Listen up, Democrats
By Neil Stevens Comments (34) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Republicans are not going to concede this House election 435-0 just because we're disgusted at former Rep. Foley. It's insulting to everyone's intelligence for you to act shocked that we don't rend our clothes and dwell on this until mid-November.
So quit faking. We all know the way you lionize Rep. Studds, and the only reason Studds doesn't have transcripts that nail him to the wall is that such technology wasn't widespread in the early 80s. And we'll never forget the way you stood by your President Clinton.
We don't believe you. This whole incident only serves as a crystal-clear illustration of your twisted view of 'hypocrisy.' In your simplistic view of the world, nobody ever can hold a higher standard for human behavior than they can reach themselves, without being a hypocrite. Therefore the only sexual non-hypocrites are those who do not condemn bounds-free sex, even if they are predators like Clinton and Studds.
Foley, however, is hated even more by you guys than even than even the average Republican. Because he opposed behaviors he considers immoral, and yet has a weakness which leads him to commit such acts, you hate him not as a predator, but as a hypocrite and as a 'traitor to homosexuals.'
Look: no sensible Republican would ever expect Democrats to immolate themselves if it turned out that, say, a Democratic Senator was into sex with teenage interns. We would expect you to condemn that Senator sharply, just as front page writers at Red State have invariably done with respect to Foley. But it would be foolish to expect that you'd quit on the business of the country, the party, and your candidates just because of one freak.
So get off your fake high horses and get back to politics. You're insulting everyone's intelligence here, and worse, you're just going to make yourselves look even worse the next time you defend an elected Democrat who uses his position to get sex from subordinates.
P.S. Anyone who calls Foley a pedophile had best have been on record BEFOREHAND as opposing any age of consent below 18 under any circumstances.
[UPDATE]: When I say "your President Clinton" I'm trying to parallel the song title "Stand By Your Man." I'm not disclaiming that he was my President. He most certainly was, though I wish he'd done more things I could cheer, such as when he sent in the Navy to brush back Red China, or fired missiles at terrorists.
Heh, yes, it is possible that this will backfire on them yet. I think the key is whether this surprise turns off many Republicans.
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.
If the Dems want to scrap, I'm game.
This is PRECISELY the kind of fighting attitude we need.
"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)
see drudge siren
http://devine-gamecock.townhall.com
www.race42008.com
"Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face." - Ronald Reagan
And they say democrats have no plan. Yet here it is unfolding before our very eyes.
With their legion of pocket lawyers, sleazy reporters, anonymous sources and, no doubt, a fair amount of voodoo and devil-invocation, Democrats and their lackeys collude to issue as many frivolous indictments as they can over the last few years. Fake money laundering charges. Fake fitzmases. They make wild accusations. They target the only network that's not in their back-pocket and attack it with wild accusations. They have Bill Clinton (in a fit of indictment irony) set the stage for wrath. They bombard the airwaves day after day after with culture of corruption talking points, and they sit on a criminal act, saving it up as the coup de grâce.
The one we can't call fake or trumped up, that lone madman, that sleazebag wanna-be pedophile.
Then they burst onto the networks in glorious righteous rage, pointing at the slew of indictments amid the conveniently increasing revelations about sleazebag and say "There! There is your Republican party! There are your criminals and pedophiles!"
Why would they keep trying to pin weak cases year after year? So they could have a long list of names under suspicion or under indictment, that's why.
You think I'm spitballing? I believe every bit of it (except maybe the voodoo devil parts ... maybe). It's possible, it's plausible, it's exactly in line with their fake-but-true mentality. It's transparent and it's precisely the kind of thing you can pull off when you run with lawyers, sharks, and a corrupt media.
I said much the same in the comments at americablog, where they are lauding one of their own for his unhinged rant video. Americablog, by the way, is increasingly being tapped by CNN and MSNBC as a reliable source. Just another cheery little FYI for you.
Let's not forget that the ACLU - a major Democratic constituency group whose ranks Bill Clinton looked to in order to pluck Ruth Bader Ginsberg for the Supreme Court - has as one of it's client the North American Man-Boy Love Association.
Democrats' selective outrage on this is totally without merit.
Clinton almost 7 years ago. Both Bush and Clinton have had Bin Ladscmuck in thier cross hairs torabora. Gett over it. Be here Now!
I think i'm going to take a break now before this guy goads me into really typing angry, heh.
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.
If and (let's face it) when this ever happens in the future and the perp is a Democrat, you can expect that people like me will criticize and purge the offender from our ranks without ever considering not continuing to vote Democratic.
I've been a long-time lurker on your site, and this is the first diary that has prompted me to actually join and post. It is a very well-written and, more importantly, correct assessment of the situation.
