Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 349 Editor's Choice: 71
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I Don't Know
[Read the article: The elephant in the room]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"If the Foley affair is a Republican attempt to distract the electorate from the more substantive issues that would normally shame most of us into making changes in our elected officials, they appear to have lost control of the issue."
I don't know about that. So far, Foley and an aide are the only casualties. After Foley, will it go any higher/deeper than aide level? Will any seat-holding Republicans be forced out? Or will casualties be confined only to the aides of GOP pols?
I don't think Woodward's book is the only reason why the GOP would launch a sex scandal. The war is disasterous, there have been no successes. Even Afghanistan has slid back into chaos to the point where Republican politicians are calling for a role for the Taliban in the Afghan government. Bin laden is not caught, nor proven dead. There's really nothing on the horizon to look forward to. Just more quagmires, more disasterous decisions by this ghastly crew who will do anything to hang onto power.
There is no good news, only bad. There is nothing to divert from the horrendousness of our world situation and from the incompetency of our "leaders"... unless there's a sex scandal.
Best of all, a gay sex scandal. The GOP minions of the rightwing noise machine have been spinning the gay pedophile aspect as a result of "liberal tolerance" for days now. You and I don't believe it, but there's a lot of homophobia out there (which has always worked for the GOP in the past) and Joe Sixpack may buy Buchanan's spin that Foley was "masquerading" as a conservative. After all, Foley was closeted (to voters) for years, why wouldn't they be persuaded that he was hiding something else? That he is part of a gay agenda to infiltrate our schools, our churches and our very law-making bodies? You and I know this is crap, but it goes over pretty well in a lot of America.
I'd like to be wrong. But until I see someone other than Foley (whose district will probably remain red) and someone higher up than aide-level get the boot, I gotta wonder.
But I hope you're right.
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This Article Confirms What I Thought
[Read the article: Situation hopeless? Call in Florida's secretary of state]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That Foley's seat will remain unaffected by the sex scandal. The Florida GOP will make sure that voters in Foley's conservative district know that pulling the lever for Foley means pulling it for the other Republican guy.
This fits in with my theory, which I have outlined in other Letters, that this gay sex scandal has actually been engineered by the Republicans. While the Democratic base whoops it up over the hypocracy of the GOP regarding sex, the real issues that might torpedo the GOP this election season --- the failed War on Terror; the (possibly deliberate?) incompetence of the Bush adminsitration before 9/11; the definitely deliberate WMD subterfuges used to draw America into a bloody, poorly planned and completely unnecessary war; the bungling before and after Katrina; the rank political corruption at every level throughout the GOP --- get blown right off the national stage. Instead of focusing on these issues, everyone is focused on a man flirting with boys and the public is anxiously awaiting more salacious details. Cable "news" and late-night comedians are having a field day. And guess what? It won't negatively affect one red Congressional race, not even Foley's. Hastert may lose his position as Speaker, but he won't lose his congressional seat.
The aim of this election is to get a majority of seats in Congress and in the House. Not to make jokes or to rub our hands with glee as a Republican gets busted in a sex scandal. The more attention that is paid to this circus, the less attention is being paid to Iraq, Afghanistan, incompetence, corruption, and the GOP's lack of any optimistic platform for America.
And the more attention paid to this scandal, the more homophobia is released. The NY Post printed a cartoon showing Mark Foley next to a salivating Jim McGreevey, and it contains pretty much every gay stereotype from an exaggeratedly drawn limp wrist to a hamster cage. Fox has been identifying Foley as a Democrat to its viewers. The rightwing media machine is sending out messages that Foley isn't a "real" Republican or a "real" conservative. He is a Democrat, or a Democrat-in-disguise, a result of the liberal gay agenda, a result of liberal 'tolerance' for degenerate alternative lifestyles. The Republican base has already picked this up, as I am hearing Republican voters saying "Foley's a homo, he likes boys, I thought that's what you Democrats like - you know, 'tolerance'." Homophobia has always worked in favor of the GOP and they know it.
If one red seat is lost over this scandal, I'll eat Jack Abramoff's hat. Something tells me that the furor is manufactured, that it took hold in the media too quickly when the media has been loathe to publicize so many other Republican sex scandals in the past 6 years. There's something very fishy about the timing. I think it really is the GOP's October Surprise.
The only hope for Democrats is to dislodge Republicans from their seats and this scandal, for all its attendent furor and schadenfreude, will not do that.
The GOP defines the political debate once again.