatants use techniques that have helped us foil those plotting violence against us — these amount to a strategy of rule or ruin.You must let us rule this country, or we won't regard it as "our" country anymore. So much for the first person plural.
Well, what can I say, now General Schumer must rethink his Bush-bashing strategy and how best to include Hastert & Co.
It's time for some celebration to lift the mood, I say. Congratulations are in order to my dear friend Ed Morrissey on his three year anniversary yesterday, of unstoppable brilliance and simply awesome stats. My darling friend the Anchoress, my mentor and guide in troubled blogging waters has my heartfelt congrats on her 2 million visit milestone.
Update: more from Clarice Feldman on American Thinker, linking to American Spectator and some substantiation on the thinking that this was a voter suppresion attack. Foley and the pages are just the throw away pawns in the attack, they were never important except as bait to lure in all the thousands of flies that are attracted to sewerage and yet drive the nebulous shaping of "public opinion". "According to one political consultant with ties to the DNC and other party organizations, "I'm hearing the Foley story wasn't supposed to drop until about ten days out of the election. It was supposed the coup de grace, not the first shot." So why the rush? According to another DNC operative: bad polling numbers across the country...So how to remedy? "You pull out the bright shiny things that distract the average American voter away from the issues we all know they care about -- national security, anti-terrorism -- and focus on the ugly: Foley and Iraq.""(my emphasis)
I would say, "focus on the ugly": Republican gay representatives preying on young "boys", and really screw it in hard and loud so that the debate is no longer national security, it is the depravity of Republicans. Make the religious base and the undecideds either stay home or take democrats as the "hold your nose" candidates. I still think it is vote suppression, pure and simple. Will it work? Have to wait and see. I have no doubt this is the last effort, either. Be prepared for something even more slimey to appear about 10 days before election, as this was actually supposed to do.
Posted by: nofate | Tuesday, October 10, 2006 at 01:58 PM
Ariel,
Fascinating insight, thank you for sharing that with us.
To be able to truly forgive like that is extraordinary and something we all aspire to, but rarely achieve. To be overprotective especially in the case of children and teenagers alike is an emotion I am far more familiar with, so I am in awe of your ability to forgive.
But then you are talking to someone who lives under the delusion that they will allow their child to go out when they are about 21....I like to dream, at least about that, even if it has absolutely nothing to do with reality....
Ditto your last paragraph.
Posted by: Alexandra | Sunday, October 08, 2006 at 04:59 AM
PU! The smell of dead skunk(s) is getting stronger. I mentioned the work of Clarice Feldman over on American Thinker, here ("The important matter requiring investigation is how a recently-created anonymous blogger got the email correspondence which the boy’s parents had insisted be kept quiet. And how the blog site, which had virtually no posts and no traffic suddenly caught the attention of Foley’s opponent who immediately asked for an investigation.") and here("Pardon me, but I smell something very peculiar in the way we have learned of the disgrace of Rep. Mark Foley". ). She has a new article, ABC Scrambling to Put Some Meat on Ross' Story that points out a whole slew of inconsistencies and "coincidences" to be found in this continuing sleazy saga, first reported by Brian Ross for ABC. "As time passes, it is increasingly clear that the ABC News report which started the Foley firestorm is odorous—and I’m not talking Chanel...ABC has now set up a tip line asking pages and ex-pages to report incidents with Foley. It is not necessary to identify oneself to report a “tip”, and one can only suppose that having hit dry wells on the prior reports, ABC is trolling for anything else it can find to prop up an increasingly suspicious story. Anyone can try his or her hand at creative writing and create a “tip” for ABC to report."
Gringoman: Thanks. I have run across that sort of "forgiveness" in my reading as well, the "convert or die" type. I was more looking for an "insiders" take on the question. Or a cite that could point me in that direction.
Posted by: nofate | Sunday, October 08, 2006 at 01:54 AM
Mac: In my state there is a big distinction. If the child is under eight, molesters that are early teenage, 13 and up, or an adult will be charged with pedophilia (child molesting), period. Fifteen or 16 years of age will be tried as adults. Up to and through pubescence, the closer the ages the less chance of a charge of child molesting. Adolescent and adult is statutory rape, not child molesting.
Furthermore, pedophiles as I have defined them, have a recividism(sp?) rate of around 95%, I haven't seen data on ephebophiles. Unfortunately, most do not recognize the difference either in statute or in private.
Studies I've read show that most adult males, and some adult females, will at some time find themselves extremely sexually attracted to an adolescent. Few act upon it, and fewer are obsessed. The ephebophile is attracted to and obsessed with adolescents, they won't go after your 8 year old, your post puberty 13-14 year old and older are fair game.
The age of consent in a majority of states varied from 14 to 16 in the early part of the 20th Century, and 32 states still have the age as 16, with some of those having 18 for homosexuality, and a sliding scale for when an adult might have sex with a 16 year old. The dissapearance of 14, I believe, reflected the shift from an agricultural to industrial society and the resulting extension of childhood. A necessary change given that shift.
Having been personally involved in a molestation case, with all the pain, turmoil, and dissolution of family ties, I make the distinction. Oddly, depending on the severity of the molestation, the child may forget long before the adults will. Still, I forgave the molester.
Foley is a creep because he abused his position and power in an attempt to groom older minors for sex. He is obsessed with adolescents and should be kept away from them, and children in general, period. If the top Republicans knew enough to assess the danger, they need to go. If Democrats had knowledge and waited until it was advantageous for their political gain, they too need to be exposed and removed from office. I agree that both sides act with depravity, Studds, Crane, and Frank are examples
Posted by: Ariel | Saturday, October 07, 2006 at 11:05 PM
To Max Brachman:
Max, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on the relevance of sexual orientation, and the double standards of this Brave New PC World. If Congressman Foley was hitting on female pages, even just via creepy emails and IM's, there's little doubt that even the bungling Pubs would have dumped him long ago. That didn't happen with the well-known homosexuality of Foley. In Brave New PC America they tremble at being labeled a 'homophobe.' It can be bad for your professional health. Of course sexual orientation matters. The trick in PC Land is to play dumb and pretend it doesn't matter....As for the "heterosexual" horror in Amish country, it's known that Prozac and other anti-depressant drugs are sometimes behind these utterly inexplicable killings. Women, for example, have killed their own mothers, even their own children when on Prozac or other anti-depressants. It's documented and easy to google. We don't know all the facts in this Amish tragedy. We do know that the cowardly or insufferably ignorant MSM practically never look into such "anti-depressant" facts when reporting these horrors. They just leave the Arbitron numbers gaping and asking Why?
===============================================================
To Nofate:
You ask if muslims 'forgive.' Sure they do. Only it's a little different from the Christian concept. All you have to do is convert to Islam. At that point you are in effect 'forgiven' for having been such an inferior creature, i.e. an infidel. Are you ready to submit? If so, you can attain 'forgiveness' and you will not even need the Christian terminology. After all, the point of forgiveness is to accept and be accepted. Convert. Submit. You'll be accepted. You can look it up in the Koran.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From Kenny: gringo, I think he's attracted to teenaged boys whether the attraction is mutual or not... [just teasing you]
Posted by: Kenny | Friday, October 06, 2006 at 05:45 PM
Kenny, Ironies of attraction? Right now Foley and the whole Republican Party must feel a certain attraction to suicide.
Posted by: gringoman | Saturday, October 07, 2006 at 12:46 PM
Nofate, How incredible of you to remember...thank you for that.
Btw, I may be a libertarian, but I am still a conservative one who falls to the right of Genghis Khan on certain issues you and I are passionate about.
Posted by: Alexandra | Saturday, October 07, 2006 at 11:14 AM
Kenny: "though the "detestable" range is smaller on the Republican side than on the Democratic side". I was sensing that in your replies, and as Alexandra and others have also identified their libertarian tendencies, it appears that I have veered into a swarm of libertarians. One thing for sure, at least there is a more rational mode of debate here than on any of the lib sites I have checked out, and some of the conservative ones also. I am sure that is due to Alexandra's influence on the reigns. Also, I cannot forget that she is the daughter of a man who said that "you can never blame others for their cowardice. Everyone has different considerations and aspects to worry about. Some worry about their jobs, some their very lives, some the sponsors that keep them funded. One can only look to oneself and stand upright for what you believe in...He always forgave his friends and foe alike. He said that they had considerations of their livelihood, which he did not have to worry about due to his privileged background. They feared for their very lives, which my Father had given to the cause of freedom long ago...He forgave them, not because they know not what they do, but because he understood the human weaknesses and survival instincts and embraced them with the true spirit of the courageous man that he was." I have never forgotten that and this whole fiasco has made me think of that a number of times. While I am not sympathetic to what Foley probably did, although we don't know that for sure yet, what if he was the victim of a prank by a bunch of "mean pages", just out to have some cruel fun at his expense? And the prank got away from them in the highly charged beltway atmosphere, after a dem operative ran across the fake(just thinking out loud) IM's. Wouldn't we then have a situation similar to the aftermath of the Atlanta Olympics bombing where the guilt of that guy whose name I can't recall was decided in the media bubble? And then popped. The "boy" that is at the center of this is now known to have been 18 yrs @ the time of the incident(s), and has retained the services of the former defense attorney of Timothy McVeigh. Huh? (I thought he was the victim?) If Foley is, in reality, a man of honor, as well as Republican, and homosexual, he may be near suicidal over this. Whatever the truth, he needs help with his problem, because he is having no difficulty with the scorn aspect, not only from himself, but just about everyone in the whole country I don't even want to open the can of worms as to why the well financed and very acivist gay orginizations are silent about this. Note: over on NewsBusters, they are using computer blog smarts to investigate the genesis of this whole voter suppression attack. Interesting reading.
