October
5, 2006
Foley’s Folly
By
Jack D. McNamara
The
U.S. Congress has finally adjourned amid howls of outrage.
The outrage is directed at an affable, conservative, Florida
Republican, Representative Mark Foley. Mr. Foley’s offense seems to be
that for several years, at least since 2003, he has been communicating
lewd and obscene messages to pages in the House of Representatives.
The pages are minors, high school students working with the Congress
for about $18,000 a year doing “gofer” things such as carrying papers from place to place and
person to person among the august edifices of the Capitol in
Washington, D.C.
It is not clear at this point that Foley, who resigned his seat Friday
and checked into alcohol rehab Monday, has committed a crime. The
FBI, which was informed in July, is investigating with all deliberate
speed. On Sunday the White House spokesman, Tony Snow, described the
messages as “simply naughty emails” to CNN. Later however he described
the messages as “disturbing,” “appalling,” and “reprehensible. ”It is
unlikely that we will be able to justify Foley’s passions as a merely
misplaced sentiment for the children.
You see how quickly political matters can escalate in an election year.
The Bush Administrations well oiled spin machine was caught flat-footed
on this one.
They were poised and ready to counterattack the new Bob Woodward book,
State of Denial, and the new Colin Powell biography when the House page
scandal caved in the roof. What a revolting development, as the
inimitable Jackie Gleason used to say on the TV sitcom “The
Honeymooners.”
House leaders have been aware of the allegations against Foley for some
time but of course they had little interest in doing anything about it
because it is a fuss. The fuss is occurring in the last month of
the 2006 campaign for control of the
Congress. It is a Congress which had a
favorability rating in one poll of only 25% before Foley’s romances
were revealed.
Gentle
readers, you are witnessing a cover up. Or to be more accurate you are
witnessing an attempted cover up which failed.
Democrats are of course delighted. They have been battered by
Republican “values” rhetoric for almost a generation. Only one thing
trumps the conservatives’ claim that every thing which must be done is
of course conservative because IT IS FOR THE CHILDREN. And that one
thing is the charge of hypocrisy.
Mr. Foley, prior to his resignation, was chairman of the House of
Representatives’ Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. If Foley
violated any federal laws he may have violated those which he has
authored. And if you want to see what he actually wrote, go to the ABC
web site and read a text message Foley wrote to a former page in
Louisiana. Hypocrite.
A
seamy, nasty
campaign down in the gutter which does not deserve the
attention of the respectable people… right? Well how about another
example of gutter politics?
On September 28, President George W. Bush revved up an Alabama crowd
with the words “the party of FDR and the party of Harry Truman
has become the party of cut and run.”
Along with their domination of the rhetoric of “values” the Republican
Party has dominated the political arena as the party best qualified to
run the nation’s national security and foreign policy. The Democrats
have been singularly ineffective in countering that impression. It is a
baseless canard but it resonates with many Americans and Democrats
often let the insult go by unchallenged. But not this time.
On Saturday, September 30, an Illinois woman who is a Democratic
candidate for Congress gave the national radio broadcast response to
the President. Former Army Captain Tammy Duckworth said “Well, I didn't
cut and run Mr. President. Like so many others I proudly fought
and sacrificed. My helicopter was shot down long after you proclaimed
'mission accomplished.'”
Captain Duckworth lost both legs in the helicopter crash.
Another example of this hot season comes from Virginia. In mid
September NBC’s “Meet the Press” hosted a debate between the U.S.
senatorial candidates James Webb and Senator George Allen. Webb is a
decorated Marine who was President Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of the
Navy and formerly a Republican. Webb called the Iraq war an “incredible
strategic blunder of historic proportions” and reminded the viewers
that neither Bush nor Allen had served in combat.
“Very few people who have brought us this war have served and very,
very few of the children of these people who have brought us this war
have served,” said Webb.
For
the children?
Webb’s son is a Marine like his father and in
September he began a tour in Iraq.•
(Also
published by the Big Bend Sentinel of Marfa, Texas October 5, 2006.)
|
Archives