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At last, Congressional Democrats have
answered critics who claim that they have forgotten how to behave
as an opposition party. Party leaders have finally launched a
searing attack against a criminal outrage that has gone on for
three long years-while vowing to take down all Republican leaders
responsible for the deception and subsequent cover-up.
These courageous Democrats
are finally regaining the moral high ground-miraculously, without
sacrificing their unswerving orientation to the Republicans'
voting base in this election year.
After all, what sane person
doesn't oppose pedophilia?
Ex-House Republican Mark Foley
is, of course, drowning in his own hypocrisy. Foley's "smoking
gun," the email address "maf54", used for sexual
discourse with minors since at least 2003, is set to join the
Clinton cigar in historical infamy. Just as President Clinton
was likely engaging in extra-marital sex when he
signed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, Foley was attempting
to seduce under-age boys while he co-chaired the Congressional
Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus.
Just over two months ago, President
Bush signed the Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, a tough
new law against sex offenders--spearheaded by Foley. "We
track library books better than we do sexual predators,"
Foley commented in 2005, justifying the stringent new regulations
that lump together violent rapists with harmless viewers of Internet
pornography. Also in 2005, Foley described as "disgusting"
and "sick" that some former sex offenders could obtain
Viagra through Medicare.
Now Foley will be required
under the terms of the legislation he sponsored to register for
life as a sex offender-when he gets out of jail. And perhaps
he will be ineligible for Viagra when he reaches retirement age.
End of
an era?
The downfall of Foley, who
won the first of his six terms in the 1994 Republican electoral
sweep helmed by Newt Gingrich's obsession with "family values",
might just provide the final straw that ends this despicable
era.
Politicians of both parties
who have imposed punitive "family values" legislation
on the rest of us clearly do not practice them. Gingrich himself
is now on his third marriage, having served his first wife with
divorce papers at her hospital bed as she recovered from cancer
surgery in 1981, in order to marry his then-mistress. He phoned
his second wife on Mother's Day 1999 to request a divorce, in
order to marry his next mistress.
The significance of the Foley
scandal has not yet registered with the White House, however.
When questioned on October 2 about Foley's escapades, White House
spokesman Tony Snow responded dismissively, "I hate to tell
you, but it's not always pretty up there on Capitol Hill. And
there have been other scandals, as you know, that have been more
than simply naughty e-mails."
To be sure, the negligence
of Republican powerbrokers in reacting to evidence of Foley's
foibles has added new meaning to the term, "do-nothing Congress."
Foley, a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee,
who was appointed House Deputy Whip by the since-indicted Tom
De Lay, has friends in high places.
Last year, a 16-year old former
Congressional page reported to his Louisiana sponsor, Republican
Rep. Rodney Alexander, that the 52-year-old Foley's sexually-charged
emails "freaked me out," telling Alexander that Foley's
email request for his photo was "sick, sick, sick, sick,
sick."
Alexander did not report this
information to the police or FBI, but went instead to Rep. Thomas
M. Reynolds, who heads the National Republican Congressional
Committee (NRCC), in charge of House Republican 2006 election
campaigns. Foley has been among the largest single contributors,
giving the NRCC $330,000 in less than three years-an amount that
has more than tripled since Reynolds became NRCC chairman.
Reynolds claimed that he informed
House Speaker Dennis Hastert of the allegations, yet on September
30, Hastert claimed he did not "recollect" being notified.
Defending the indefensible
Not surprisingly, Newt Gingrich
defended the Republican leadership's non-response in an Oct.
1 interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. Wallace
asked, "But during all those months, they left Foley in
the House Republican leadership. They left him as the head of
the congressional caucus dealing with exploited children."
To which the notoriously anti-gay
Gingrich responded, "I think had they overly aggressively
reacted to the initial round, they would have also been accused
of gay bashing. I mean, the original notes had no sexual innuendo
and the parents did not want any action taken."
Without for a moment minimizing
the vile acts of Mark Foley, it is shameful that Congressional
Democrats have staked their election-year strategy as an "opposition
party" around opposing the acts of a lone Republican sexual
predator, while assisting Republicans in whipping up a bi-partisan
xenophobic frenzy.
In the final days of this pre-election
Congressional session (before breaking for five-weeks of campaigning),
12 Senate Democrats joined 53 Republicans to endorse Bush's anti-terrorism
legislation intended to allow evidence acquired through torture.
Twenty-six Democrats (including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama)
also joined Republicans to overwhelmingly pass a draconian bill
calling for construction of a 700-mile wall along the U.S. border
with Mexico, in a vote of 80 to 19.
On November 7, voters will
unfortunately be left with no choice other than to kick the Republican
"bums" out, only to be replaced by the bums of the
pseudo-opposition party. A genuine third-party has never been
more desperately needed.
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.