"have invested decades in detesting a wide range of Republican policies" As a self described conservative, I find myself detesting some of the Republican moves also. For what it's worth, I took Alexandra's "test" on a previous post and it turns out that yes I am conservative, but with a decided libertarian and entrepreneurial streak.
Just a sidenote: a sincere question that mention of Mr. Pekic's philosophy made me recall. It has been talked about here and other places, but I don't remember seeing it anywhere else and I think I would have remembered- does it teach anywhere in the Quran about forgiving your enemies, and not just Muslim enemies, but all enemies as in the "good Samaritan" story? It seems we read about Muhammed going after those who opposed him and not forgiving them, and that that is what was incorporated into the Quran. I am curious if there really is a rational, and forgiving philosophy included within the Quran that is just overshadowed by centuries of emphasizing the more warlike aspects of the teachings?
Posted by: nofate | Saturday, October 07, 2006 at 02:59 AM
Ariel: Point well taken; see also Gringoman's posts and replies to me on this thread. But as far as the law in most jurisdictions is concerned, ephebophilia and pedophilia represent a distinction without a difference; 10-year-olds and 16-year-olds (in most jurisdictions) are both under the age of consent. I guess what my difference with Gringoman is about is that in my opinion it's none of our business what consenting adults (humans; I find the very idea of bestiality disgusting) choose to do behind closed doors, and there is no empirical evidence that perverts of a homosexual bent are more morally depraved than those of a heterosexual bent. Charles Roberts was a heterosexual pedophile, or ephebophile, or something. If he had confined his proclivities to the fantasty realm in his bedroom, and not acted out his aggressions, that would have been fine. As it was, he felt himself aggrieved, and committed an unforgiveable act (I know the Amish, quasi-pacifists that they are, feel differently about this and are on record with the news media as forgiving him for his cold-blooded slaughter of little girls). His sin was murder and perhaps, before that, child abuse (although the female relatives he claimed in his suicide note to his wife to have abused denied that the abuse had occurred), not his orientation. Mark Foley was (is) gay; that is neither here nor there as far as I am concerned, but his harassment, bordering on stalking, of underage pages was the point where, as a libertarian like Alexandra herself would famously say, his personal rights ended and the civil rights of others were violated. This is aside from the issue of the Republican leadership in the U.S. House knowing about this for months or years and choosing to sweep it under the rug. I won't play the partisan game here; leaving aside sexual issues, both Democrats and Republicans behave in a depraved manner when they think only of 1) gaining or holding onto power for its own sake and 2) attacking the other side with every sort of below-the-belt canard they can dream up (see the front page of today's WaPo (Fri. 10/6/06 for more on the current campaign tactics of each side). I think we will look back on the aughts (the decade of 2000-2009, or 2001-2010 if you believe decades go 1 to 0 rather than 0 to 9) as a "low dishonest decade" to paraphrase W.H. Auden's description of the '30s, the decade when evil forces were marshalling for an assault on liberal democracies and human decency and the fractious parties of the Western parties did nothing but bicker and seek narrow, petty, short-term advantages against one another.
Shalom, Mac Brachman [Mac I took the liberty of posting your comment on this thread as well, as Ariel's comment stands above here too. xxxA]
Posted by: mac Brachman | Saturday, October 07, 2006 at 02:34 AM
(WARNING: obscenely long comment follows. Sorry, Alexandra.)
Jim,
Clinton actually had sex with Lewinsky. Clinton actually lied about it under oath. Clinton actually had a string of credible accusers who had accused him of forcing himself upon them physically, to varying degrees, none of whom (in striking contrast to Clinton) have subsequently been forced by undeniable evidence to admit that they were lying on the stand. Foley's handlers have not set about to destroy the reputations of the alleged victims. Oh, and Foley actually resigned.
So you're quite right that the two are not perfect parallels. Clinton's behavior was grossly more predatory, despicable, and illegal -- and much more assiduously defended by his party, who professed at the time to believe that the use of a sex scandal for partisan advantage was inexcusable and far more contemptible than was the adultery, dishonesty and perjury that started the mess to begin with.
If you want closer parallels, you can look at how the Democratic and Republican House leadership handled the 1983 scandal.
The bottom line is that Foley's behavior disqualifies him from being a member in good standing of the Republican Party, and he has resigned. How's Bill Clinton's standing in the Democratic Party?
Now, to do a bit of point-by-point responding (not to everything you've posted because I don't have time):
>
To the extent that the Democrats knew about Clinton's adultery and did nothing, they were wrong. However, I don't know of any Senate or Congressional Democrats who knew of Clinton's adultery, and did nothing about it.
>
I know of a great many Senate and Congressional Democrats who knew not only of Clinton's adultery, but also of his perjury, but refused to vote for either impeachment or conviction. The Republicans expected Foley to resign because a person who talks dirty with persons who, albeit above the age of legal consent, are still teenagers, is not considered fit to be a Republican Congressman except by Democrats, who like to think as badly of Republicans as possible. The Democrats thought it was outrageous for anybody to suggest that Clinton ought to resign, because the majority of Democratic politicians themselves consider that even a man who everybody in the world knows has lied under oath while in the Oval Office, still satisfies the quite low ethical standards required of Democratic Presidents.
>
Also, Lewinsky was not in the Senate or the House's charge, only the White House.
>
And this excuses Clinton how, exactly?
By the way, at what point is it going to occur to you that the more you try to insist that House leadership should be held responsible for the secretive behavior of individual Congressmen, the more firmly you establish the idea that the long string of ethical violations and indeed criminal behavior by Clinton Administration staffers and business associates, should be considered grounds for criticism of Clinton himself? – especially since Clinton chose his business associates and staff, while House leadership had nothing to do with chosing Foley. After all, no House Republicans have been caught trying to sneak out of the White House with top-secret classified information stuffed down their trousers; and if it tries one’s credulity to imagine that Republican leadership was genuinely without a clue that something fishy was going on with Foley, it equally strains credulity to imagine that pretty much everybody involved in the Whitewater business venture other than the Clintons could have been a felon without the Clintons’ ever having suspected that not all might be perfectly kosher. Seriously, a defender of Bill Clinton is going to complain about the House Republican leadership’s managerial competence?
>
ALso, Lewinsky was not a minor...
>
She was three years older than the Foley page, who was -- and I emphasize that I think what Foley did was wrong and he should have resigned -- above the age of legal consent, and older than the page actually buggered by the Democratic entry in the '83 scandal, in which the Democratic Party leadership of the time considered that such behavior was not even serious enough to merit Congressional censure. She was three decades younger than her employer the President, who bought her silence with a job offer, and if you want to try to pretend that a Republican corporate CEO engaging in that same behavior wouldn't be condemned by the same Democratic talking heads who defended Clinton, don't bother.
>
and there are no other minors that Clinton has ever been accused of endangering.
>
LOL, my unwise friend, what in God's name makes you silly enough to put mere accusations into play as a reason to condemn Foley and the GOP? The last thing a would-be Clinton defender with a shred of sanity would do, is to start trying to condemn Republicans on grounds of what they have been merely accused of doing; it’s absolutely essential for anybody wishing to mount even a moderate defense of the Billster, to rule out of play immediately all “mere unproven accusations,” no matter how much less credible the “he said” of known perjurer Clinton is than the “she said” of the alleged victims. Let me give you a few hints here: Paula Jones. Kathleen Wiley (card-carrying member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, no doubt). And, of course, Juanita Broaddrick. Clinton hasn't just been accused of endangering people -- he's been accused of exposing himself, groping an unwilling woman and then trying to convince her to help him cover up the incident, and in the last case actually committing full-blown rape. I grant you that none of these ladies were minors. On the other hand, many of us take rape with a certain amount of seriousness even when the victim has attained her majority – there’s no “barely legal” age group when it comes to rape.
>
These two situations simply do not equate.
>
Boy, you got that right. That's pretty much my point. Only I think, as mathematicians would say, that you have the sign backwards.
>
The House Republicans in charge of this mess do not deserve anyone's support.
>
A point I believe I have already made with some emphasis in the comments above, and also on my own blog, on which a couple of days ago I called for Hastert's resignation. But then I'm not a Republican and am not saying what they should to in order to keep the House; I'm just saying what I think would be the morally right thing to do.
>
Honestly, this just illustrates how little the GOP cares about anything they tell conservative voters.
>
As opposed to how careful Democrats such as Clinton and Pelosi are to make sure they never say anything that might be misleading to liberal voters.
>
It's already crystal clear they don't give a damn about fiscal responsibility.
>
You're quite right -- or at least it is possible to say those words and mean something that is correct. But why do I suspect that what you mean is not, "They should stop spending so much damn money," but instead is, "They should stop letting Americans who are richer than I am, keep so much of their money"?
>
Foley resigned within hours of being asked about it by ABC. Is that the action of innocent man? Uh, no.
>
Are you under the impression that any person either posting or commenting on this site, argues for Foley’s innocence, or is anything but disgusted by his behavior, or is anything but delighted that he has resigned, or would have been satisfied had he...well, had he emulated Bill Clinton and Gerry Studds and tried to brazen it out as though he had done nothing wrong?
>
You are really doing a disservice to yourself, by continuing to make excuses for the current GOP.
>
Actually, most of us here are quite displeased with the GOP. The only person who is coming dangerously close to making excuses for a sexual predator and perjurer, is yourself.
