No. If something actually happens because of it, the "gay" thing only makes it funnier and more just. And, obviously, much better than a dead girl.
You don't find it upsetting, Tim?
I find it upsetting that it's getting more attention than the death of habeas corpus, yes.
It would be sort of like Ken Blackwell losing because he's black instead of for his crazy political views. Insert some Eliot allusion about the right thing for the wrong reason.
I pretty much burned out on that kind of outrage years ago. For a long time I have recognized the crappiness of our political dialogue as an unpleasant facts of life which I'll have to learn to deal with.
That's one reason I wasn't at all interested in whether Hastert was really culpable or not, or how serious his offense was. He's certainly culpable in some degree, and if his punishment turns out to be excessive, excellent!
The rules have changed. Basketball didn't use to be a contact sport, but you have to pay it that way now.
No, because it's because of something I've already been upset over. "resigned disappointment" might better capture my feelings.
Yeah, I see your point, John. It's not that I'm outraged, but it still does make me sad that it's come to this.
2: As a threshold matter, I'm not sure my level of upset at any given moment isn't tied to something irrelevant to the issue, like how hungry or tired I am. But also, like Emerson, the way the bill went shouldn't have been surprising; it would have been surprisingly great if it had gone another way. And, on balance, I think we're still better off than we were a few years ago.
4: If Blackwell lost narrowly because of his race, that would be awesome. I wouldn't expect him to lose because of his crazy views--a significant percentage people who would vote for him (52% of the country, say) hold those crazy views.
In either case, it would be great if we lived in a better world than we do, but, given the world we live in, I'm happy if bad guys go down for bad reasons. They weren't going to go down for good ones.
Yeah, Emerson's about right. It would be upsetting if I thought about it. But, hey.
It's upsetting first that the focus won't be on the rights that just keep slip-sliding away, but also that the problem will be that the Congressman is gay rather than the fact that he's a pervert, once again conflating nicely two terms that required a lot of effort to separate.
I was going to post something about Althouse's weird reaction to Sullivan on Foley (not to mention her continuing Clinton obsession) but I just got depressed when thinking about it.
11: If he'd been a Democrat, the gay thing would be driving much of the reaction. So now he knows to choose his friends more wisely next time.
Labs, maybe you need to stop reading the freaky right-wing blogs.
It's the "cunning of reason" at work. The Democrats can only defend liberal values by gay-baiting.
Kotsko; I think the reason the Democrats are responding more aggressively to this is that they'll have the MSM on their side, or at least more neutral, than if they'd pressed harder on the habeus issue. I suspect that the press' issues created what we regard as modern Democratic spinelessness, rather than the other way around.
the problem will be that the Congressman is gay rather than the fact that he's a pervert, once again conflating nicely two terms that required a lot of effort to separate.
All the more reason for comparison to the Catholics' recent scandals. As a Catholic, I think that not making bishop jokes is a grave sin of omission.
I have to say, I hope that it's really true that some Democratic operative was sitting on this info and released it at just the write time. Because that would mean that the Democrats are actually playing the game to win. Otherwise, they remain as lame as ever, but just had a little burst of luck.
"right time"
Jesus, that's a sin I successfully avoid. (You don't know Kay Reid, btw?)
The reason Dems are pushing this is because the Republican constituency really cares about it. The Republican base doesn't care about Iraq, graft, fiscal policy, civil liberties, or the environment, but all of them care, one way or another, about the taut buns of slender teenage boys.
Because of the coverup. the predation will be connected to his being a Republican, more than to teh gay. There is an overall theme of abuse of power and the insider's club, and Republicans are most angry about losing the seat. If the leadership had taken care about this last year, it could have been about teh gay.
Foley shows us that there are or may be some other gay Congresspersons who are not problems, for those that didn't already know. Somehow I feel this story is, believe it or not, a small net plus for gay acceptance.
as I said a few nights ago:
killing the Republicans with a gay sex scandal, after they have gotten away with trashing the Constitution, seems a lot like putting Al Capone away on tax evasion charges and not prosecuting the Valentine's Day Massacre.
Which is to say: I'm all for it.
yeah, sure, you might like to see justice done more directly (i.e. bad people punished for their worst sins, not their most trivial ones).
But these people are *so* bad that the important thing is simply to put them away. Any way we can.
1983 Congressional Sex Scandal
For comparison, and further research. Gingrich understood that a perceived gap between representatives and the base was the danger. But that gap was not in tolerance, but in the abuse of power. Gingrich when he took power in 94 attempted massive reform of Congress.
Democrats are now going thru a similar crisis, of feeling Congress is a job protection scam, unconcerned with issues or constituents.
If this has legs, it will be the coverup.
"Gingrich when he took power in 94 attempted massive reform of Congress."
Maybe. Among a lot of other, more important things.
I guess I would need to explain why this is more of a problem than the Delay or Abramoff financial scandals.
The common line is that the FMA is phony at the Presidential levels, a little less phony in Congress, and soncerely desired by the base. I would say teh gayphobia is less sincere even at the base than is usually supposed, and is for many wingnuts, just a tribal identification sign, like prayer or spending cuts. Corruption is not a wedge issue, not how Republicans identify each other. The Foley scandal kinda blows the cover, reveals the emptiness behind the sign.