I, for one, am sick of this sort of mock outrage on both sides of the political spectrum. No one thinks that Foley is undeserving of punishment for his behavior, but painting all Republicans with the same brush because of it doesn't do anyone any good at all.
Let's get back to discussing, arguing, and fighting for our respective philosophies in a constructive manner. We have real differences in our approaches to governance and those differences matter. But they are minor compared to the things we agree about (which is probably a liberal viewpoint).
WestCoastLiberal
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Posting as a proud liberal, not a fake conservative. Let's be civil.
I'm calling BS on "WestCoatLiberal" comment. Seems an obvious shill comment to me. If several members of the the repub house leadership were either negligent in their duty or actively covered this up, the repubs should be voted out wholesale. Let's see how this unfolds.
One thing is for sure, term limits are needed to sorely. the old folks in congress accumulate way too much power and become too adept at working the channels of power, and that goes for both parties.
Every other November, the people get to decide whether to term limit every incumbent in the House.
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.
Term limits can limit the damage any one individual can do. Of course, it also limits the good any one individual can do. But power does corrupt, and it seems to me that limiting the damage is more important than limiting the good.
But let me clear up some things. My response was to the original blog, in particular the paragraph that starts with "Look:".
What I am saying is that if a Democrat were guilty of this, I would want to purge that Democrat from my party, but in no way would I then be tempted to leave the Democratic Party.
Let me also be clear about something else: if the Foley affair ends up costing the Republicans control of the House (probable) and/or Senate (less probable) then nobody will be happier than I will be.
I agree with your second sentence completely. If Republican House leadership covered up or even failed to fully investigate Foley, then they should go. Believe me, I am not defending Hastert, Reynolds, and Boehner. But I want them to go anyway, preferably because Democrats can convince voters that they will provide a better alternative. As you say, let's see what unfolds.
My objection in all of this is the attitude from the Democratic side that somehow this is evidence that all Republican leaders are hypocrites or closet pedophiles. That's ridiculous on its face. The worst thing that can be said (and it is plenty bad by itself, if true) is that Hastert and Company chose to protect their power rather than protecting the pages, but this has yet to be definitively proven. I agree it does look bad, but let's be honest: I'm predisposed to believe the worst about Republican leadership.
Of course, in the discussion of this blog you have some conservatives making ridiculous comments like the NAMBLA-loving ACLU Democrats are hypocrites, so it's not just my side that needs to watch the hyperbole.
WCL
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Posting as a proud liberal, not a fake conservative. Let's be polite.
(1) Full disclosure: I'm a Democrat. Not entirely happy with either party, but less unhappy with the Dems. So why am I here? I just joined tonight after reading the following on (drum roll . . .) DailyKos:
"I will admit it, I read Redstate a lot. I have even posted there a few times, only to be banned rather quickly. Often I don't agree with what they have to say, but compared to LGF or drudge, several posters there are very intelligent, caring, and patriotic Americans. They just happen to be conservative republicans. I find some of the threads on redstate to be sobering, especially when they force me to confront my own beliefs with logical arguments. Other times, I find myself laughing (just as they laugh at us "kos kidz") at how much they have missed the point."
Here's the DKos link to that comment: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/3/162151/723
So, I figured I'd check y'all out. I don't expect to convert you to Democrats. Just in search of a little mutual understanding. I promise to respect your intelligence while I'm here.
(2) Let's stipulate the obvious -- no matter the sexes of the people involved, it's wrong for a 40-something with power or influence over a teen to initiate sexual contact with that teen. With that out of the way, a couple of things make the Foley scandal different from the Studds scandal. (a) Was there any indication the Dem leadership covered up the Studds affair between the time it happened (1973) and the time it became public (1983)? This is not a rhetorical question -- I really don't know. (b) 23 years. And not just any 23 years -- a 23 years in which gay issues have been prominent in American political life. In those 23 years, it's become increasingly clear that people are gay because they can't help it; and that the closet destroys people, it corrupts, it's destructive of honest, healthy, respectful relationships between friends, family members, coworkers, etc. The Democratic leadership will acknowledge these increasingly-obvious facts, but the Republican leadership won't. Why won't the Republican leadership acknowledge the obvious? Because they're still trying to convince the religious right to stay on board. In other words, the Repub leadership is duping a large part of the Repub rank-and-file coalition. Or, even if you assume some of the Repub leadership still thinks homosexuality is just some kind of fashionable "lifestyle choice," at the very least there's a split in the Repub leadership between those who really believe this and those who are willing to betray their own convictions in order to dupe the religious right. I think this is why the Foley scandal resonates with Dems -- the question, "Why was Foley in the closet?" forces the Repub leadership to confront either its own hypocrisy or one of its major constituencies.