Let me make this really, really easy. Once Bill Clinton admitted that he had lied under oath, I thought he should resign; though I did not think he should resign merely because he was accused (not convicted) of rape; and when he refused to resign despite having perjured himself, I believed he should have been impeached and convicted. Once Mark Foley admitted that he had had those IM conversations with a Congressional page, I thought he should resign; though I would not think he should resign if he had merely been accused. It seems to me clear that Hastert was managerially incompetent; I think he’s a terrible Speaker and the country would be better off without him (though I think a few months of Pelosi are likely to make many of us who don’t like Hastert much, pretty bloody nostalgic); thus I think that while this episode probably wouldn’t be enough in itself to make me thing he needs to go, this in connection with his disgraceful defense of Jefferson’s privilege is more than enough. And if it were to turn out that there is lurking somewhere a “blue dress” that shows that Dubya did not in fact honestly (albeit apparently mistakenly) believe that there were WMD’s in Iraq, then I would maintain that Dubya should resign, and that if he does not, he should be impeached and convicted – no matter which party happens to be in control of Congress at the time.
But all of this is because I have real moral standards that do not change based upon the party affiliation of the person who does something wrong.
You, however, are all over not just Mark Foley (who has at least had the decency to resign), but Hastert and company as well – and yet you are making excuses for Clinton. If you’re going to use a shameless double standard then you have to be prepared to be called on it.
But all of this rather misses the point of my main interest on this thread (not that you are obliged to talk about what interests me rather than what interests you, of course). What I have been trying at some length to explain, over the course of several comments, is that if you are a Democrat, then let’s set aside for a minute the question of what is the right thing to do, and instead look at what is the tactically shrewd thing to do. There are about four ways to approach this controversy, tactically speaking:
1. Say, “Foley should have resigned, and so should Studds have resigned, and so should Clinton have resigned, and so should Teddy Kennedy have resigned. And the Democratic Party needs to make it clear to its members that we won’t tolerate such behavior any more than the Republicans do.” Good in that you will not nauseate the rest of us with your hypocrisy; but bad in that it reminds people that replacing Republicans with Democrats isn’t exactly replacing Madonna with Mother Theresa. Tactically foolish; you don’t want to remind people of your own notorious scandals. Still, if I were a Democrat, this is exactly what I would do (because I want to be the kind of person who cares more about doing the right thing than about being in power -- which is precisely why I haven’t the ghost of a future in politics).
2. Say, “We’re glad that Rep. Foley has chosen to resign, which we believe was appropriate, and we hope that the Republican House leadership has learned some valuable lessons about proactive management and the protection of young persons entrusted to Congress’s care. But as we have pointed out in the past when Republicans have attempted to make partisan use of unfortunately lurid personal scandals, what persons above the age of consent consent to do, is really their own business, and should not be exploited by partisan passion as a distraction from the true issues of government – such as the war in Iraq, homeland security, the deficit, and the declining real wages of the least fortunate members of our society. Therefore, while we will of course take such steps as we think are necessary to keep our own party from emulating Republican personal and management failures as revealed in this distasteful episode, we ourselves will spend the next five weeks talking about the policies that will be critical for the well-being of the nation over the next two years.” This would be a pretty darn good way to handle it, actually, especially since the media can be trusted to keep the salacious story running, and most especially since Republicans won’t be able to keep from whining about how unfairly they’re being treated. But I don’t think the Democrats have the maturity to take this route; I don’t think they can help themselves. I think they are psychologically incapable of passing up on the opportunity to cry gleefully, “Look! Look! See there! We told you these people were Evil Terrible People. Ha! We were right and Republicans really are scum! Now we do the dance of joy!” This latter behavior, satisfying as it undeniably is, does not, alas, create the impression that one is worthy to be trusted with high and serious responsibility.
3. Say, “Mark Foley is a terrible person, and the Republican leadership are terrible people because they didn’t stop him...hey, why are you bringing up Bill Clinton and Gerry Studds? Those are Totally Different Situations. What Mark Foley did was Really Bad, but our guys didn’t really do anything wrong – they were just victims of Partisan Malice and Vast Right-Wing Conspiracies.” It is impossible to exaggerate how mind-bogglingly stupid a strategy this is. The best hope the Republicans have for keeping control of Congress, is an army of Jims running around making exactly this astonishingly self-destructive case as loudly and frequently and in front of as many sensible middle-of-the-road voters as possible.
I mean, you can believe it, if you want. But it does your side very much less than no good to be saying it out in public where sensible people can hear you.
4. Just don’t say anything at all. Nine times out of ten this is the shrewdest political tactic, and in this particular case there’s absolutely no question that the more Democrats just stay quiet and let the Republicans destroy themselves, the better off they’ll be. But again, I don’t think the Democrats have the sense to take this route...though, fortunately for the Democrats, I think the Republicans have screwed up badly enough – and have done enough to alienate their base over the last couple of years already – that not even the Democrats can find a way to lose this one.
But if anybody could, it would be the Democratic Party.
>
The information so far indicates that Hastert, Boehner, Fordham, Reynolds and Shimkus all knew that Foley's behavior was questionable at best, and appear to have done absolutely nothing about it.
>
That’s how it looks to me, too. On the other hand I don’t see any particular reason to think that they knew it was more than merely questionable. And even now there’s no reason to believe that the man did anything illegal, or anything rising to the accomplishments of, say, Gerry Studds.
>
So let's say that the Democrats are "exploiting" this. That still doesn't mean the Democrats created the situation. It's the behavior of Hastert, Boehner, Fordham, Reynolds and Shimkus that have given the Democrats something to exploit, in the first place.
>
And if the Democrats aren’t careful, they will by their open hypocrisy hand the Republicans something to exploit right back (though I don’t think the Congressional Republicans are anywhere near smart enough to go about exploiting it the right way). And, of course, to the extent (if any) that the Democrats are discovered to have had far more explicit information about Foley than the Republicans, and to have held onto it for political advantage rather than immediately raising red flags, their behavior will look far worse than the Republicans’ does at present.
>
And all the GOP has to do to halt the Democrats "exploiting" this, is for these men to stop giving contradictory answers, avoiding questions, and blaming the Democrats or the pages for the pickle they've put themselves in by doing absolutely nothing.
>
Yes, you’re quite right, but they don’t have the sense to do it. They don’t even have the sense to listen to their friends who have been trying to tell them what asses they’re making of themselves (and by this I don’t mean myself, who couldn’t honestly describe myself as their “friend” since I just tolerate them as better than the alternative; I mean people like the folks over at the Corner).
Still, it’s fascinating the way you want to condemn Hastert et alia for doing “absolutely nothing,” but you assiduously play down the seriousness of Clinton’s doing a great deal more than nothing.
Look, as a highly idiosyncratic Libertarian who can’t stand much of the agenda of the Religious Right and who has an extremely low opinion of both political parties, my own interest in this controversy is primarily a sort of spectator-sport interest in the political tactics involved. I could care less about the dubious morality of your double standard; what interests me is how very foolish you are to let yourself get suckered into defending Clinton when you really want everybody to be focused on Hastert and Foley. I am sure, from that last paragraph of yours that I quoted, that you recognize the validity of my point that even if the Democrats are being hypocritical, it is stupid of the Republican mouthpieces to run around complaining about Democratic hypocrisy, because it just makes them look whiny. The American people are, generally speaking, perfectly well aware of the obvious ways in which various Democrats are behaving hypocritically and do not need to have it pointed out to them by the Republicans. Thus, as you clearly perceive, Jim, the Republicans are morons to run around whining about Democratic hypocrisy in this situation.
But you can’t see the mote in your own eye. Even though the Republicans have bungled badly, it is stupid of you Democrats to run around hyping this partisan sex scandal for all you’re worth, because it just makes you look hypocritical. The American public is, generally speaking, perfectly well aware of how objectionable and inappropriate Foley’s behavior was, and perfectly well aware of the fact that a better-managed Republican House would be a House in which such behavior was less likely to occur – but also perfectly well aware that Democrats are no slouches when it comes to scandal, and that Democrats, in contrast to Foley’s behavior in this case and Crane’s in 1983, can’t be counted on to respond to being caught by manning up and stepping down. You Democrats are morons to be running around in this situation bubbling over with unrestrained self-righteous moralizing on the question of inappropriate and exploitative sexual behavior by powerful politicians. If you guys had any sense you would adopt the tactic that Teddy Kennedy adopted throughout most of the Clarence Thomas hearings – I can’t remember who it was that talked of how funny it had been to watch “Teddy Kennedy’s desperate imitation of a man with a paper bag over his head,” but it captured Kennedy’s demeanor in a nutshell. Lie low, try not to draw attention to yourselves, and let the American people handle the moral indignation on their own. I assure you we are sufficiently disgusted by Foley’s behavior that we will punish the Republicans appropriately come the election – unless you manage to remind us of how disgustingly Democratic politicans are wont to behave themselves.
Posted by: Kenny | Friday, October 06, 2006 at 06:22 PM
gringo, I think he's attracted to teenaged boys whether the attraction is mutual or not... [just teasing you]
Posted by: Kenny | Friday, October 06, 2006 at 05:45 PM
[grinning] nofate, you just have to remember that I am not a Republican and have invested decades in detesting a wide range of Republican policies, though the "detestable" range is smaller on the Republican side than on the Democratic side. The Republicans have pulled me much more into their camp by taking the war on terror seriously, by being serious about getting us back to a Supreme Court that properly detests the abomination known as judicial activism, and by having some glimmerings of the idea that profitable businesses do infinitely more for the working man than do we're-here-to-help-you politicians and bureaucrats; but that still puts this libertarian a long way from buying into the Republican platform in general, or from being silly enough to think that your typical Republican politician is a man of honor and integrity. I doubt that there will ever be a day when I vote for a candidate on anything less than a lesser-of-evils basis.
