a frustrated GOP strategist who spoke on the condition of anonymity essentially agreed, saying his party's mishandling of Foley "speaks to our inability to govern and do the right thing. It says everything about who we are as a party."
And it goes beyond what Foley did to the cover-up of a safe GOP seat. That is what is at issue. How far will this party go to protect their power? How can you trust them when they will allow a predator to roam the halls ogling pages and contacting them as soon as they are out of the program to set up future sex dates as an article in the LA Times notes.
From the Times:
the former page's exchanges with Foley offer a glimpse of possible predatory behavior by the congressman as he assessed male teenagers assigned as House errand-runners.
In the messages, Maf54 described how years earlier, he had looked to see whether the former page had an erection in his tight white pants while the then-teenager was working near the congressman. Maf54 also speculated about the sexual attributes of other males in the same page class, including the observation that one young man was "well hung."
...
Foley's flirtations made the young man feel important at a time when he was struggling with his emerging sexuality. "It seemed cool that he was taking an interest," he said. "I knew he was gay, and he was attracted to me."
After leaving the program, the former page began receiving messages from Foley. He is uncertain how Foley knew his college instant-message name, but assumed the congressman had access to a directory listing former pages' whereabouts.
Wow, isn't that gross? A sexual predator being able to pick up personal information on former pages thanks to the House leadership.
The article notes that the relationship abruptly ended after a one night stand.
In "Conflicting Accounts Leave Plot Holes in Foley Saga" the Washington Post tries to fit together the puzzle pieces floating around DC over Foley. The two I find funniest are the mishmashed piece of Hastert's top aide knowing 3 years ago, yet Hastert who lives with his top aide didn't know a thing until September 29, 2006 after Foley resigned. Conflict or plain out lying?
BTW, I would like to state that I did not read Political Animal Post "FOLEY AS METAPHOR..." before I started this post and as you can see I jumped right in and thought about the same thing as PA. So I'm was feeling pretty smug about coming up with the same conclusion as a smart guy like that, but then I followed his link to Mike O'Hare's article at Reality Based Community "Foleygate is not an ironic diversion" and see I missed the even bigger picture. Boy, is my face red! This is stuff we know about, but putting it together and laying it on the line like that is what is needed in this world. I know a few mainstream news writers that can't do that. Well, maybe I'm aware of a lot of them.
From O'Hare's piece:
The core event in the Foley story is not his hitting on pages but the tolerant, lazy, response of the Republican leadership, and that is not an exception or a bizarre misstep or a sad personal weakness but precisely, exactly, the typical, consistent, morality and practice of the whole gang, right up to the president. I'm referring to their bottomless callous, smirking, willingness to sacrifice the weak for a selfish, petty purpose like
- personal greed, including the orgy of fressing at the trough by contractors and unqualified hires in Iraq
- getting reelected with no visible point except to steal more
- showing Dad you're not an ignorant, careless wastrel
- shameless, endless shoveling the wealth of the many to the few.
More insightful analysis precedes and follows that portion.
George Will says:
Having so quickly exhausted the Oprah approach, the Foley story moved on to who knew what, and when. That drove Speaker Dennis Hastert to the un-Oprah broadcasting couch on which Republicans recline when getting in touch with their feelings. To Rush Limbaugh's 20 million receptive listeners, Hastert, referring to Republicans as "we," said:
"We have a story to tell, and the Democrats have -- in my view have -- put this thing forward to try to block us from telling the story. They're trying to put us on defense."
It is difficult to read that as other than an accusation: He seems to be not just confessing a coverup but also complaining that the coverup was undone by bad manners. Were it not for Democrats' unsportsmanlike conduct in putting "this thing" forward, it would not be known and would not be disrupting Republicans' storytelling.
Actually a nice analysis, Mr, Will except that you forgot to deal with the fact that many mainstream news outlets will not deal with the Democratic candidates as even the LA Timnes notes in regards to Phil Angelidesn in our gubenatorial election out here.
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