1) Where's Mike Stark?  He can get his Torts notes from someone else.  Mike and some other people who are good at slipping the screeners need to call Dobson's show this week and put this question to him directly.  Hannity and O'Reilly as well.  Get them all defending this for the next week at least.  Flood them with calls and make it a big story.  

2) I think this is probably clear as of Josh's post last night, but this isn't a Foley story anymore.  The question now is what the fuck were Hastert and the GOP leadership thinking?  Who knew and when?  Demand hearings.  Right now, absent exculpatory evidence they are no different than the Catholic bishops that hid their perverted priests (and what evidence could be mustered to defend them really?).  If we use this correctly--and I have to think that the Chris Matthews, and probably even O'Reilly will spend time with this whether they want to or not--it could be the knock out.  Get Catholic Dems on TV to talk about how we felt when they heard what had happened with the Priest scandal.  Make that connection as explicit as possible.  Sad as it is, the media will do back flips for this story before they'll ever say anything about how it could be bad to have torture as the official policy of this country.  

What you said, Matt. This is a great post.

The importance of narratives and identity fabrication cannot be underestimated, which is why I am very pleased to see this at the beginning of this post:

One of the reasons that it's hard to make a story like predator Mark Foley and the House Republican cover-up stick is because there's no pre-set narrative that Republican leaders are very bad people.

But the reasons for this failure go deep into the very nature of liberalism and conservatism, which is why Truman's deal is so readily forgotten. Conservatives have no inherent capacity to think in terms of systemic causes.  It is really hard for them to grasp that bad things can happen in the world except as the conscious and intentional result of evil acts by evil people.  OTOH, liberals are quite aware that "the path to hell is paved with good intentions," and that the really hard moral choices are not between good and evil, but between competing goods.

Indeed, liberals are overly inclined to see the good in conservatives, and to restrain themselves from decrying the flaws (even I have a hard time calling it "evil").  Indeed, most conservatives are not evil.  In fact, they generally agree more with liberal ideology than they do with conservative ideology, when it comes down to brass tacks.  Which is why their leadership has to lie to them so much--not just about details, such as the reasons for going to war with Iraq, but about the very nature of liberals and liberalism.

The problem, in a nutshell, is that ordinary everyday conservatives identify with a leadership that is reactionary, rather than conservative, that deceives them constantly on multiple levels, and that is deeply amoral and immoral.  In the long run, understanding how  identification is formed and maintained, and what can be done to break it is going to be job #1 if we ever want to return our country to reality-based politics.

Anyone ask yet if he sent these emails on a government computer? Maybe its time to restore honesty adn dignity to Congress?

I feel this issue painfully because I know something about sex offenders, pedophiles, and child predators. I worked at a men's prison and once heard a sex offender complain that he wasn't allowed visits with his children. "Hey - they weren't my victims!" He felt no guilt. He didn't get it, just like most child predators don't get what is so wrong. This is why they are seldom "cured." It's a lifestyle thing to them, not a cruelty to children. Often they have a favorite age of boy or girl, or a favored act, not always involving sexual touching. Sometimes they get off from telling dirty jokes to children. They don't feel guilty, they feel superior to really bad pedophiles.

How is it that the Republican leaders who were informed don't get this?  Why don't they get it even now? A child predator is a person without conscience, a sociopath, a deeply flawed human being.  

It is not unusual for child predators to join organizations where there is easy access to children and youth. They can be found in foster care, in step-parenting, in church groups and Scouting, wherever there are children who are likely to trust them, and parents willing  to permit that trust. Congressman Foley's positions of trust for children and youth and their parents is a natural step for a child predator who has no compunction about lying. His whole life is a lie.  How could the Republicans who found out not see that this man among them was deeply flawed?  

I'm guessing that Foley isn't actually gay so that he can fall in love with other male peers. Pedophilia is not same-sex love that accidently got the age wrong.  It's a distortion, a fetish, a mental block, a mental sickness, very wrong and taboo for an adult to be attracted by a child or youth of either gender. It's extremely damaging to the child and the parents. Sometimes the damage lasts a lifetime.

I'm shocked that Republican leaders knew and did nothing. No banishing?  No proper disgust at learning of a broken taboo?  Ew.

WHO KNEW:
House Speaker Dennis Hastert
Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill.
Rep. Thomas Reynolds, R-N.Y
Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La.
Rep. John Boehner, R

WHO ELSE?