But naturally I grant the possibility that staunch Republicans may be correct that the Republican Party is an intrinsically good thing rather than simply a much less bad thing than the Democrats, Communists, anarchists, isolationist Libertarians, etc. I don't recognize the actuality, but I grant the possibility.
Posted by: Kenny | Friday, October 06, 2006 at 05:44 PM
Ariel,
Oops, that answers my question as to what you were referring to on the other thread... [grinning]
Posted by: Kenny | Friday, October 06, 2006 at 05:35 PM
This is one of the more erudite blogs, so I could not allow this to stand. Foley is not a pedophile by this evidence, creep yes, pedophile no. Pedophiles are attracted to pre-pubescent and pubescent children, predominately the former. The attraction to adolescents is called ephebophilia. It is vastly different than pedophilia. And yes I posted this to the "Palestinian Code of Honor" by mistake.
Posted by: Ariel | Friday, October 06, 2006 at 05:18 PM
From MAX BRACHMAN:
Gringoman: What it was was your reference to Foley as a "fag" (flapping fag from Fla., I believe it was). Foley's sin was about pedophilia and misuse/abuse of his position; compounded by stupidity. Nobody made reference to Charles Roberts, the Amish school mass murderer, as the "breeder" from (near) Beaver Falls (breeder is a derogatory term in the gay community for heterosexuals). I understand that "fag," like the n----- word, certain derogatory terms for Jews, "geezer" for an old person, etc., can have an ironic/humorous meaning in context, as long as the context is understood. But I understood your use of "fag" only as a derogatory term for Foley's gayness, not his specific misbehaviors. Shalom, Mac Brachman
Posted by: mac Brachman | Thursday, October 05, 2006 at 06:55 PM
Max,
Thanx for specifying where you found me politically incorrect, i.e. the "fag" reference. Now I don't have to wonder if you had a problem with my citing liberal Democrat Congressman Barney Frank for his well-known sideline of running "a homo whorehouse in Washington." (Or do I still have to wonder?)
As for the "fag" reference, this was not mine, Max. I thought I made that clear enough, but perhaps I failed. I was reporting Washington reality in a way that some may find too realistic, or departing too much from Katie Couric, NPR or just standard sanitized Newsspeak in PC America. So I need to get clear on where you're coming from. Congressman Foley was a joke in Washington. Teenaged boys are teenaged boys and tend to speak their minds, especially to each other and friends. Foley, to them, was a "fag." To you, Max, they might call him "gay." But when they're sure that nobody is on their backs, they'd just say "fag" or "homo" or....you get the idea. Are you offended by their politically incorrect speech patterns, or is it something you would rather not know about and which you feel should not be reported, unless some political hit man can make use of it?
Two other points, Max. I don't see the analogy you make with "breeder" in the case of the Amish murders. That horror, while it had a certain component of sexual insanity, was overwhelmingly a murder case This makes it very different from the Congressman Foley case which, from beginning to end, was all about sex and sexual orientation, and very specifically homosexual orientation (except to those who want dodge that and plead "pedophilia.") At any rate, if homosexuals want to point to heterosexual problems and aberrations, welcome aboard. And if they want to make fun of the human race reproducing itself instead of favoring sodomy and fisting, I say go to it fellas. Comedy Central might have a contract for you.
As for Foley's sin being about "pedophilia," doesn't Gay Central wish? Hey, Max, do you really believe that? Why can't they be open and honest enough to admit the obvious---they lust for young males? They know it. Everybody else knows it too. So who is kidding who? You can argue age of consent forever, but this will still lead to a point in today's gringo update:
October 06 Update: While the pre-Electoral clamor and brouhaha (with plenty of 'haha') continues, here is a point-of-clarification query which Dems and even Pubs will shy away from, in their dread of the PC police: Is ex-Congressman Mark Foley a pedophile or a homophile?
Posted by: gringoman | Friday, October 06, 2006 at 03:34 PM
Steve,
As I said before, yes seriously.
Posted by: Alexandra | Friday, October 06, 2006 at 12:42 AM
Can you seriously say that you would not care if Foley were a Republican or a Democrat if he were a Democrat? Seriously?
Posted by: Steve | Thursday, October 05, 2006 at 11:54 PM
Kenny: But at some point it's not enough for your opponents to be worthless; you have to be worthy. While it seems that I am the only optimist in the room at present, I just can't be as pessimistic about the state of the Republican party as you are. Politicians are what they are, and as such are subject to all the human foibles, only many of them seem to have one or more of the seven deadlies in spades. When they get caught in the headlights, we all know instantly thanks to a drive-by media mentality that tends to aid the side of it's choosing.
That said, I still think this is an orchestrated attack using the media as the weapon of choice, and some cheesey, maybe bogus, IM notes as ammunition. The strategy is to get the base stirred up and disgusted enough to stay home. Vote suppression, pure and simple.
Whoever is orchestrating this knows that they are dealing with a party that, for all it's faults that everyone seems only too happy to join the antique media in pointing out, does have a moral compass and tries to do the right thing. Foley has resigned right? Barney Frank is still there to remind us of how tolerant the dems are(Not). The fact that many Republicans are too much involved in the maintenance and seeking of power, and corruption, the dropping of term limits, the bloated budget, the incumbents protection act (popularly known as McCain/Feingold), and etc. ad nauseum, is continually frustrating to conservatives. But the alternative is just too far the other direction. I can't put it into words, but in my gut, I just can't agree with you that the only reason I vote Republican is that they suck less. If not for the Republicans, would we be treating the aftermath of 9/11 as a war, or as a criminal matter? Is it Bush's fault that RINO's like McCain, Snow, Chafey, Specter(pardon the spelling there) and others do a Brutus on him on an almost daily basis?
This is not about Bush and his administrations faults and foibles. It is about the (re)acquisition of power and the ability to appoint the next two members of the supreme court, who are literally holding on for dear life in the hope that the dems can get back what they consider to be rightfully theirs. They are attacking in force and are going to keep doing so right up to the election, and guess what? It's going to happen again in '08. Bet a steak dinner on that one.
Posted by: nofate | Thursday, October 05, 2006 at 11:37 PM
rich, that's ok as far as it goes, but you are missing some other key facts in your assessment:
The information so far indicates that Hastert, Boehner, Fordham, Reynolds and Shimkus all knew that Foley's behavior was questionable at best, and appear to have done absolutely nothing about it.
So let's say that the Democrats are "exploiting" this. That still doesn't mean the Democrats created the situation. It's the behavior of Hastert, Boehner, Fordham, Reynolds and Shimkus that have given the Democrats something to exploit, in the first place.
And all the GOP has to do to halt the Democrats "exploiting" this, is for these men to stop giving contradictory answers, avoiding questions, and blaming the Democrats or the pages for the pickle they've put themselves in by doing absolutely nothing.
Posted by: jim | Thursday, October 05, 2006 at 09:16 PM
There are new facts besides Drudge.
Three new pages have come forward.
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/006058.htm
Apparently this will be dribbled out over the next weeks.
No excuses for Foley. But this story is not over for the left if they withheld knowledge of it.
Also it is not clear if the the new information deals with acquaintances made during the page program which turned nasty after pages left that program. If so it is dispicable conduct by Foley.
But the devil is in the details and the details are not in.
We only know two things for sure: Foley is no longer a Congressman (for which we can be thankful) and the democrats are exploiting this without regard for what is known and unknown about what actually happened.
Posted by: rich | Thursday, October 05, 2006 at 08:29 PM
Just as a side note, even if Drudge's blame-the-victim "prank" theory was morally acceptable - it doesn't fit the facts:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/10/three_more_form.html
An online story on the Drudge Report Thursday claimed one set of the sexually explicit instant messages obtained by ABC News was part of a "prank" on the part of the former page, who reportedly says he goaded the congressman into writing the messages. "This was no prank," said one of the three former pages who talked to ABC News today about his experience with the congressman.
Posted by: jim | Thursday, October 05, 2006 at 07:49 PM
Whaaaaa?
So much for the party of accountability and personal responsibility.
Does Foley claim it's a smear attack started by instant messaging teens? Uh, no.
Foley resigned within hours of being asked about it by ABC. Is that the action of innocent man? Uh, no.
Would Reynolds, Hastert, Fordham and Shimkus all desperately trying to pass the buck to each other, if this were just an out-of-control prank? Uh, no.
But let's say it is a prank. How about a full investigation of everyone involved, under oath? They've got nothing to fear if they're innocent, right?
You are really doing a disservice to yourself, by continuing to make excuses for the current GOP. Look - they fooled you. It happens, OK? You're not alone. They have come forward with some of the best and best-funded PR the world has yet seen. They have taken advantage of you, by telling you what you want to hear.
But this situation, like much else, makes blatant how little tehy really care about what they supposedly stand for.
Posted by: jim | Thursday, October 05, 2006 at 07:33 PM
Gringoman: What it was was your reference to Foley as a "fag" (flapping fag from Fla., I believe it was). Foley's sin was about pedophilia and misuse/abuse of his position; compounded by stupidity. Nobody made reference to Charles Roberts, the Amish school mass murderer, as the "breeder" from (near) Beaver Falls (breeder is a derogatory term in the gay community for heterosexuals). I understand that "fag," like the n----- word, certain derogatory terms for Jews, "geezer" for an old person, etc., can have an ironic/humorous meaning in context, as long as the context is understood. But I understood your use of "fag" only as a derogatory term for Foley's gayness, not his specific misbehaviors. Shalom, Mac Brachman
Posted by: mac Brachman | Thursday, October 05, 2006 at 06:55 PM
If the latest reports on Drudge are correct, this was a prank where some teenager pages were egging on the Congressman, and he fell into the trap.
