Follow the Foley FolliesI have not written anything about the Foley Follies before now, and I am not likely to write much more after this. Anyone wanting a detailed chronicle of what has transpired and is transpiring, I suggest going to
Talking Points Memo.
I nonetheless have a few observations.I find it fascinating how the Republican leadership in the House immediately decided to throw Denny Hastert under the bus. I think he deserves to be sacked in a grand way, but so do all the other bozos who have been blaming him. House Majority leader John Boehner has always seemed like a slimeball to me, and now I can also say he is a bit of a coward. He couldn't find a podium fast enough to declare that he did everything he could have and that it was all Hastert's fault. All the other bums share responsibility for knowing about Foley's activities and doing nothing about them. Hastert is not the only one who deserves to be kicked to the curb.
- Avoid the subject. Use kids if you have to.
Boehner and the rest of the House GOP leadership have also done damn near everything they can to avoid the subject. A great example is the press conference held by Tom Reynolds two days ago. Who is Tom Reynolds? He is a Representative from New York's 26th District. He is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee. He also happens to be the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC),
which is "a political committee devoted to increasing the 231-member Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives." In other words, the NRCC is the major fund raiser and strategy group for getting Republicans elected to and staying in the House. And now its leader is up to his eyeballs in a huge underage, homosexual sex scandal. Oh, sweet irony! Anyhoo, his press conference was devoted to the subject of predatory online sexual solicitation of minors. Again, sweet, sweet irony. Reynolds had gathered around him a group of small children, and here is part of the exchange with reporters:
Reporter: Congressman, do you mind asking the children to leave the room so we can have a frank discussion of this, because it's an adult topic. It just doesn't seem appropriate to me.
Reynolds: I'll take your questions, but I'm not going to ask any of my supporters to leave.
Reporter: Who are the children, Congressman? Who are these children?
Reynolds: Pardon me?
Reporter: Who are these children?
Reynolds: Well, a number of them are from the community. There are several of the "thirtysomething" set that are here and uh I've known them and I've known their children as they were born.
Reporter: Do you think it's appropriate for them to be listening to the subject matter though?
Reynolds: Sir, I'll be happy to answer your questions, I'm still, uh…
You can see the video
here. Aside from the legitimate question of the appropriateness of talking about sexual predators in front of a group of small children, and aside from the fact that--in my opinion--the presence of children would deter a frank and open discussion of that topic, ain't it oh so convenient that at a press conference where everyone knows the #1 topic will be Foley and Reynolds's involvement--a topic which I definitely think is inappropriate for small children--Reynolds has small children all around him and refuses to dismiss them from the room? And this is the guy in charge of getting Republicans elected to the House.
And while we are talking about the NRCC, let's talk about what it wants to do with the $2.7 million raised by Foley during his campaign. As reported by the
New York Times,
Carl Forti, the communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Sunday that the committee would gladly accept Mr. Foley’s money or part of it to devote to House races.
Josh Marshall put this matter most succinctly when
he wrote "Hate the sin but love the sinner's money?" As has been stated on this blog before, it's all about money and power.
And that brings me to my concluding points...
- The Follies could bring down people who don't deserve it.
This scandal could be the thing that gives the House majority back to the Democrats (assuming that the Dems take advantage of it, which is far from a certainty). This scandal could effectively take focus away from other issues, and it could penalize some House Republicans who have no connection to the scandal. For instance, Chris Shays from Connecticut could end up losing. I like Chris Shays. His is a voice I think needs to stay in office. And yet, because of a sex scandal in which he is no way involved, he could be out.
- What goes around comes around
Karma is a gigantic bitch, ain't it? Politics has become focused on scandals, especially those of a sexual nature. And listen up, Republicans, you reap what you sow. This obsession with sex scandals was created by the GOP during the Clinton witch hunt, and don't even try to argue otherwise. Yes, there were Democratic sex scandals before Clinton (Gary Hart, for example), but it did not take years of Inquisition-like investigations and tons of money to expose those. Millions upon millions were spent trying to pin something--anything--on Clinton, and after trying for years and failing, it came down to Clinton getting a blowjob from an intern. And even today, morons like Sean Hannity are trying to dredge up Clinton and Monica to somehow blame the Foley Follies on the Democrats. Hannity and his ilk have also made a point of how many gay Democrats have been in Congress, which is completely irrelevant. Oh, and Fox News several times last night showed a picture of Foley with a caption that identified him as a Democrat. Idiots.
