Why It's Not Just About Rep. Mark Foley

A couple of folks reached me over the weekend to ask why I wasn't saying more about the Rep. Mark Foley scandal - the one where this "great" man who happened to serve on a committee charged with "making the Internet safer for children against predators" - where he was e-mailing a 16-year-old Congressional page about getting together for not G-rated fun.

Yes, it's a big story. Yes, it's a terrible story since it seems to be true.

And yes, we now have a SLEW of "morally righteous" and "protect the sanctity of marriage" and "keep the world safe from gays" and "promote family values" types - almost entirely from the GOP side of the aisle who turn out to be involved in some pretty serious shit. Shit you would not expect from such pious, righteous types including William Bennett, Dan Burton, the Hutchinson of the Clinton impeachment, Newt Gingrich, et al.

Or should we not expect it? Traditionally, those who scream the loudest for religion and piety and "family values" and all this happy horseshit are those who actually commit crimes of morality.

But beyond all of this - and I agree that the White House and Capitol Hill are populated by some of the biggest con artist hypocrites of all time - there are much bigger laws being broken and harm being done. Look at Afghanistan. Look at Iraq. Look at Colombia. Look at the poor of New Orleans. Even the middle class in the U.S. is having some really egregious shit poured down upon them.

When I weigh this stuff against what Foley did, I still want Foley to go down... but I think we can't get so crazed over Foley that we forget that on any given moment of any given day, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, et al are doing much worse than this fool Foley. If we do give Foley the attention, we're just re-creating the foolishness and evil perpetrated by the GOP on Bill Clinton's little dance with Monica Lewinsky.