Let's stipulate the obvious -- no matter the sexes of the people involved, it's wrong for a 40-something with power or influence over a teen to initiate sexual contact with that teen.
Here's what I learned about sexual harassment law as a corporate manager, before anyone had heard of Monica Lewinsky: not only is it "wrong" and reprehensible, if anyone in a position of authority has a sexual relationship with someone (regardless of age) over whom they exert supervisory authority, it is illegal and actionable. This is called "quid pro quo" sexual harassment (as contrasted with the "hostile workplace" variety).
Quid pro quo harassment is abusive for several reasons. Obviously, the more powerful person is abusing their position even if the subordinate ostensibly "consents" to the relationship (are they really free to refuse?) Since the abuser often rewards the abusee with other benefits (raises, promotions, time off, other privileges), it is grossly unfair to everyone else in the organization.
There. That feels better. I know its kind of off-point, as the pages were underage volunteers, but I've been wanting to explain that to a Democrat for about 8 years.
...or at least someone who usually votes that way...(my votes for Guiliani for Mayor of NYC and Ahnuld for Guv of CA notwithstanding)...
Hello RedStaters. I'm a liberal/libertarian DKosser who came over to check out your site after a diarist today commented that yours was by far the most thoughtful and literate of the major conservative blogs. I've read a few diaries and comment strings and in general I'd have to say I agree, and I intend to read more. I hope my comments won't be trolled or deleted just because I'm not one of the true redstate believers...
In terms of this diary, I'd like to say a few things. One, none of us -- not a single commenter at DKos or elsewhere in the blogosphere that I have read -- approves of Foley's behavior, or approves of any middle-aged person, of any sexual orientation, using a position of power to prey on underage kids. Nor, I suspect, would most Democrats in the early 80s have approved of Gerry Studds (I don't know enough about his career to know why and how he managed to keep getting reelected). Nor, most importantly, do most Democrats have the attitudes to which you ascribe us, that "anything goes," that there's no such thing as universal standards for personal behavior, or anything of the sort. I, for one, am a married father of a little girl who considers any preying on under-18s by older men simply evil, and in many cases surely deserving of prison time. So please stop painting us with your absurd moral relativism brush. We think Saddam was evil. We think terrorism is evil. We think pedophilia and sexual predation is evil. We even think Bill Clinton cheating on his wife with Monica Lewinsky was evil (though not necessarily deserving of consuming the entire country's attention and enormous amounts of federal resources to ferret out). Were I in Congress, I would surely have voted to censure the guy.
(And by the way, while you're listing the things Clinton did that you'd like to applaud as a conservative, could you please not forget to include balancing the budget, helping lower the crime rate by putting 100,000 more cops on the street, supporting and helping to pass a free trade agreement, supporting and helping to reform welfare, and deregulating the banking and telecommunications industries? The guy was so clearly more of a libertarian than our current president, it's not even funny. Just sayin').
Where many of us part company, no doubt, is on the subject of homosexuality itself. What two adults do in the privacy of their bedroom doesn't bother me at all, and if they were allowed to get married (which of course as a neo-libertarian I believe they should be allowed to do), it wouldn't threaten my marriage or my child. Live and let live, I say, and I simply don't approve of government trying to regulate people's legal private behavior because of what one group of citizens believes God believes about the subject.
To address this diary's main point, however: I don't think most Democrats expect the GOP to just roll over and give up the House (and Senate) because of the Foley scandal. We certainly do, however, hope that this scandal (which is far more about the lax GOP House leadership than about Foley himself) will cause lots of swing voters to vote Democratic, and lots of the GOP base to stay home in disgust. At this point, I am so repelled by this administration, and by the Republican leadership in general, that I truly fear for America if the GOP is allowed to continue its unchecked leadership for another two or more years. So anything that pulls the GOP out of power is just fine by me. I am rooting, wholeheartedly, for a GOP wipeout and Democratic ascendancy next month.
And no, I am by no means a hardcore leftist or liberal. As noted, I've voted GOP a few times, when the GOP candidate best met my neo-libertarian standards and beleifs. And I supported President Bush's original decision to invade Iraq; I felt such a grand gesture was probably necessary to sufficiently change the political equation in the Arab Muslim Middle East. But I am, like most educated, aware Americans, utterly appalled by the incompetence and indifference with which this war has been waged, not to mention the war in Afghanistan. We're in the process of losing both countries, and if the "war on terror" is anywhere near as important as our president likes to claim it is, I'd like to know why we aren't sending in more troops, why we never had enough troops to begin with, why we let bin Laden and his leadership escape at Tora Bora, why we've never had a competent plan for the postwar Iraqi occupation, and on and on. I'm also, as a neo-libertarian, appalled beyond words at the needless assault on the Bill of Rights, which until 9/11 would have (or should have) appalled any lover of the American ideal of individual freedom. In another diary, a RedStater discusses the potential alliance between libertarians and Democrats. You're going to see that alliance in action on November 7th, most notably in the western states, which are swiftly tilting back toward the blue side of the spectrum -- and the reason is this White House's, and the current GOP's, apparent contempt for the Constitution. The libertarian strain is very strong in the American soul -- always has been, hopefully always will be -- and if you really think that today's GOP in any way respects or supports that philosophy, you are simply deluded.