It was a joke among the pages. Cruel, but teens can be pretty cruel.
Then, the instant messages are discovered by a political operative (how we do not know), and things go crazy.
At that point a teen age prank becomes a full blown smear attack with all the power of the left behind it.
It destroys the congressman, perhaps deservedly, but in a cruel and malicious manner.
It is sheer evil to take a prank and exploit it to gain political power. But that is what the political operative apparently did.
This was done with the full cooperation of Brian Ross of ABC News. So you have cruel, cynical, destructive evil abetteted by a major network.
The main stream media is getting more corrupt and dishonest all the time.
CBS failed to steal an election with forged documents.
It looks like ABC will fail to steal this election with a teen age prank gone bad.
Posted by: rich | Thursday, October 05, 2006 at 05:40 PM
To the extent that the Democrats knew about Clinton's adultery and did nothing, they were wrong. However, I don't know of any Senate or Congressional Democrats who knew of Clinton's adultery, and did nothing about it. Also, Lewinsky was not in the Senate or the House's charge, only the White House. ALso, Lewinsky was not a minor, and there are no other minors that Clinton has ever been accused of endangering.
To the extent that the House Republicans continued to allow Foley unrestricted access to young boys who were in the House's care, and did nothing, they were wrong.
We now know that at least several House Republicans knew of Foley's issues, and did nothing.
These two situations simply do not equate.
The House Republicans in charge of this mess do not deserve anyone's support. Honestly, this just illustrates how little the GOP cares about anything they tell conservative voters. It's already crystal clear they don't give a damn about fiscal responsibility.
I'm hoping this finally wakes up conservative voters to the fact that for years now the GOP has been straight-up playing them for suckers.
Posted by: jim | Thursday, October 05, 2006 at 04:11 PM
nofate, I don't have any time, but here's an outline of a post somebody should write about both sides' foolish tactics.
1. As the years go by and the Republicans get fatter, sloppier, lazier, more corrupt, and more out of touch with the voters, their reelection message continues to drift more and more to, "Sure we suck, but look at the alternative." This cannot be effective indefinitely; it has been successful so far only because the Democrats' descent has been even more marked than the Republicans, to the point where the people driving the Democratic Party appear to have the corporate sanity of King George and the corporate brains of Prince Charles. But at some point it's not enough for your opponents to be worthless; you have to be worthy. Besides, any party that can be reduced to this and still look at itself in the mirror in the morning, is lost to all shame.
2. Yet so badly have the Democrats historically behaved, and so out of line with their past behavior is their current moralizing, that if comparisons are drawn between this Republican scandal and previous Democratic scandals, and especially between the behavior of the parties in responding to the scandals, the comparison cannot but redound heartily in the Republicans' favor, helping to blunt the electoral consequences of this scandal.
3. Therefore it is very much in the Republicans' interest for people contemplating this scandal in disgust, to be reminded of prior Democratic scandals; and very much in the Democrats' interest for people contemplating this scandal not to think about the Democrats any more than the absolute minimum necessary.
4. But Republicans have for so long been using, "Yeah, but the Democrats would be worse," that at this point when Republican mouthpieces like Hastert or that ass Hannity point at the Democrats, they just sound like whiny children who can't man up and take responsibility for their own actions. Yet because they know perfectly well how bad the Democrats would do in an honest comparison, the Republicans -- if the Democrats will just shut up and pretend to take the high road -- will spend the next five weeks whining about hypocrisy, unaware that it matters not only that the issue be raised, but also that it not appear to be Republicans who are raising it, because of the whine factor.
5. If the Democrats, on the other hand, rush around making lots of noise, they will themselves accomplish the one thing the Republicans most badly need: they will drag themselves, and thus their prior behavior in scandals such as the Clinton one, back into the picture, and thus encourage the making of comparisons highly invidious to themselves. The last best hope of the Republicans is that the Democrats will do precisely this -- and given the aforementioned George/Charles hybrid characteristics of the Deans and Pelosis and Kossites, the odds are exceptionally good that the Democratic leadership will in fact ride in and try to save the day for the Republicans in precisely this fashion.
When I look at the past two days' antics and see the Democrats -- whose interest lies entirely in being quiet and unnoticed while the Republicans destroy themselves -- running around calling as much attention to their own "moral superiority" as they can manage; and see the Republican leadership taking every opportunity to whine about how much worse the Democrats are than they are; I find myself wondering, "Don't either of these parties want to win this thing?"
Posted by: Kenny | Thursday, October 05, 2006 at 12:42 PM
From Max Brachman: G-man: easy there, big fella. Please refrain from homophobic (or racist, anti-Semitic, sexist, etc.) language. I don't care if Foley is gay. (Incidentally I don't care that he's a Floridian either,
From gringoman:
Hey Max,
Thanx for the instructions. I'm not being sarcastic either. You give me added insight into the state of public discourse in the uSA today, even among what I assume we can call the "intelligentsia,"---or is it especially among what we can call the "intelligentsia"? Since you did not get precise on what disturbed you, and preferred the more generalized buzz words favored by the liberal/left pc police, like 'homophobic,' 'racist,' 'anti-semitic' etc, I have to assume that you included the remark about Foley being a '4-F jerk' among your list of no-nos. '4-F jerk,', I should add, gives a fair impression of how Foley was seen on Capitol Hill, especially among the page community, so I'm not sure if your problem is with me, the messenger, or with them for what they knew and how they expressed it.
By the way, this raises another point, regarding the current post at gringoman. The title is 'Homo-Foley Washington.' Would you brand this title as 'homophobic'? Speak freely, Max. Don't hold back. I don't mind what you say, especially if it reflects what you really think. Incidentally, I don't doubt for a minute that Foley's homosexuality is relevant here, for his hitting on a teenaged boy, just as his (apparently non-existent) hetersosexuality would be perfectly relevant if it was a girl instead of a boy---except that if it was a girl, none of the "intelligenstia" would be falling over themselves to make the sexual orientation irrelevant. They would not be doing the classic liberal patronizing of a "protected sub-group" or species. Nobody would have called them heterophobes for dumping Foley fast. They were craven They caved to the pc police in Foley's case. They knew that many--I don't say you---would have charged them with 'homophobia.' Let's get real here.
And while we're on it, the current gringo post also is illustrated with something entitled 'Big Love.' I really don't know if this illustration would be considered politically incorrect or not, or whether it's unfair to Republicans (or gives short shrift to donkeys) but I'll be glad to hear your ethically-based opinion.
Posted by: gringoman | Thursday, October 05, 2006 at 12:20 PM
As I read through the gloom and doom and also the liberal spinmeisters in this post, it's almost as if we're ready to throw in the towel. They're all rascals, so throw in the towel. Let the Dems win, even if they don't deserve it, because the Republicans deserve it even less 'cause Hastert is an old fool and they shoulda, coulda, woulda...
C'mon! I may have missed it as I've had to look this over in spits and starts at work and wherever, but isn't it apparent what's going on here? Ahma.. and Chavez come to the U.N. and we see right through them and their tactics. The Hezbos try to deflect the destruction of civilians onto Israel and we see through that. Jack, "Make me majority leader, please, please, please!" Murtha and the antiques try to make Haditha out to be a Marine caused charnel house and we manage to see through that. Divide and conquer! I bet GD is doing a jig right now, she's so happy she can't hardly stand it. And all the other Clinton spinmeisters too.
This isn't and never was about Mark Whatisname. It's an attempt to suppress the vote. The Dems are so desparate to get their power back after having the last two presidential elections "stolen" from their grasp, that they are now willing to use the pages in congress to achieve their ends. As Clarice Feldman over at American Thinker says "Pardon me, but I smell something very peculiar in the way we have learned of the disgrace of Rep. Mark Foley". She later states that the investigation called for is not the only investigation needed: "The important matter requiring investigation is how a recently-created anonymous blogger got the email correspondence which the boy’s parents had insisted be kept quiet. And how the blog site, which had virtually no posts and no traffic suddenly caught the attention of Foley’s opponent who immediately asked for an investigation." I'm sure there are many others out there looking into this, but I am unable to read them all. If we all turn tail and let the democrats have their way and the congress, just imagine the outcomes.
As a father of two young college age daughters, I found this- I would simply like to super-glue his balls together- to be priceless and representative of my feelings toward Mr. Folly and what he has done to the page program, and to the Republican party by his indiscretions. But I am also as sure as I can be that there is a dirty rat puppetmaster pulling the strings on this escapade, and I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually comes out to be connected to the Clintons. This is about keeping the voters, and particularly the religious right, home and refusing to vote due to disgust. If the libertarians in the crowd really want to ensure even bigger government than they think the pubs are giving us now, just stay home, don't vote, and encourage all your friends, especially those of a religious persuasion to stay home and register your disgust by letting the Dems win. They are all ready drooling at the chance to impeach Bush, raise taxes, and screw the lid down on business with draconian environmental regulations. "Free market? What's that? The people want the government's nose in every aspect of their lives." Can it be this easy for them, if this is all it takes? This is disgusting, but not only in the sordid sexual way most people are thinking right now. This is a disgusting power grab, and if there is anything Bill and Hil are known for it is their lust for power. Everything else is secondary.
Posted by: nofate | Thursday, October 05, 2006 at 11:20 AM
I should correct myself: I thought Monica was a teenager when all this started, but in fact she was in her early twenties. Didn't take time to fact-check.
