Killing Us Softly
With the Bush regime in power, criminal behavior has been normalized and now even legalized after the fact. I have been away on the California Coast, out of cell phone range, without internet access, yet coming home to news that Congress passed legislation legalizing torture, suspending habeas corpus and defining us all as “enemy combatants” was sadly not much of a surprise. I’ve felt for a long time that they are priming us for open fascism, but I was still holding out hope that when they pushed the button and started legislating oppression that there would be outrage that lasted more than a day or two. Clearly I was wrong.
I also wasn’t surprised to hear that Congress can now claim its very own sexual predator. Rep. Mark Foley is not an alcoholic with bad judgment, he is a pedophile that used his position of power to prey on young boys. His emails and IM conversations show a seduction, a classic example of how sexual predators systematically lure their victims and slowly blur the lines of acceptable discourse with the intent of coercing them into a sexual relationship. But in the end, Foley’s immoral and possibly criminal behavior is not as disgusting as the fact that the GOP leadership actively covered it up. Denny Hastert, without much thought, put the political health of his party above the lives of these young boys. If I believed in hell, I’d have no doubt that there’s a place reserved for Denny Boy there.
To say that the GOP is drunk with power would be the ultimate understatement at this point. They will try to spin Predatorgate as an isolated incident and in no way related to the culture of corruption they have created in DC, but that’s all it is, spin. Mark Foley didn’t fool anyone in the GOP, they just accepted that his desire to prey on young boys was his own business and acting on his destructive impulses was just a perk of the job. This is who they are. They are not outraged at Foley’s behavior, they are pissed that he got caught at a time that will likely have consequences for the Party. That is the extent of their concern.
And so, yet again, America gets a villain. Mark Foley is the bright shining bad guy that we can all agree to hate without ever having to look below the surface. Foley is just another symptom, the problem is a system that has been taken over by criminal elements with no regard for this country, it’s people, it’s laws or it’s history. Nothing is shocking anymore and that is what’s so scary. We have a President that considers our constitution, “just a piece of paper”, a Congress that serves no purpose beyond funneling money upward to a select few and protecting those that break the law to do it. We are no longer a country, we are a crime syndicate with most of us playing the part of frightened neighbors, unwilling or unable to take back our streets from the well armed, morally bankrupt thugs that rule through violence and intimidation. The Sopranos have got nothing on the Bushies. The former steals millions and runs afoul of the law to do it while the latter steals billions and changes the law to make it legal. Plus, of course, the Sopranos are fictional while the Bushies are all too real, a serious and untreated cancer that is killing this country. And we’re letting it happen.
posted by The (liberal)Girl Next Door @ 9:47 AM
8 Comments:
He is a homosexual predator. Rather than looking to his political affiliation (WTF??) to explain a sex crime, look to his sexual appetite to explain it.
This makes a nice distraction from last week's disclosures about the NIE and Woodward's book. Isn't this Rove-ian timing? If Foley was going to go, or even if this would not have been disclosed otherwise... is not the loss of Foley's seat a small price to pay to shift the national dialogue away from Iraq? Again?
Anonymous seems to think points should be given to sexual predators who prefer the opposite sex.
Foley is correctly identified as a paedophile. I'm not sure we can clearly identify his sexual orietation at this point. He had claimed to be straight. The real crime here is paedophilia and the protection of a paedophile by the Republican leadership. (Gosh, where have we seen this before?)
If Foley had committed adultery with a mature man or woman, that would be a matter between him and his family. It's a matter of conscience. But for Foley to pull an Elmer Gantry and actually head a committee to protect children from pedators while he prowled the corridors of Congress, well, come on, anonymous, you're just trying to shift the blame for this crime by engaging in a little gay-bashing. (Maybe Clinton's to blame too, eh?)
Since you're from Washington state update us on how the political races are evolving there and whether HOR candidate, Darcy Burns has a realistic chance of joining Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell in Congress, LGND ?
I came across this article, Tuesday and thought I'd share it with your audience.
Women Hope To Sweep In Washington State
Hope you don't mind.
According to the account, Sen. Barbara Boxer was at Bellvue High over the weekend campaigning and fundraising for them.
As far as I'm concerned, Barbara should've been the Vice-Presidential candidate last time and would be a much better Presidential choice than the Democrat centrist, Hillary.
David,
Nice spin, but when did liberals start getting concerned about sexual misconduct except to get all sweaty just thinking about it participating in it. Studds (appropriately named) got caught with the dripping; I mean smoking gun and Democrats reelected him. In Vermont, Liberal “Judge” Edward Cashman gave a multi-count child rapist sixty days, and the only Vermont politician who makes negative statement about it is a Republican. Then there is Michael “Willie Horton” Dukakis who, as far as I know, stills supports is idea of turning first degree murdering sexual predators loose on society. Our last Democratic President was banging interns two at a time behind his wife’s back and not a single Democrat voted to kick his no-good ass out of office. Clean your own house first otherwise save your sanctimonious prattle.
If the term "moral degenerate" has any validity and can be fairly applied to anyone, there are few people who merit that term more than Rush Limbaugh. He is the living and breathing embodiment of moral degeneracy, with his countless overlapping sexual affairs, his series of shattered, dissolved marriages, his hedonistic and illegal drug abuse, his jaunts, with fistfulls of Viagra (but no wife), to an impoverished Latin American island renowned for its easy access to underage female prostitutes.
Yet that is who Hastert chose as the High Priest of the Values Voters to whom he made his pilgrimage and from whom he received his benediction. The difference between Rush Limbaugh and Mark Foley, to the extent there is one, is one of hedonistic tastes, not moral level. Rush Limbaugh isn't just tolerated within the party that stands for religious piety and moral strength. He is a leader of it, arguably the leader of its most righteous wing.
My, my. It's the old "Not me, You" argument.
Anonymous won't let the facts get in the way of a good story. Judge Edward Cashman is a conservative Republican and was appointed by a Republican governor. Here's the link.
I sense a desperate need to prove Democrats to be perverse when one translates a consensual affair between Clinton and Lewinsky into some neverending Oval Office orgy. But that's what a diet of Republican porn will do to you.
And the flawed bill that released Willie Horton was signed by a Republican governor and was eventually repealed under, yes, Gov. Michael Dukakis.
As for "sanctimonius prattle", it's the Republicans who don't know Right from Wrong. They think the USA is governed by the Holy Bible and not the Constitution. They have a real problem with sex between consenting adults. And apparently the Republican leadership may have known about Foley's little vice as long ago as 1995. Can anonymous say "Cardinal Law"?
It's rather pathetic to see lurid references to Rep. Gerry Studds which neglect the fact that his relationship occurred 33 years ago and 10 years before he was censured for it. It brought in the rules under which Foley was operating. And Studds was honest and open and was reelecting 5 more times to House.
Nice shaare
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