Anyone ask yet if he sent these emails on a government computer? Maybe its time to restore honesty adn dignity to Congress?

He sent them from his personal AOL account "Maf54" (heh)

Although if Sherwood is a supporter of family values, he shouldn't have any fundraisers with himself either.  

Just to be sure we're on the same page here, whatever this guy's problems & offenses, government getting tough on child predatation & stricter enforcement on "child model" sites is a good thing no? Whether lobbying for stricter action against child porn is made hypocritical by him being a child predator, stricter action against child porn is still good.

I'm not really mollified with 75% of Democrats voting against torture.

Thanks for giving that point front page status. There's been an effort on the part of some to excuse and sweep the torture vote betrayal by the "usual suspects," or rather, the "dirty dozens" under the rug as quickly as possible.

It is illegal to produce, sell, collect, advertise or in any way  possess child pornography because child abuse is involved in producing it. [I don't know about cartoons]. Child pornography is an exception to freedom of speech rights because it involves the crime of sex abuse.

I think you are over the line here.  

How about we get some facts about this case before we decide that the entire GOP House leadership are a bunch of vampires?  At most we have some serious non-feasance on the part of GOP leaders.  That's plenty without acting like we're rounding up the last members of the SS.

GOP = Grotesque Old Perverts

Here's a short article mentioning his opponent for November.

Calling the incumbent, Rodney Alexander, R-Quitman, "Rodney Robot," Hearn, 72, was especially critical of Alexander's votes with President Bush on Iraq.

"Folks, we must stop pouring an endless amount of money on the war in Iraq. We need to get our troops home in a timely way and take care of business at home.
"We need to take care of our children, our seniors, our veterans, health care, Social Security, our borders, our ports, our environment, our handicapped."

She said the No. 1 issue is the war in Iraq, and the No. 2 issue is the deficit.

Hearn said she was a long shot against the incumbent, but, drawing on biblical references, she said, "Well, a lot of skeptics thought David was nuts for taking on Goliath. ... You know the end result that David was victorious over Goliath."

Hearn's daughter, Gail Smith of Birmingham, Ala., said of her mother, "She has all her life taken on big challenges and big risks."

Helen Moore, a supporter, said Hearn "is a person of honesty and integrity."

Source

Can someone send a messege though the grapevine to Mrs. Hearn to see if she could also benefit from the fact that Alexander heard about a crime, and first notified the Campaign Commitee chairman (Reynolds), instead of the cops or the House Page Board?

How about we get some facts about this case before we decide that the entire GOP House leadership are a bunch of vampires?  At most we have some serious non-feasance on the part of GOP leaders.

Foley is a pitiful creature driven by inner demons.  He had only limited ability to help himself.  

Those covering for him are worse as I see it.

Best,  Terry

Matt,

I've got a question for you. You strike me as one of the more passionate, fired-up, pissed-off left-wing bloggers these days, who at the same time doesn't appear to have let himself succumb to bitterness, despair and disillusion, verging on defeatism. I find this very refreshing, this combination of anger, passion and (cautious and realistic, of course) optimism.

I point this out because such a combination of qualities seems to me to be quite rare these days in the left-wing blogosphere. To quote the inevitable Yeats:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Sadly, I find this to be verified in much of the left-wing blogosphere these days. That is, many of the most passionate (and, I believe, generally well-meaning) bloggers seem to believe that all is lost, that BusCo have essentially won, that there's little to nothing that we can do about it, and that before things get better, they're going to have to first get much, much worse. I.e. full-blown fascism that ultimately self-destructs of its own incompetence, evil and corruption, but only having first made millions to suffer needlessly and horribly for it.

They cite this week's shameful detainee bill as just the latest and worst indication of this. And when someone points out that SCOTUS or a Dem-led congress will surely reverse this, they just laugh at their naivite and say that none of this will happen or matter, that Diebold will probably take care of maintaining their majority, that BushCo have consolidated all power in themselves, that they can and will ignore SCOTUS and a Dem-controlled congress (assuming there ever is one, which they doubt), etc., and most of all there's NOTHING that we an do about it.

One prominent blogger of this pursuasion who comes to mind is Digby, who while I generally find his analyses to be right on the mark, his predictions I find to be incredibly and excessively dour and pessimistic--and not, in my opinion, at all necessarily realistic. But there are many, many others, and of course commenters on other peoples' blogs, who seem to be equally pessimistic and defeatist.