On the other hand, ABC apparently didn't take time to fact-check, either -- since the page in question now turns out to have been 18, not 16, and therefore even if Foley had had full-blown sexual relations with him it wouldn't have been illegal as long as Foley didn't pick the wrong state for the orgy. Doesn't change the fact that I want Foley gone; but it does widen even more strikingly the gap between Foley's icky but legal behavior and Clinton's physically exploitative behavior and his perjuringly dishonest cover-up. Note that, by the way: I want Foley gone. How many of you Democratic finger-pointers wanted Clinton gone back in the day?
Another way in which the Democrats' handling of this scandal hurts them is pointed out in passing by Roger Simon:
Every time you Democrats start to complain about how the Foley thing was handled, remember that the rest of us (including those of us who dislike the Republicans, have never registered as Republicans, and have taken great pleasure in voting against them over the years even though in Texas voting against the Republicans has become a largely symbolic gesture) will just be reminded of how you guys handled Bill Clinton's bad behavior, and Teddy Kennedy's (in which a girl actually died), and Gerry Studds's (in which the Democratic leadership, in the wake of actual sex between Studds and a 17-year-old page, proposed a mere reprimand, i.e. the lightest possible punishment; and while the Republican Party drove Studds's fellow page-screwer Crane into immediate ostracization and political oblivion, the Democratic voters of Massachusetts sent Studds repeatedly back to Congress)...
So, basically, listening in on/publishing details of private conversations is a bad thing if it helps Republicans keep terrorists from killing American children, but it's a good thing if it helps Democrats beat Republicans in elections? That seems to be the moral principle y'all are working from.
I really do think that the more glee Democrats take in this scandal, and the harder and more shamelessly your friends in the media try to push it, the more rapidly you're going to give back to the Repubs the advantage you've temporarily gained. If you guys make enough noise about it, in fact, the Republicans might actually wind up keeping control of the House -- which they would have lost long ago if they had spent the last few years going up against any even remotely competent opposition.
On a lighter note, since I've mentioned Studds, his arrogant behavior toward the House and the whole controversy has always reminded me of the following joke:
IN THE CONFESSIONAL:
"Father, I'm an eighty-year-old man with five kids and twenty grandkids; but yesterday I picked up two teenaged hitchhikers, and we wound up in a threesome in a motel and I did them three times apiece."
"Are you sorry for your sin now, my son?"
"Sorry? Are you kidding? What sin?"
[Appalled silence for a moment, then...]
"What kind of Catholic are you, anyway?!?"
"Catholic? I'm not Catholic. I'm an atheist."
"Then what are you telling me this for?"
"Hey, man, I'm telling everybody."
Posted by: Kenny | Thursday, October 05, 2006 at 01:29 AM
Gang,
Funny, my immediate reaction to that line ("they want to go back...back...back in time to when petty tyrants like them simply did what they wanted and the people had no power") was, "Ah, yes, the good ol' days of the Warren Court..."
Posted by: Kenny | Thursday, October 05, 2006 at 12:04 AM
Oh, I totally agree that all this "I was molested plus I'm an alcoholic so I'm really the victim here" makes one long for the ability to decree death by herring-slapping.
Posted by: Kenny | Thursday, October 05, 2006 at 12:00 AM
Posted by: Gang of One | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 09:33 PM
G-man: easy there, big fella. Please refrain from homophobic (or racist, anti-Semitic, sexist, etc.) language. I don't care if Foley is gay. (Incidentally I don't care that he's a Floridian either, although with all the other loony tunes that have come out of the state in recent years the Sunshine state bids fair to outdo LaLa land, California, as the capital of kookdom). I do care that he a) like so many others in public life, he believes his position entitles him to behave any way he pleases, with no consequences whatsoever (or to blame it after the fact on booze, "I was molested in childhood," "I was having a bad day," "everyone else does it," etc.) and not accept personal responsibility, which bespeaks the overweaning narcissism/self-centeredness of our celebrity culture and b) that he chose to pursue minors, which is ethically and morally beyond the pale. That he did so through text-messaging bespeaks stupidity which is not in and of itself a moral flaw; that's a separate issue. We saw this two years ago, when Jim McGreevey, now attempting to cash in with a new book about his "travails," blamed his misbehavior (misusing his office, which was Governor of New Jersey at the time, apparently stalking a man who was not enamored of McGreevey's attentions toward him, etc.) on the fact that he was belatedly realizing that he was a "gay American," implying that he'd been repressed and/or oppressed and sliding, eel-like past the issue that his behavior was scummy, unethical, self-indulgent, self-centered, and selfish, and had nothing to do per se with his sexual orientation but rather with his narcissistic and sociopathic tendencies, which exist in all sorts of people, gay and straight, black and white, old and young, female and male, alcoholic and non-alcoholic. The tragic news out of Pennsylvania Amish country this week tells us that pedophilia, sociopathy, and a tendency to blame others for one's own misery can co-occur just as readily in a heterosexual as in a homosexual. Unlike the despicable Mr. Roberts, Foley didn't kill anyone. Shalom, Mac Brachman
Posted by: mac Brachman | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 09:23 PM
Of course the Pubs are an embarrassment. They just found out that their Congressman Foley likes the boychiks? They never knew how he dreams of turning pages without a book? Right. And their Speaker Haestert was not only looking like the Michelin tire guy, but couldn't even understand the Engish spoken in Congress? Foley was mockable for years. The pages knew. He was the 4-F jerk: Flapping Fag From Florida. And this was the personage the Pubs not only tolerated, but allowed on the committee for child welfare! Give me a break. Their caddies would have known better. Any wonder even sand monkeys laugh at them?
Of course with the Dems you can't speak of embarrassment, shame or dishonor. They're beyond that, waaaay beyond it, even without the Billary barbecue on U.S. soil in Waco that would have politically struck dead forever any golf-pants Republican. Senator Teddy boy, after the girl drowns in Chappaquidick,is, yes, yes, re-elected. Mass. Congressman Gerry Studds has his gay way with a 17-year old (not via internet, but personal hands-on attention)----not only re-elected, gets standing ovation from prog constituents. Congressman Barney Franks runs a homo whorehouse--- in Washington yet---hey, so what? (Man,what's wrong with that? You be some kind a homophobe?)
That said, gringovision tends to agree with Kenny on election prospects. Both the Pubs and the Dems deserve to lose, and both will in the eyes of many, but the Dems are corrupt and conniving enough, besides being on MSM life support, to eke out a majority, thanks in good part to this. their slick and tawdry "October Surprise,"--- unless they let too many voters get too good a look at how they run on empty. And yes, it would be a pyrrhic "victory," for them in terms of 2008---unless they can somehow wear at least mildly attractive face masks for two years and keep the cover on at all costs---a difficult, trying feat for children---even precocious brats.
Posted by: gringoman | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 09:02 PM
Well Gang-of-One, didn't the Head Republican, Gee Dubya Bush challenge Congress to "fix the Law" AFTER he broke it in the FISA/NSA thing, and AFTER his "secret prisons" were ruled against by Federal Judges?
These guys are really big on the old addage "It's easier to act and ask forgiveness, than seek permission".
DeLay said that a grand-jury investigation in Austin by prosecutor Ronnie Earle is "about politics, not DeLay," and that the indictment of three of his former associates last year constituted an attempt by Earle, a Democrat, "to criminalize politics." The investigation continues and Earle has declined to say whether DeLay is a target, but he has said he will take the investigation where it leads him.
Delay, and Dubya, and Gonzales know they operate on the edge of the Law... and when they get caught, the story is "Oh...the Law wasn't clear..." or "Oh...that's not the way we interpret it..."
When the Abramhoff scandal broke and the wide implications were known, the first thing the Republicans said was "...oh...we have to fix those rules...". Balony...they were cynical crooks and they knew it...payola for legislation and favors pure and simple.
Of course not... modern Republicanism has a problem with Liberals, and Liberalism, and with the Liberal Constitution of the United States and almost every Law marking higher watermarks of human civilization such as the Geneva Convention!
Of course they want to change the Law... they want to go back...back...back in time to when petty tyrants like them simply did what they wanted and the people had no power.
That is why they call them "backward".
Jacques-Benigne Bossuet (1627-1704) reinforced medieval notions of kingship in his theory of the Divine Right of Kings, a theory which argued that certain kings ruled because they were chosen by God to do so and that these kings were accountable to no person except God.
The modern Republican version of this nonsense is that we elect politicians to "Rule"...
I'd rather think of them as employees.
Posted by: Ghost Dansing | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 08:16 PM
Didn't mean to spend a lot of time on my take, but you regulars know how I am.
1. The Republican House needs to understand that the fact that your enemies don't deserve control of the House, doesn't mean you don't deserve to lose it. And the Republicans in the House oh so richly deserve to lose power.
2. Hastert should resign -- not because it is the politically expedient thing to do, but because he sucks as Speaker. If a heterosexual member of the House sends an e-mail to a teenaged page female page and asks for her picture, then that should trigger more than "don't do that any more." I realize that the first kid's parents asked that the problem be kept quiet, but that doesn't mean you can't go to the people who run the page program and say, "Look, we have an issue with a member who has been engaged in some inappropriate communications with former pages, and we need you to emphasize to our current and former pages that we want to hear about any such communications right away whenever they happen." I simply can't believe that, if such a step had been taken, the Foley thing wouldn't have been uncovered; and to me it just seems to be the obvious thing to do. It strikes me, as it often does, that the worst thing about having career Congressmen is that the lessons learned by the business world take far too long to percolate into the rarified halls and artificial atmosphere of Congressmen-for-life.