For brevity's sake I won't even go into issues like government spending, Medicare, and so on. I'll stop now. Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll all allow me to stick around awhile.
Oh no no no. This is nothing of the sort. This was passionate, but not angry. This wasn't even angry.
Head exploding? Heh. There's a reason I don't participate in political discussions on the internet outside of Red State, in general.
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.
it must be October or something and the surprises are going to just keep coming and coming.
I can't wait to see what the FBI digs up with this Foley thing and I hope it's quick and I hope it get's as much news as the rest of it has.
I'm a Christian/atheist and a gay/homophobe or is it liberal/libertarian but if that makes no sense you're right none of those fit together.
Well done is better than well said. —Benjamin Franklin
Look, I'm willing to concede that there is an equal liklihood of both sides harboring pedophiles (probably not true* - but I'll concede it).
What we find inexcusable is Hastert's covering for him. The general lapse in morals among those who knew what was up. It also seems that the current party seems to have a steady stream of associates being convicted - Abramhoff, Delay, etc. In general, the moral thing is looking pretty shakey and it looks cultural. Power first, morals second.
I don't believe a single Dem is trying to paint all Reps as pedophiles. But its getting pretty easy to spray paint them as power hungry, corrupt, and morally bankrupt. Clean your house, do it publicly, and for crying out loud, quit with the wedge issues, the phony piety, and the fear mongering. Its getting old. Frankly, it would be good for the US to have congress controlled by one party and the administration by the other.
Single party rule hasn't worked out too well. We need the adversarial relationships to keep things tight and lean.
"Single party rule hasn't worked out too well."
Poor beleaguered democrats, is that what you're saying? Haven't had the majority so therefore it's a one-party system? I'm guessing when you have the majority it's just "fair". Or are you saying you want to win the congress but not the Presidency? Uh-huh. You're such hypocrites.
I mean, you guys are really something to talk about fear-mongering, what with cars ending the world and republicans rolling back the constitution. George Bush is creating 9/11s and Halliburton is creating tsunamis in New York City right? Fear-mongering? You guys invented it! What a joke.
And you don't think a single Dem is trying to paint all Reps as pedophiles? Go back to dailykos and read the comments sections. Go to americablog.
In fact, please, go to americablog, there to stay. Buh bye now.
Plenty of people think divided government is probably best. I'm not one of them, but I don't think they're necessarily crazy. Surely these non-crazies have the right to join one political party or the other.
The rest of your reply is hype. There are idiots and fear-mongers on both sides. You have no reason to think the poster to whom you're replying is one of them.
You said the secret word. Please provide the documentation called for in the article.
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.
If I can't find the stuff from 1998 where I said that it was disgusting that Clinton was hitting on his staff, specifically, the women who looked about a year out of college (and how it's a step above pedophilia), am I allowed to use the term with regards to Foley?
Or should it just be assumed that since I don't have much problem with 16-17 year olds engaging in congress with each other (at least, not to the point where I think that the government should get involved), I shouldn't really have a problem with a fiftyish congressman trying to engage in congress with a potential constituent who is not yet old enough to buy cigarettes?
I'm just wondering at what point I become a hypocrite when I condemn Foley.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire
It's possible to dislike what Foley has done without calling him a pedophile. Pedophile is a word with a specific meaning, which makes the people the word applies to exceedingly dangerous.
To apply it to Foley OR Clinton is at best outlandishly ignorant of what the word means.
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If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.
at least headline news anyway did I miss something?
Well done is better than well said. —Benjamin Franklin
...and I challenge you to find a single post in which any poster, no matter how leftist and/or crazed (and believe me, we have plenty of crazed leftists there), claimed that all Republicans are pedophiles. I doubt very much that any such post exists.
Many Kossacks do, of course, believe that all Republicans are corrupt and evil. But not pedophiles. ;)
they would have given him an Academy Award.
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Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the Gods, and the judge of words...-Inscription on the Royal Tombs at Thebes
Neil,
Do you think the dem's could play out all of their feelings in the same astute way they did with a funeral a few years back?
You’re a persistent cuss, pilgrim.
John Wayne to Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance