Never have dead hookers or live boys in your bed

I was wondering where to start this blog. I figure the best place to start is with gay congressmen and possible sexual misconduct. It can only go up from here.

I was taught years ago in Poli Sci that you don't want to know how sausage or law is made. The concept being that the process is so disgusting that you'd never want to be exposed to it again. That being said, it's important to note what is going on with former Congressman Foley and realize that we're seeing something that is disgusting on so many levels.

We'll start with the obvious: What Mark Foley was doing, whether it comes out that he was having sex with the pages or just playing with himself while he talked to them, the fact is that it was wrong on several levels. He violated the public trust and without speculating on who else he violated over his tenure in Congress, his removal is warranted. Frankly, if he just went away and never came back, no one would miss him.

Next, let's look at who knew. Since the mid 90s, pages had nicknamed FFF or "Foley, the Fag from Florida." This was not a secret. Someone had to know that he was gay and into teenage boys. And you've got to assume that pages talk to one another. So, since everybody knew, why wasn't this guy drummed out in the 90s, when he obviously thought it was ok to proposition high school boys?

For the Democrats, the reason is obvious: This is a perfect scandal to destroy the Republican majority in Congress. Politics, being the beast it is, will consume whatever flesh it can and Foley was an awesome weak link. The best way to weaken Clinton was to expose the fact that Monica Lewinsky serviced him in the Oval office. That tactic gave the Republicans full control of Congress, the Presidency and say over who sits on the Supreme Court.

For years the Democrats sat back, kind of impotent to do anything on the National stage. Anytime they spoke, their voices were shrill at best. The people who stepped up to lead it, were so far out of step with the populous that their candidacy was laughable. I'll cover this in more detail in a different post.

But the Democrats weren't sitting there with their thumbs in their asses. I remember James Carville talking about Louisiana politics one day, when he said something along the lines of "You're safe, unless you're caught with a dead hooker or a live boy in your bed." While the Republicans were finding ways to completely alienate the entire country whether by doing a half ass job securing the border or not working to fix the mess the Republicans created in Iraq, someone was cultivating the Foley story, getting all of the evidence together and trying to find just the right place to drop this "live boy" scandal on the press.

What fascinates me is that the Republicans didn't try to get rid of him themselves, when the damage could have been controlled. Again, the pages knew Foley's reputation. Obviously, the Democrats did too. This didn't happen in a vacuum. Still the Reublicans are standing around shocked that this has happened and trying to say they didn't know.

???

I don't expect them to be all knowing, but damn, man. Pull your heads out of your asses! Did anyone figure out that he was a little TOO interested in the pages? If this is the attention to detail that they show to things AROUND them, does anyone feel safe with these people making decisions that affect national security?

But getting back to the truly disgusting part, this only came out because someone saw the opportunity to make political points. Not from some deep felt, "Dear God. I must do something to save the kids." sentiment. If the Democrats were in power and pretty much running away with it, would this have made the light of day? Be honest now. You know we wouldn't have known about it. It wouldn't have been expedient to divulge that info. And who's to say Foley is the only one? If the pages all got together and talked, there's a good chance that this scandal would grow huge in no time. 537 people are on Capitol Hill. You can't say only one of them looked at the pages and say "I want to hit that!" If there's one perv, there's probably 10-20 that keep it quiet. Maybe those men and women will bow out quietly and not get caught. Maybe we're just setting up for round two, in which case get your popcorn. This will be better than Lost! No idea how long this will go on but I've got to say one thing's true: At least this isn't a boring run up to a November election.