I don't know any more about the Foley thing than any of you do. So what follows is a mix of fact, speculation and opinion. In other words, the usual.

Do I think sleazy emails between a 50 year old man and a sixteen-year-old are fucking sleazy? Yeah. I do. (And really, by the time you trigger my moral radar you've pushed it pretty far.) Foley's my age. I maintain a fifteen year rule: don't be looking at people any more than 15 years your junior. It's not a question of morality alone, it's also a matter of dignity: you're old, stop drooling over people young enough to be your kid, you're making everyone sick.

Did Denny Hastert screw up? Oh yeah. Hey, you big dumb-ass: only a moron doesn't know that a 50 year old man who asks for pictures from a sixteen year old is looking to score. You're a former coach, Mr. Speaker, so don't play dumb. If it was one of your former coaches you'd have known it was wrong.

Is the media missing the real story? Maybe. Congressman Reynolds was chair of the NRCC, the Republican re-election committee. He took $100,000 from Foley last July. And then he sent his chief of staff, himself a former Foley handler, to try and quash the ABC story. Follow the money. Follow the money and work your way up the chain-of-command. Foley to Reynolds to Hastert. Mmmm, smells like cover-up.

Do I think Hastert has known for a long time that Foley was a perv? Yeah. Do I think he covered it up for purely political reasons? Yeah. Do I think Reynolds and Hastert squeezed a fat 100k donation out of Foley in exchange for their continued acquiescence? Yeah.

Do I think Democrats, or at least someone allied with Democrats leaked this? Sure. Did they time it for maximum political impact? Duh.

Am I upset that a Democrat would pull this? Please. It's like seeing the pitiful, drunken street person in a bumfight video suddenly pivot and nail the cameraman with a short, sharp left. It's like watching the spindly little bookworm turn and knock the school bully on his ass. The Republicans have been pulling this shit for my entire adult life. Now it's their turn in the barrel. So, waaaah. Shut up.

Is this a gay thing, as the Right is desperate to have us believe? No, it's a man thing. The only problem with gay men is that they're men. (Gay women don't seem to have the same issues, do they?) Men are hounds. I know. I've been one my whole life. A man, I mean. We do pretty much all the bad things in the world: murder, rape, pillage, drinking straight from the milk bottle. And there's a reason why "he thinks with his dick," is a fairly common phrase, whereas no one ever says, "she thinks with her vagina."

Was the GOP reluctant to act against Foley because they were afraid of being accused of gay-bashing? This argument is pathetic on so many levels. 1) Since when is the GOP reluctant to gay-bash? 2) Is that the definition of leadership now? We'll only do what's right if no one criticizes us? 3) Name one Democrat who would have stepped up to defend a GOP congressman from even the tamer early emails? Exactly. So, STFU. (Shut The Fuck Up.)

Is Hastert safe now? No. My sense is he's where he started the day, around a 30% chance of being forced to relinquish his crown. He was rising from 30% toward 50% but he counterattacked well using the conservative Mainstream Medium of talk radio to appeal to the zombies and Alzheimers victims who form Rush Limbaugh's audience. But there may be other shoes preparing to drop. It's all a question of 30 second spots: the Republicans will support or abandon Hastert entirely on the basis of calculations as to which outcome helps Democrat media consultants more.

Will this hurt the GOP in the mid-terms? Yes. Not a lot, because so-called "values voters" are endlessly flexible about applying their alleged values. (They're relativists when it comes to denouncing moral relativism.) But it will hurt some. Some of the bible thumpers will be a little less excited about rushing out to vote for a party that can't figure out whether it's a good thing or a bad thing for a fifty-something bachelor to be trolling for pics of sixteen year olds.

Am I enjoying all this? What kind of man do you think I am? Of course I'm enjoying it.

This entry was posted by Michael Reynolds, on Tuesday, October 03, 2006. You can leave your response.