There’s a lot of speculation on the who knew what when about Mark Foley, with some Republicans crying “foul” about timing and Democratic smear campaigns, while people from all possible political stripes focused on what looks like a cover-up to preserve GOP numbers in the House.
The hypocrisy is rampant and bi-partisan, and Nick Anderson’s cartoon last night was a brilliantly executed depiction of this aspect. (Ed: link now working.)
Much of the finger-pointing at the GOP’s moral hypocrisy, though, is the direct result of their pandering to a group that has skewed the party’s identity radically in recent years: the socially conservative “Religious Right“. It’s their parasitic influence on the GOP host that has brought the party to this spectacular implosion.
David Corn writes:
On CBS News on Tuesday, correspondent Gloria Borger reported that there’s anger among House Republicans at what an unidentified House GOPer called a “network of gay staffers and gay members who protect each other and did the Speaker a disservice.” The implication is that these gay Republicans somehow helped page-pursuing Mark Foley before his ugly (and possibly illegal) conduct was exposed. The List–drawn up by gay politicos–is a partial accounting of who on Capitol Hill might be in that network.
Lest ye fear the source of the above, others of less-blue credentials have also been discussing The List in various contexts, and frankly, the mere existence of such a thing reminds me of a religious purge more than anything else.
For someone like Polimom, who sees (saw?) the GOP as a necessary brake on expansive, intrusive government, and a crucial counterweight to socialist democracy á la Europe, the actions and reactions of the Republicans are devastating.
I’m appalled by what looks to have been a cover-up in search of the Political Power Grail, and I’m extremely disturbed that their reliance on a zealously religious faction may have been what drove them here.
But now Republicans have a new worry: Key social conservatives have issued blistering statements about the handling of the Foley matter, arguing that political correctness kept G.O.P. leaders from intervening earlier, and are making it clear that they are not giving Hastert and his team the benefit of the doubt. Republican pollsters are warning party officials that enthusiasm among their voters is waning from its already listless levels. And officials say the rebukes from Christian conservatives carry ominous implications for the midterm elections, when the G.O.P. will depend on these voters to turn out and work for the party’s candidates.
Because America needs the Republicans. What we didn’t need is precisely what is breaking their backs: promotion of religious dogma… and specific to this scandal, the homophobia. Is that what’s behind this?
The source who in July gave news media Rep. Mark Foley’s (R-Fla.) suspect e-mails to a former House page says the documents came to him from a House GOP aide.
That aide has been a registered Republican since becoming eligible to vote, said the source, who showed The Hill public records supporting his claim.
The same source, who acted as an intermediary between the aide-turned-whistleblower and several news outlets, says the person who shared the documents is no longer employed in the House.
But the whistleblower was a paid GOP staffer when the documents were first given to the media.
If the purpose of the whistleblowing was to expose predation on pages, Polimom wouldn’t find the party affiliation particularly remarkable… but in combination with the rumored List, I find this very worrying in the long-term.
It would be very helpful if the Republican leadership could find its feet regarding the underlying problem with all of this. Foley was not the first to prey on teenaged pages; such behavior is not related to political affiliation, and it’s not a homosexual issue either. However, because the GOP has abandoned its traditional planks in favor of religious “values voters”, they’re stuck with few options.
Polimom hopes they don’t choose this:
There have been a number of signals through the course of the day that the last gambit of the GOP House leadership will be to blame the Foley debacle on a cabal of gay staffers who hid and/or enabled Rep. Foley’s behavior for years. The idea being that they are to blame rather than the leadership.
It would be, effectively, total capitulation to the religious ideologues.
The Religious Right inserted its sanctimonious tentacles into what was once a worthwhile political ideology, and it’s hard to see, just at the moment, how the GOP can extricate itself.
They’ll have to, though… before the party is nothing more than a dry, empty husk of itself. They need a purge indeed — but it’s not the gays who need to be ousted.