The Ballad of Mark Foley

The Replublican Party of Moral Values and Accountability, indeed!

I really don't know where to start with this one. As someone who wants all of those hypocritical, conservative, war-mongering teabaggers out of office in November, part of me was happy to see the proverbial shit hitting the fan about this. Nothing would make me happier in this election than to see Dennis Hastert out as a casualty of this scandal.

But, I can't focus on that today. There are too many things making me angry about this scandal right now to focus on the potential positive. I mean, I've heard of dirty politics, and readily acknowledge that essentially every campaign is going to have its share of mud-slinging from both sides, but the end-around that the Republicans are trying on this one truly takes the cake for shamefulness and makes me hope that they all get their own special levels of hell for their deceit.

Issue #1: "Who's to Blame?"

Kirk Fordham, the former chief of staff for Foley (who resigned yesterday, incidentally) has said that he notified top Republican House officials prior to 2005 about Foley's issues. Hastert's people are saying that's not true.

RCC chairman Tom Reynolds says he "did what anyone would do in their workplace: I heard something, and I took it to my supervisor [John Boehner]."

Boehner says that he notified Hastert, and that the speaker said it had been taken care of. He also said that it's Hastert's responsibility to do something about it.

In other words, no gives-ies backs-ies!

Hastert says he didn't know anything about it. Also, when asked about resignation in the Chicago Tribune, he's managed to throw the blame onto anyone and everyone:

"No. Look, I've talked to our members," Hastert said. "Our members are supportive. I think that [resignation] is exactly what our opponents would like to have happen—that I'd fold my tent and others would fold our tent and they would sweep the House."

When asked about a groundswell of discontent among the GOP's conservative base over his handling of the issue, Hastert said: "I think the base has to realize after awhile, who knew about it? Who knew what, when? When the base finds out who's feeding this monster, they're not going to be happy. The people who want to see this thing blow up are ABC News and a lot of Democratic operatives, people funded by George Soros."

So, who do we believe? Who's playing the spin game? Who covered it up? Who's merely trying to throw someone else under the bus to save their own ass? Or, more importantly, who isn't?


Issue #2: "How Can we SPIN This?" and/or "What Sheer Lies Can We Tell to Take the Heat Off?"

In the past few days, we've heard every possible way of deflecting this scandal away from those who are mired in it. For example:

First, when the e-mails and IMs came out, it was because he's an alcoholic. Then, when the shit-storm got deeper as it was reported that he had Internet sex with a high school student (in his office prior to a House vote), it was because he was once molested by a clergyman.

Ann Coulter:
"Who Knew Congressman Foley Was a Closeted Democrat?"
In fairness, though, Ann Coulter is a closeted nut job hack, but you don't see me writing any articles about it. Oh, wait.

Sean Hannity:
"Gerry Studds, Democratic Congressman, 1983, he had sex with a 17 year old page. That's just, not that long ago." (emphasis mine)
Yeah, it was only 23 years ago, Sean. And has nothing to do with Mark Foley.

"And, we're also getting information tonight, that there are Democratically funded websites by people like [George] Soros that had knowledge of this long before it was made public."
I believe it was Jon Stewart who said it best: "Doesn't the responsibility for this really fall at the feet of buckfush.blogsport.org/bardcollege.edu? DOESN'T IT??"

And finally from Hannity, you knew it was going to come up. It was only a matter of time:

"You know something, I-I don't want to bring [former President Bill] Clinton into it... you're gonna say, 'Well, Monica was 19,' but hang on a second..."
Actually she was 22, which is a long way from 16 in terms of adult consent, voting age, drinking age, and generally EVERYTHING ELSE. But other than that, Sean, right on.

Dennis Hastert:
"All I know is what I hear and what I see. I saw Bill Clinton's adviser, Richard Morris, was saying these guys knew about this all along. If somebody had this info, when they had it, we could have dealt with it then."
Umm, according to almost everyone else, Dennie, YOU HAD IT ALL ALONG!!


But, this one takes the cake. On Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show, THEY LABELED FOLEY AS A DEMOCRAT ON THE AIR THREE TIMES! Some might say that's just a mistake, but if it is, it's a HUGE one. I have my doubts about it being unintentional, especially since they offered no public retraction and later simply displayed him as "Former Congressman Mark Foley (FL)." Clever, indeed.

Tonight on three separate occasions, during two different segments, Bill O'Reilly showed video of his fellow culture warrior, boy-crazy Congressman Mark Foley, with the tagline "Former Congressman Mark Foley (D-FL)."

***

Consider that, according to the Columbia Journalism Review and Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) Research Center, Fox News viewers have far more misconceptions on such important issues as Iraq's involvement in the 9/11 attacks than viewers of other networks. Consider also that the average O'Reilly viewer is 71. And that’s just an average. So for every 30-year-old Factor fan, there's a 112-year-old screaming about "secular progressives" and whomever else has criticized Bill. So we can promise you that the average O'Reilly fan is sleeping well tonight with the knowledge that the creep in Florida who was trying to bed boy pages was a Democrat after all.

(link)

So, you can blame the Democrats, or you can just decide to LABEL FOLEY A DEMOCRAT.

All of this is morally reprehensible. They're complaining that the Democrats are trying to politicize this, yet I haven't heard much of anything coming from Democratic campaigns. And, they also forget: they're the people that tried to IMPEACH Clinton for a consentual sexual relationship not even 8 years ago. What's that old saying about those who live in glass houses?