My question is this. Your outlook doesn't strike me as being anywhere near this bleak, let alone defeatist, even though you seem to share these more pessimistic bloggers' anger and frustration, and are clearly a smart and sober observer and analyzer of current political events with no part of your head in the sand or up your--well, you know what. Am I right about this, and if so, what explains your continued optimism, however cautious and realistic (which I happen to fully share), and what, if anything, do you have to say about these other, far more pessimistic bloggers? Are they simply giving up, taking the easy way out, being cowardly, and perhaps, in some case, just concern trolls trying to bring the rest of us down? Or do they have a valid point, and do you simply choose to not share it?

Just wondering, as all this doom and gloom I keep coming across in the left-wing blogosphere is just pissing me off, and I don't know what to do with or about it.

If you can spare a moment to respond, I'd really appreciate it. If not, I understand, as there are clearly more pressing matters to attend to with the election less than 6 weeks away. But I think that this is an important and overlooked issue confronting the left-wing blogosphere and progressive movement, because this sort of defeatism, if unchecked and unanswered, can become cancerous, and deadly, at precisely the moment when we're on the verge of making some real progress.

And, whether they mean to or not (and I believe that most don't, but that some likely do), I believe that these defeatists (my term, perhaps not yours or others) can do us and our cause a lot of damage, perhaps fatal (a prediction, I realize, that itself must sound defeatist, but I believe that if countered, this need not happen, so I view it more as cautious than defeatist).

Yeah. That's right. The story on the resignation of Republican Rep. Mark Foley on the MSNBC website has a photo halfway down of Monica Lewinsky. The photo is contained in a box labeled "Past Poltical Scandals"

I'd guess it's there for fairness and balance so that no one gets the idea that only Republicans should be condemned for sex crimes. The fact that Clinton was dallying with a fully consenting adult in contrast to a minor in Foley's case probably didn't factor into the editorial decision.

False equivalency is one of the primary defenses the Republicans always choose to deflect attention from their scandals and errors. Hey, Clinton had sex with an underling didn't he? Add in a little gay-bashing to distract attention further from the complicity of the Republican leadership and you've got the makings of a fog that will confuse people as to who they should blame. After all, if the Democrats weren't so soft on gays this probably never would have happened right?

I agree with many of the opinions I've read across the left blogosphere that this may be a crippling scandal for the GOP. However, as shown by MSNBC, the media just can't seem to stick to the story in front of their face and will be all too happy to drag Clinton's name through the mud along with Foley. To deliver a knockout blow Democrats must aggressively push to control the narrative.

"Just to be sure we're on the same page here, whatever this guy's problems & offenses, government getting tough on child predation & stricter enforcement on "child model" sites is a good thing no?"

I think child model sites and child cartoon pornography with no models are iffy issues. The law against child pornography that allows the exception to the First Amendment rights is based on a crime being committed to produce the pornography. The crime trumps the speech. For cartoons, no children, no crime.

For child models, this is the issue from the other end: Is the viewing a crime? Some towns try to pass ordinances against the public breast feeding of infants in order to "protect the children" who may be viewers. Oops. Wrong headed. I remember when the naked child model was an issue during the same (hippy) era. Some argued that viewing a naked infant, toddler or child would "cause" pedophilia, or should be shocking to the rest of us for some reason. So, people who carried pictures of naked infants could be carrying proof of pedophilia inclinations in their wallets.

Sexual offender prison units have provided a lot more social science these days. Oh, I forgot. Republicans don't trust science. They can't recognize a sociopath if they fall over one.

"One of the reasons that it's hard to make a story like predator Mark Foley and the House Republican cover-up stick is because there's no pre-set narrative that Republican leaders are very bad people."

I don't think this story is going away.  It has all the elements the press loves.  I think the Repub leadership is in deep, deep trouble on this one.

Anyone want to bet that Foley wasn't molested by one or more of the priests at Sacred Heart?  Seriously, the vast majority of adults who commit sexual offenses against children were victims of such offenses themselves, and it would also explain his crusade against the sexual exploitation of children.  And of course, as we now know, Catholic schools in this country and around the world have long been hotbeds of child sexual abuse.  I don't think Foley is a sociopath, I think he's another damaged survivor of priestiality, trying to fight his own demons by crusading for stronger laws to protect children while giving in to them in secret.  By my lights, that makes the House leaders who cynically covered up for him far, far worse than he is.

My duplicate post from Chris Bowers converation, below. Let's work on using the story.