This is related to karma being a bitch. Let's see, Clinton had sex with a 21-year old (as in well above legal age in every state and the District of Columbia) woman. Mark Foley was engaging in sexual behavior with
underage boys. And Foley's a
Republican. What's more, the Republican
leadership knew or had reason to know that Foley was gay and had sexual predator tendencies and did nothing about Foley and tried to cover up the matter. How about that anti-gay party of family values, huh?
By the way, I am highlighting the hypocrisy here. I don't care one bit that Foley is gay. The immoral thing here is that his targets were underage.
I heard on the radio this morning a quote from a Republican spokesman that "our opponents want Hastert to resign." Well, from a strategic standpoint, this opponent does not want that. Strategically, it will be better for the Democrats if all of the House Republican leadership stays right where they are. What the GOP needs to do is get rid of Hastert, Boehner, Reynolds, and anyone and everyone connected to this sorry mess. All of those people should be sacked immediately. Only in that way can the GOP appear to have any kind of morality, backbone, and lack of hypocrisy. It's time to take some responsibility and show accountability.
Will that happen? Indications thusfar say "no," and that would be a bad move right now.
3 Comments:
Hello WC and all,
Good article! You should appreciate what I have to say also. Keep up the good works!
If they're going to go around attacking others for not living up to their professed values, it's a damn good idea to be truthful and actually walk the walk. Logs and motes in the eye, glass houses, kettle's and pots, and what goes around comes around, et al. Karma's a bitch when She finally decides enough is enough! This wouldn't have been so bad on Republicans if they hadn't been such arrogant hypocrites in order to corner the so-called values voters! Now the Two Candlesticks and Two Witnesses (Truth and Justice) are breathing fire and raining hailstones!
Christian Political Leadership, Hypocrisy, Duplicity, and Purposeful Evil
The current scandal involving Congressman Foley is merely the latest in an amazingly long list of blatant deception and duplicity by Republicans and the Christian Right in recent years. While bedeviling us all with their holier-than-thou pretenses, they consistently support and/or perform blatant greed and abominable evil. Never forget the extent of their arrogance over the last two decades and especially the last 6 years. It is beyond amazing that Christians continue to blindly support such obviously blatant scoundrels, even as they are repeatedly exposed going against the most basic of human values. The level of hypocrisy and duplicity boggles the mind. There is no longer any doubt, whatsoever, that Christianity is little more than a purposeful deception used by political and religious leaders to dupe, manipulate, and coerce entire populations into giving them wealth and power, which they always use for greed, injustice, and abominable evils.
The actions of Foley and those who covered up for him directly parallel the actions of scores of priests that have raped innocent children, preyed upon others for centuries, and had their actions hidden and abetted by the Vatican. Now, in eerie repetition of Vatican history, we have a power hungry Christian Emperor (GW) working closely with the Vatican and Judeo-Christian aristocrats to lead crusades in the so-called Holy Land. Furthermore, to leave little doubt about the reality of this assessment, the USA, as the new Holy Roman Empire, is about to legalize the torture it has perpetrated in recent years while steadily reversing many of the democratic and civil freedoms that people gained when the Vatican and royalty lost control of their European empire at the turn of the nineteenth century. Now we see them following the same old path of evil as they strive to cement the status of the USA as the latest proxy Vatican empire. Make no mistake about it, the new dark ages are looming on the horizon unless we do something proactive to prevent it.
Remember that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it!
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Here is Wisdom !!
Peace...
I am worried that you are not saying what you really think. ;-)
Don't worry about being long-winded here (I read your profile). LOL! I wholeheartedly agree about going past soundbites to really examine matters.
There certainly are seeming parallels between now and the history you cite, although I liken the Bush administration to other recent history, but that is definitely another topic for another time. I don't think that the USA is becoming a "proxy Vatican empire," although in this crazy world many things are possible. Even so, I definitely don't like what is happening in the US and what I see as what we are losing and what we are becoming. To me, it seems that the actions of the Bush administration are akin to establishing an empire which is proxy for no one.
"There is no longer any doubt, whatsoever, that Christianity is little more than a purposeful deception used by political and religious leaders to dupe, manipulate, and coerce entire populations..."
I take issue with how you have worded this. Christianity is more than what you describe, but it has been treated as a tool for purposes which I believe are decidedly non-Christian. In other words, what I hold as Christianity is really none of the things you describe, but it has been misappropriated and used for the purposes you describe.
Indeed, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. I would add that those who fail to recognize the past in the present are likewise doomed.
I understand your concern about "railing against Christians," but I have a concern about some (certainly not you) in the Religious Right railing against Christians they feel are not Christian enough. And that makes for a segue to your last point, which is...
"We need to distinguish between Christians who join the political process and politicians who merely use Christianity as a tool and use it very poorly."
Nicely stated.
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