Something interesting happened on the way to the scandal …<\/p>\n
Okay, so everyone despises Mark Foley. But, really, if it were all just about him, nobody’d be all that torqued at the GOP. After all, scandal nips at both parties’ heels at times. While attempts to excuse it away by turning it into a conspiracy of Gay Republican Staffers is laughable, or deflect it quoting all those Dems who said that Bill Clinton was a jerk as a person but a great leader as a President is ludicrous (since nobody is actually arguing that Foley should have remained in office),
\nthe most insidious effort has been the GOP and right-wing pundits’ moves to make this … about Mark Foley.<\/p>\n
But it’s not. Because everyone agrees he’s scum and should be thrown to the lions. Literally.<\/p>\n
What the whole “Foley” scandal is about (and praise the Maker I haven’t heard anyone refer to it as “Foleygate” yet) is not what some perv-in-Congressman’s-clothing did on IM and e-mail to high school-age pages. It’s about what the Congressional leadership — the GOP<\/em> leadership — did about it as it came to light. Which, as far as I can tell, was pretty much nothing, except reporting it up to superiors who progressively can’t remember ever being told about it (let alone ever learning the That’s the scandal. That’s the basis by which Democratic voters are liable to make a greater effort to get to the polls, and GOP voters less of one. It’s not about Foley (except for the people in his district) — it’s about the power structure that implicitly (or explicitly) protected him in order to avoid the risk of losing their power.<\/p>\n That’s<\/em> what people need to remember for a few more weeks …<\/p>\n And that’s what the GOP and their media supporters are so urgently hoping they can make people forget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Something interesting happened on the way to the scandal … Okay, so everyone despises Mark Foley. But, really, if it were all just about him, nobody’d be all that torqued…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-2006"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9957,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/06\/more_foley_follies.html","url_meta":{"origin":9902,"position":0},"title":"More Foley Follies","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 6-Oct-06 6:42am","format":false,"excerpt":"A history of Congressional sex scandals, esp. regarding the page program. What's of note is (a) neither party comes out looking particularly good, and (b) how many of the...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9987,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/02\/politics_over_protection.html","url_meta":{"origin":9902,"position":1},"title":"Politics over protection","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 2-Oct-06 9:51am","format":false,"excerpt":"I hope this blows up in the GOP Congressional Leadership's face, big-time. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) was notified early this year of inappropriate e-mails from former representative Mark...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9948,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/06\/newts_are_small_and_slimy.html","url_meta":{"origin":9902,"position":2},"title":"Newts are small and slimy","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 6-Oct-06 9:50pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Except for the former GOP House Speaker. He's not small ... Found the Gingrich quote I was looking for -- from NPR's Morning Edition this morning: CORLEY: Before addressing a...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9965,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/05\/tipping_point.html","url_meta":{"origin":9902,"position":3},"title":"Tipping point","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 5-Oct-06 6:42am","format":false,"excerpt":"I've read a lot of folks wondering why -- after everything else that's gone on under the GOP leadership of the Congress and White House in the past five-plus --...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9739,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/11\/08\/jaccuse_3.html","url_meta":{"origin":9902,"position":4},"title":"J’accuse!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 8-Nov-06 10:46am","format":false,"excerpt":"Aha! The reasons the Republicans lost the House (and, maybe, the Senate) wasn't because of Tom Delay, or Bill Frist, or Mark Foley, or Karl Rove, or Jack Abramoff, or...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2006"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2006","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2006"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9973,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/03\/irony_or_just_sadness.html","url_meta":{"origin":9902,"position":5},"title":"Irony, or just sadness?","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 3-Oct-06 10:27am","format":false,"excerpt":"A lot of folks are (happily, in some cases) noting the reprehensible irony of Rep. Mark Foley's being a key person behind various \"protecting children from sexual predator\" kinds of...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nstory of how Caesar’s wife must be beyond reproach).<\/p>\n