[Re: Republican Leadership Begins Foley Cover Up]

The cover-up story just needs volume, and we know how to do that. Every single American knows that sexual content between adult and child is taboo whatever the context. Taboo. You don't even have to say why it's wrong because as taboo everyone agrees. Also, no one really wants to talk about taboo acts.Tough. Let's talk about it. Up the volume. The story is the cover-up and which Republicans chose to protect a child predator.

WHICH REPUBLICANS PROTECTED A CHILD PREDATOR?

Roll Call says "at least four Republican House Members, one senior GOP aide and a former top officer of the House were aware of the allegations about Foley that prompted the initial reporting regarding his e-mail contacts with a 16-year-old House page. They include: Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (N.Y.) and Reps. Rodney Alexander (R-La.) and John Shimkus (R-Ill.), as well as a senior aide to Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and former Clerk of the House Jeff Trandahl."

by mrobinsong on Sat Sep 30, 2006 at 03:19:39 PM PDT
[ Reply to This ]

In case anybody doesn't know about this Web site yet, pass it around:

www.armchairsubversive.com

unlike Chris, I'm not really mollified with 75% of Democrats voting against torture

Actually, there is a pre-set narrative.  It's the Elmer Gantry narrative and it's as old as Evangelism.  You know, the hyprocritical horny preacher.  Think of the preacher in Grapes of Wrath, or Burt Lancaster as Elmer Gantry himself.  Then there's Jimmy Swaggart, Jim and Tammy Baker (hypocrites, not sexual predators).  Come on folks, time to stroke up the old hypocritical preacher narrative.

You're right we are the leaders.  We are responsible for raising up leaders with integrity and for taking back America from the psychopaths and predators.  

We need leaders who have suffered the ups and downs of life, heartbreak and triumph.  Leaders who know what it takes to put your life back together.

Here's two in Minnesota:

Wendy Wilde

Patti Wetterling

Yes, the war in Iraq has made the USA less secure because it has inspired more and more vigorous violence against the West.

Yes, the war in Iraq has ravaged the economy, driven up the deficit, and killed, maimed and crippled our strong and promising young people.

Yes, the war in Iraq started from a lie, and continues on lies.

Yes, the war in Iraq destroyed our reputation abroad where Bush's lies and intransigence are evidently so much easier to see.

Yes, Iraq diverts the attention of a do-nothing congress, leaving much more important issues unattended.

SO where are all those Americans who voted for Bush, if not once, twice? I hope you're out there, wathcing this debacle. There's no Bill Clinton to blame it on, and no Democratic Congress to blame, because you guys have control. And skillful, you were, too, with it.

Now we have a basketful of scandals and crises. Do you think the Democrats can make hay from this mess?

I hope so because I am sick to death of the shrinking personal space I am enduring these days.

Pissed Off

TPMCafe [http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/] contributor Greg Sargent reported yesterday:

Dobson Statement On Foleygate: No Mention Of House Leadership

So an official statement about Foleygate has just landed in our inbox from James Dobson's powerful evangelical organization Focus on the Family. The statement demonstrates plenty of mercy, and very little fire and brimstone. There's no word in it about the House GOP leadership, no word on whether it had a moral obligation to act sooner on Foley, and no word on its current conduct. It notes that "if" Foley is guilty of what he's been accused of, then it's right that he resigned and it's right that "authorities" (it isn't specified which ones) are looking into whether "he" committed a criminal act. And it says that "this is not a time to be talking about politics."

From Focus on the Family:

Colorado Springs, Colo. -- Focus on the Family Action Senior Vice President of Government and Public Policy Tom Minnery issued the following statement today about the scandal involving ex-Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla:

"This is not a time to be talking about politics, but about the well-being of those boys who appear to have been victimized by Rep. Foley. If he is indeed guilty of what he is accused of, it is right that he resigned and that authorities are looking into whether criminal charges are warranted.

"This is yet another sad example of our society's oversexualization, especially as it affects the Internet, and the damage it does to all who get caught in its grasp."

As Paul Krugman noted today, in February 2001, Dobson wrote the following about Bill Clinton:

When assessing the legacy of Bill Clinton, we can't overlook his shameful sexual behavior in the Oval Office, and then, his lies under oath to the American people to cover it up. Indeed, it is my belief that no man has ever done more to debase the presidency or to undermine our Constitution -- and particularly the moral and biblical principles upon which it is based -- than has William Jefferson Clinton.

Oct 2, 2006 -- 06:33:54 PM EST | Tags: National