e. magill's Intrigue

Moral Outrage from the Left: Hypocrisy in the Foley Scandal

For those of you not paying attention to current events in politics right now, here's a summary of the latest scandal. It's October in an election year. End of story.

Okay, you probably want more than that, but keep in mind that all the rest of these details are just filler for the true story, which is that it's October in an election year. The rest of the story goes as follows: Congressman Mark Foley makes inappropriate Internet chatter with a young boy. Foley resigns. Democrats want to know who knew what when, and immediately start demanding more blood. House Speaker Dennis Hastert denies knowing anything before the scandal broke, aside from the questionable e-mails that were known about earlier in the year but which amounted to basically nothing. Democrats, and a few Republicans, continue to call for more blood. A full-blown investigation is launched, even though no laws have been demonstrably broken. Press goes nuts reviewing the story. The election hangs in the balance. Some want you to believe that Foley's actions are indicative of a grave problem in the Republican Party and that you should definitely vote Democrat this year. Others claim that the Democrats are just playing politics and, due to their underhandedness and lack of a real positive message, you should not vote Democrat this year.

That's pretty much it. I won't insult your intelligence by discussing how this is all just October politics as usual, and I'm going to resist the urge to go into detail about how the case of inappropriate sexual advances is so different when it involves a politician as opposed to a teacher or priest.

Instead, I want to talk about how certain people--Democrats mostly--are insinuating that the questionable e-mail that was known about earlier in the year should have lead to a full-blown investigation then and there and that we should have tapped Foley's computer and phone line and tried to catch him in the act of seducing the poor victim. The reason I want to talk about it is that these people are some of the same people who have problems with the wire-tapping provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, people who want us to believe that the government has no right to tap into the phone lines of Muslims who are nothing more than a little suspicious because there is an off chance they might be terrorists.

Here we have a party--the Democrats--that rails against its opposition's need to lecture us on morality, lecturing the Republicans on morality. Here we have a party that calls wiretapping an illegal intrusion into one's right to privacy, asking why we didn't wiretap Mark Foley.

And the Republicans, instead of pointing out this hypocrisy, are whining that they didn't do anything wrong. At this rate, a scandal predecated by a few sleazy e-mails and a handful of naughty IMs is going to make Nancy Pelosi the new House Majority Leader next year. If that doesn't frighten you, you don't know Nancy Pelosi very well.

I'm not arguing that the Republicans are free from wrongdoing. It brings a certain satisfaction to know that Foley, a man who railed against sexual predators and introduced legislation geared at unlawful solicitation over the Internet, might be hung by a noose he fashioned himself, once he gets out of rehab. And Dennis Hastert is probably no stranger to cover-ups.

But are you really gonna tell me that the Democrats didn't wait until the most opportune moment to break the story? Are you gonna really try to convince me that the Democrats didn't hold on to this story until October? This is the definition of an October Surprise, ladies and gentlemen, so if we're gonna start accusing the Republican leadership of a cover-up, we have to do exactly the same thing to the Democratic leadership.

The fact remains that both parties are full of politicians, and that all politicians are, to some degree or another, corrupt and underhanded. The difference between a Republican leader and a Democratic leader is about the same as the difference between Diet Pepsi and Diet Coke; they both taste like ass.

So let's hang Mark Foley, and all the rest of them along with him. Damned freaks.

-e. magill 10/05/2006