Plus, what kind of fool defends Jefferson and his apparent belief that the whole point of having an office in Congress, is so that you can have a safe place to keep all the evidence of your various criminal activities?
3. On the positive side of the Republican leadership's ledger: at least when they saw the IM's, they went straight to Foley and he immediately resigned.
4. This is going to give the House to the Democrats, because the American people is going to still be in reaction mode when the election takes place. That means that Hillary Clinton just lost the presidency, because -- and I mean this quite seriously -- a Nancy Pelosi House of Representatives for two years is going to finish off the Democrats as a viable national party. There is no way Pelosi and company won't use their power in a way that makes Gingrich seem in retrospect like a voice of moderation and sanity. What the Democrats needed for 2008 was two more years of Republican control that could be made to appear incompetent or unethical...two more years for the American public to forget what it's like to be ruled by Democrats. Pelosi can be counted on to be an exceptionally forcible and unrestrained reminder of how Democrats govern. Barring a Clayton-Williams-level meltdown of campaign incompetence, the Republican candidate -- whoever he or she is -- now has a broad and straight road to the White House 2008.
5. Part of this last point is because as the emotions settle, people are going to start to get some perspective on the Foley scandal, and that perspective is not going to reflect well on Democrats. At every point at which you can criticize the Republicans, the Democrats' own record is much worse. For example:
a. Hastert should have heeded the warning signs that showed that Foley had problems with appropriate sexual behavior. But the Democrats could ignore one allegation after another -- not just rumors, but open, non-anonymous allegations and in several cases sworn testimony -- about Bill Clinton's abuse of his position of power in pursuit of sexual gratification. One woman after another -- including a woman who solemnly accused Clinton of rape, and yet mysteriously wasn't granted the all-women-who-claim-rape-must-be-believed treatment granted by feminists to every other woman in the world who accuses a man of rape -- alleged that the President had forced unwelcome attentions upon them, in multiple cases involving (unlike the Foley case) actual physical contract and groping. But as each such woman came forward, the Democratic attack machine led by James Carville systematically set about destroying their reputations and brushing aside their accusations. If Hastert should lose his position because he wasn't skeptical enough about Foley and didn't go out looking for people who might make allegations against him, what about the Democrats who ignored the accumulating mountain of evidence that Clinton was a sexual predator?
b. Hastert and company are to be criticized, according the Democrats, because, on the basis of the vague and non-sexually-explicit e-mails they initially heard about, and other rumors floating around the page circles, they didn't take action that might have led to his earlier exposure, and therefore the pages were left at risk. You know what? I completely agree with the Democrats on that point. But, a forteriori, what should have been done by the Democratic operatives who got their hands on those IM messages? If Hastert should have done more, what about the Democrats who held onto those messages -- leaving in a predatory position someone whom they had far more evidence was a predator than had Hastert -- until they could be wielded to maximum political advantage? Is there any real doubt that the Democrats who found, held, and finally released those IM's, deliberately chose to value their party's pursuit of power above the welfare of teenaged pages? Do Democrats really believe that the American people won't eventually reflect upon that unpalatable fact? Or do they just hope that that bit won't sink in until after the elections?
c. When the fact was confirmed that Rep. Foley had engaged in IM sex (non-physical) with a person above the legal age of consent in D.C., his resignation was demanded and received within a day. Such a person does not, despite the Ghost's protestations to the contrary, meet the expectations of the Republican party. When the fact was confirmed that President Clinton had not only engaged in sexual activities with his teenaged (at the time) intern, but had then gone on to lie about it under oath in a court case concerning another of his many alleged victims (do the Democrats still insist that all those other women were lying?), his resignation was demanded by the Democratic Party and received within a day; because such a person does not, as the Ghost would hasten to remind us, meet the expectations of the Democratic Party. At least I think that's how it happened. I may not have all the details 100% correct...
My overall point is this: this is, fundamentally, a sex scandal. And most voters still remember quite clearly the Democrats' own sex scandal, and how much more serious were the allegations leveled against President Clinton, and how much further President Clinton went to try to cover up the truth than did Rep. Foley, and how very different was the Democrats' reaction then than what they self-righteously proclaim ought to have been the Republicans' behavior now.
What the Democrats never have grasped is that the Clinton impeachment was not about adultery and blow jobs. It was about lying under oath (and the background conviction, on the part of many House Republicans, that the multiple allegations of sexual harassment, extending to physical groping and possibly even rape, were much more credible than were Clinton's denials, especially given his proven willingness to tell the most brazen lies in covering up exactly such behavior). But the Democrats have always insisted that (a) the Clinton thing was purely a sex scandal exploited by Republicans for partisan purposes, (b) sex scandals should not be considered scandalous in the case of politicians even when the same behavior on the part of a corporate CEO would draw much outrage and bombast from Democratic noisemakers, and (c) the Republican House was absolutely despicable for trying to make partisan use of the sex scandal.
See, what you Democratic commenters here don't understand is that you're making a VERY serious tactical error; you are going to win the House, but it's going to be a Pyrrhic victory. And I can tell you don't understand it because of the exceptionally foolish (I mean tactically more than I mean logically) line of defense you're taking. Every last one of you is saying, "Hey, what we're doing is fine because the Republicans do it too." But what you desperately need to be doing -- especially since Pelosi's House is going to reprise the impeachment game -- is to find some way to say that what you're doing is different from what Republicans do. There's no question of Foley's having wagged his finger at the American public and said, "I did not have internet sex with that boy." There was no lawyer saying, "Given a definition of 'sexual relationship' that includes discussing masturbation techniques over the internet, did you have a sexual relationship with that page," nor did Foley ever, after swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, respond to such a question with, "No, I did not have a sexual relationship with him." There are no accusers who have come forward publicly to say, "While I was a page in Congress, Representative Foley trapped me against a wall and fondled my penis," or, "Representative Foley talked me into going into his hotel room and raped me there." This is a pure sex scandal that at this point doesn't even involve any physical contact -- and the Democrats are not only exploiting it for all they're worth, but at least one Democrat deliberately delayed exposing Foley in order to increase the political impact of the exposure. What you Democrats don't appear to understand is that when you're accused of hypocrisy, saying 'It's okay because the other guys are hypocrites and we're just doing the same thing they do,' is a confession, not a defense.
You're going to impeach Bush over what you have talked yourself into believing is a matter of principle and honesty (though the evidence that Bush was lying rather than merely mistaken is nowhere near as strong as the evidence that Clinton was lying), but the American public as a whole is going to believe that you are impeaching Bush out of partisan hatred. And you're going to be doing it in time of war -- having just defended Clinton's failures in the war against terrorism by complaining that it's the Republicans' fault because they distracted Clinton by impeaching him. The negative reaction is going to be even more visceral than the reaction against the Republican House, and thus you'll go into the 2008 elections as the party that has been in power in the House -- and is widely perceived as having abused it. And since it's not your ideas that are getting you into power...and since you apparently believe that the most intelligent defense of your political tactics in the Foley case is to say that you're just like the Republicans, even though the one thing you most desperately need is for a way to say that your deranged hatred of Bush is something quite different from the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy's hatred of Clinton...oy, it's no wonder that even as incompetent as the Republicans are, the American people keeps looking at the alternative, holding its collective nose, and pulling the Republican lever.
The more you condemn the Republican leadership's behavior in this pure sex scandal, the more you remind people of the worst side of Bill Clinton; the more you condemn this scandal's Republican behavior, the more you condemn the behavior of Clinton and the Democratic Party in their handling of Clinton's, er, amiable encounters, their cover-up, and the aftereffects of their coming uncovered; the more you emphasize the "it's okay because we're being just like Republicans" defense, the more you reinforce the idea that we're going through the Clinton years again but with the parties reversed, especially once the House starts talking impeachment. Long-term, it's an incredibly foolish tactic.
But then forty years of watching Democrats has not exactly convinced me of you guys' collective wisdom. Pretty much every day I look at the Republicans and wonder, "How the hell did these clowns manage to get power?" and then I remember the alternative and say, "Oh, right."
A few other random notes:
I personally think Ghost Dansing has it exactly backwards (the party of LBJ and Tip O'Neill and Teddy Kennedy -- a party whose entire philosophy of political morality rests on the premise that when one person envies another this is proof of the moral turpitude of the person envied rather than of the person envying -- is the party of ethical principle? ROTFLHysterically). When Republican politicians behave unethically I am not surprised, because they are politicians, but I am disappointed in their ethics, because they are Republicans and are supposed to stand for something better than that. When Democratic politicians behave unethically...well, they're Democratic politicians. Isn't it in their contract? (Though I have to say that the most honest politician I know is a Democrat.)
But of course neither my remarks along these lines nor the Ghost's really say anything either about Democrats or Republicans, but merely about Molly-Ivins-populist Ghost and libertarian-who-can't-stand-bossy-people Kenny. On the evidence, people who have gotten power more often then not don't use it responsibly, no matter what party they belong to. Beyond that it all gets pretty debatable.
What else?...Oh, right. If the Republican Party had, while nominally in control of the government, (a) not passed the McCain-Feingold act pissing all over our First Amendment rights, (b) abolished the practice of earmarks, (c) not raced to the defence of the execrable Jefferson in apparent conviction that Congressmen should be able to use their offices to hide evidence of criminal activity, then we might be inclined to cut them a little slack. I repeat my first point: I don't think the Democrats deserve to gain control of the House; but the Republicans richly deserve to lose it.
And having come full circle back to where I started, I hereby stop.
Posted by: Kenny | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 06:38 PM
Please show us evidence of this, and not opinion screeds from the pen of MoDo, Olbermann or the other hacks. Show some Congressional record or cite legislation to back this claim, please.