Yeah. I do feel that the Abramoff issue is more important than it might have been because gambling was involved, and not just corruption.
Sweet:
"Matthew Loraditch, a page in the 2001-2002 class, told ABC News he and other pages were warned about Foley by a supervisor in the House Clerk's office. Loraditch, the president of the Page Alumni Association, said the pages were told "don't get too wrapped up in him being too nice to you and all that kind of stuff." Staff members at the House Clerk's office did not return calls seeking comment. Some of the sexually explicit instant messages that led to Foley's abrupt resignation Friday were sent to pages in Loraditch's class."Beyerstein.
Wow. From that same link, pages sponsored by Republicans were warned, and pages sponsored by Democrats weren't? That is severely, but severely, fucked up.
Getting back to FL's original question: when I think about the long list of serious issues that have had no traction, whereas this one does have traction, I do go into a rage. But I've been in an intermittent rage for years.
And really, this issue seems much smaller than it's being portrayed. The kids were legally of age, and apparently Foley waited until their page service was done before he tried to lay on the meat.
But I'm so busy gloating that I don't have time to think of that shit. These pious bastards have been pimping teenagers to a Republican Congressman for five years now. And they did warn the Republican pages -- but not the Democratic ones. Sweet.
(And if Instapundit is watching: I'm a Green, and just a tactical Democrat. Insty, it bothers me the way you and your worthless friends and allies have succeeded in trashing this country with fiscal irresponsibility, a return to authoritarianism, and an unnecessary, bungled war.)
I guess Norquist was right: bipartisanship is date rape.
Wow. From that same link, pages sponsored by Republicans were warned, and pages sponsored by Democrats weren't? That is severely, but severely, fucked up.
Wow, boy howdy.
Oh yeah. The repeal of the Bill of Rights? Hundreds of years of the rule of law? Magna Carta down the toilet?
Boring!
Some C-list congressman's stiffened giblets?
Run with it!
Teens? Myspace?
OMG RUN WITH IT! It's the story of the year!
Jesus
30 is transcendent.
I've thought a bit about this. Gay or not, Foley is a perv. That his party fanned the flames of the gay stigma that is now what is really burning him strikes me as sweet irony. Yes its irony built on the sffering of thousands of perfectly nice gay people. But once you accept that you can't get in the wayback machine with your pet boy Sherman and fix that crime, I'll take this result and hope a little bit that Foley gets help, and hope a lot that the nation does too. Because these fuckers are burning the idea of America to the ground.
30: funniest thing I've read all day.
Foley is just another child molester. Comment 18 referenced the Catholic bishop scandal, and while I'm sure there are some priests who are gay, the ones molesting the altar boys were pedophiles, just like Foley. Any attempt to paint Foley as "just another evil homo" should be slapped down immediately and thoroughly.
Sure, the Foley story is big now, but eventually it will be time to turn over a new page.
Foley doesn't have anything to do with the gay community--I don't care how well he knows Michael Jackson. He's a fucking perv. A Republican perv. Emerson's right. So's McManus. And I'll happily PayPay Gary money for all the ammunition he needs.
31,29: they'll save the children, but not the Democrat children.
I don't know if this has been linked already, but Foley was set up.
Shouldn't Pelosi, et al., be asking whether the other child-molesting Republicans will also be investigated?
Oooh! Oooh! Bishop joke! Bishop joke!
I mean, cardinal joke.
The gay angle doesn't bother me at all. He's a Republican. They have made homophobia a major pillar of their platform. Live by the closet, die by the closet. On the other hand, I think outing political and cultural figures who have used homophobia or established homophobes in their climb is a perfectly acceptable tactic.
30: funniest thing I've read all day.
38: The best!
32 & 41 = the bst posts.
You guys are a tough room. No love for my #36? Sheesh.
46: I for one chuckled at 36.
In fairness, you were kinda beaten to the joke, GB.
#49: If I have made more gay intern-sex jokes than others, it is only because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.
Don't give in, GB. You can't just gesture in the general direction of the joke and claim credit; there must be specificity.
And now James Taranto wants a piece of the action.
So gauging my by roommates who I didn't talk to most of the weekend, the Foley story is only just breaking in a lot of people's minds. And now the Moonies want Hastert to resign over it? That'll just keep the story going, especially because he won't resign. And hearing about all of this on the radio this morning while the same radio station's coverage of the No Accountablity for "Unintentional" Torture of 2006 was something like, "OMG, John McCain and President Bush might be breaking up!"
According to Air America's Randi Rhoades (sp), the gay angle is not a big deal, though the religious right will try to spin it that way, while Foley tries to make it about alcoholism. Randi, who is from Florida, was very good friends with someone who ran against Foley for his seat. Everyone and their uncle knew that Foley was gay - but everyone kept it hush-hush for obvious reasons. What no one suspected was that he was a pedophile, which has nothing to do with being gay or straight (hell, any priest can tell you that). So, the whole idea of turning it into a gay issue is kind of null, according to Randi.
54 -- is this the same guy who played guitar with Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath?
Randi Rhodes (corrected spelling) is a political figure on Air America. You can google names if you are trying to figure out who's who.