Posted by: Gang of One | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 03:59 PM
Nobody believed the Democrats when they told the truth about the Republican agenda...now after over eight years of Republican ascendency, with a big mess made in almost every area foreign and domestic, it is all there for everybody to see.
Asking the Democrats for "plans" at this point is like dropping a raw egg on the floor and asking somebody how they intend to clean it up. "Oh...how will YOU handle the MASSIVE DEFICIT?"... or "Oh, how will YOU handle the Iraq war?"
I agree with Alexandra's comments on Foley... I really wish people would pay as much attention to political philosophies and their implications as they do to "sex" scandals.
I've frequently said: "Catch a crooked Democrat and you've caught a crooked politician...Catch a crooked Republican, and you've caught a politician practicing his party's political philosphy, and he'll probably propose a Bill making his activities legal in the middle of the trial."
In the case of Foley... I don't think this has anything to do with practicing modern Republicanism.
The Jack Abramhoff Republican Team, Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, Cunningham... these are the guys I'm talking about...
The Foley case, aside from concern about the welfare of Congressional Pages, simply demonstrates breathtakingly poor judgement and some problems on the part of the individual (Foley) and the Republican leadership who evidently thought that "doing nothing" was an option on the issue. They kinda followed the flawed leadership of the Catholic Church and its pedophile priests in that regard... usually they are pretty clever politically... but not this time...
I was disappointed when I found out Ed wasn't a real Captain... I understand a girlfriend used to call him Captain or something... all the cool ships and nautical motif are great otherwise.
Bob Haldeman wrote in his diary on Dec. 15, 1970, using “K” for Kissinger and “P” for President Nixon: “K came in and the discussion covered some of the general thinking about Vietnam and the P’s big peace plan for next year, which K later told me he does not favor. He thinks that any pullout next year would be a serious mistake because the adverse reaction to it could set in well before the ’72 elections. He favors, instead, a continued winding down and then a pullout right at the fall of ’72 so that if any bad results follow they will be too late to affect the election. It seems to make sense.”
Republicans have a long history of manipulating foreign policy and foreign wars for partisan political objectives.
What we've seen of the Republican performance in Iraq has just been more of the same.
In September 2005, Mr. Woodward writes, W.’s head speechwriter, Mike Gerson, visited Mr. Kissinger and received a lecture declaring that the only exit strategy for Iraq was victory and a copy of the diplomat’s “salted peanut memo” from 1969, warning against resisting pressure to withdraw troops from Vietnam: “Withdrawal of U.S. troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public; the more U.S. troops come home, the more will be demanded.”
Ms. Dowd writes:
It’s the kind of logic that makes Dr. K such a valuable counselor to a president who has already declared privately that his midterm election strategy is to tar the Democrats this way: “Surrender and taxes.”
Modern Republicanism at it's best... judge them on that!
Posted by: Ghost Dansing | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 03:43 PM
epaminondas , I'm interested on how the Dems suck worse on this issue.
Posted by: jim | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 03:29 PM
Hastert, Boehner, Fordham, Shimkus, Reynolds and others all knew for at least months and maybe years that Foley's attentions towards young male pages was at best inappropriate and questionable.
Yet they did absolutely nohting about it. They didn't even have Foley resign his post as head of the Caucus for Missing and Exploited children. Foley didn't want to run for Congress again in 2004, and Reynolds talked him into it. And they did not restrict his access to young male pages in any way.
And all of them kept this information from the Congressmen in charge of the page program.
Don't you think that there's any need for accountability, on the part of these Republican Congressmen who covered this up, as well? Those who allowed this to continue by neglecting their duties to do absolutely *nothing*?
Posted by: jim | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 03:28 PM
Actually, there is no room for partisanship in this matter. Foley acted shamefully and disgracefully. He should be canned like cheap ham and the rest of Congress should take it as a warning. Republican or Democrat, this is unacceptable.
As for politicizing the issue, I merely would like to see evidence of the Democrats disowning one of their own in the same way Republicans have rejected and called out Foley.
But we already know the track record on that, don't we?
Posted by: Gang of One | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 03:15 PM
Foley has a problem, Foley is gone. He PROBABLY hasn't broken a law (DC age of consent = 16, and apparently there was no physical contact), but Hastert should have stripped him of committee responsibility on the basis of the 'more innocent (?) ((#*&$(#*&$(*&(@*&(#$*@&(#*&!!!!!!!!) emails. VERY POOR JUDGEMENT.
They all suck, and the dems suck worse. That's it. And that's probably how it's always been ..but buck up folks, as much as this sucks, it's miles ahead of the rest of the worlds form of governments.
Chew on that.
Posted by: epaminondas | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 02:08 PM
Alexandra, I agree with your comments regarding both Foley and Schumer. Unlike in warfare, where ops plans must remain secret, a political party, in order be successful, should explain exactly why their ideas are superior to the other party. Today the Democrats remind me of the typical vote for class president in a fourth grade classroom. "Vote for me because I will give you something or take away something from the meanies in our class." In their case, we know that the take away is money to keep at the class warfare game that has been part and parcel of the dems strategy for a generation.
I would like to take exception to Pete's comment, however. The Republicans came to power in '94 because the electorate was scared to death of Hillarycare. The cost and the draconian measures that were being contemplated scared the living daylights out of most normal people. In additon, the Republicans in '94 also had a very visible plan - The Contract with America - that spelled out in detail why they ought to be elected. I don't recall any emotionalism or appealing to lowest common denominator in '94. The Dems however, have made a living off of the politics of fear. Fear that the nasty republicans will take away social security, healthcare, livelihoods, orphan women and children, all kind of "rights" real and imagined, and on and on. Listen to a typcial Democrat and you will hear nothing but fear mongering.
Posted by: John Sarich | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 02:06 PM
Colin,
Quite honestly I do not know what you find or not find hard to believe having landed on my site for a full five precious minutes. I am a libertarian, and as for suggesting that I would care more or less in Foley sexually pursuing under age pages if he was a Democrat or A Republican, I could not give a flying hoot what party he belongs to. As a mother myself, I would simply like to super-glue his balls together, so don't profess to tell me what I do and do not feel about pedophiles, homosexual or not.
My opinion on this matter is not for sale to any political party. Honest enough for you?
Posted by: Alexandra | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 02:02 PM
"I am sick and tired of people turning everything into a political issue. Foley is one sick individual who should have never been in congress in the first place. I couldn't care less if he's a republican or democrat, he's a deeply disturbed man."
You really couldn't care less if it was a Democrat or a Republican sexually pursuing underage pages? Really?
I'm sorry but I find that hard to believe.
You've got the right idea, tho: if I were a GOP supporter I'd refuse to discuss the Foley issue on my blog, too. But I'd at least try to be honest about why I wouldn't discuss it. Not because I'm sick of politicizing everything, but because this very political issue is causing damage to my party.
Posted by: Colin | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 01:34 PM
Alexandra,
Lighten up a bit Kiddo.
Foley “screwed the pooch”. Foley is gone. End of story.
I don’t believe that this issue will bring down any more Rep’s in the house, nor do I believe that it will have legs that will carry it along for more than another week or so. All of the “fall-out” and subsequent “discovery”, as of this moment, seems to support the Rep leaderships’ statements of how they handled the issue with what they knew before last Friday.
As far as Gen. Chucky, he’s probably right in keeping the Dem’s no strategy strategy secret.
Regards,
JCC
Posted by: RunningRoach | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 01:14 PM
the sad part is everyone keeps buying into the partisan bullshit. us vs them all the way to armageddon
Posted by: Pete | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 11:58 AM
This is funny... when it's Bill Clinton, we should politicize it. But if it's a member of the GOP, well, then, let's just say it could have happenned to either party.
Also, peter is right... it was republicans who turned national politics into a game of pandering to the lowest common denominator. That dems are finally understanding that it is imposisble to explain their positions to the average american, and much easier to appeal to their emotions (as republicans have for some time now)
"The 'smart' opposition intends to hoodwink its more thoughtful voters, hoping that the 'Bush-lied-people-died' smear campaign, with all its offshoots, sufficiently distracts from real issues"
Gee I wonder where they got that idea? let me rewrite ytour statement:
"The 'smart' opposition intends to hoodwink its more thoughtful voters, hoping that the 'gay marriage ammendment' and the 'flag burinning ammendment', with all its offshoots, sufficiently distracts from real issues"
Posted by: ME | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 11:49 AM
Peter. Read the post above yours and make an informed decision. If you can.
Posted by: Gang of One | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 11:07 AM
Senator Schumer has woken up to the fact that war was long ago declared by "bipartisanship is another word for date rape" Republicans (that quote is from Grover Norquist), and our friend the soon-to-be-felon Delay who never, ever gave up the chance to hammer Democrats regardless of the naivete displayed in hoping for bipartisanship.
This table was set by Republicans in 1994. They've done very well eating at the table of Gingrich and Rove, drinking deep of the sort of patriotism-questioning, vile attacks and swift-boating. Now its time for the Democrats to serve them a course. The sweetest irony of all, however, is that EVERYTHING served by the Democrats (Iraq, Foley cover-up, lies on 9/11, Katrina and the list goes on for literally pages) was all cooked by the Republicans. We're just reheating and serving it up.
Eat this!
Posted by: peter from new york | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 10:34 AM
The Republicans are working to protect America from Islamofascist terrorists who want to kill us.
The Democrats have no plan for national security but are working to protect America from Republican pedophiles...
Who should we vote for?
Posted by: Spurlee | Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 08:20 AM