Hey, why don't Republican Congressmen use bookmarks?
They prefer bent-over pages!
Haw haw snort! Anyhow. So, the Republican Congressman who chaired the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, who was on the Ways and Means committee, who was the deputy whip - well, looks like he got off fantasizing about, and apparently talking dirty to, underage boys. Maybe he even went farther than that.
Does this surprise anyone?
All Republican politicians, with the probable exception of Ron Paul, who is more of a Libertarian anyway, all Republican politicans are morally bankrupt. Worship of Mammon is the cornerstone of the party. If they aren't closet pederasts like Mark Foley, then they are outright criminals like Randy "Duke" Cunningham. There is not an elected Republican official who isn't there to line his and his buddies' pockets at the expense of the taxpayer. That's the purpose of the party.
Now, let me clarify something: Republican voters are, obviously, not all pedophiles and crooks. For one thing, most of them lack the opportunity. No, Republican voters are simply stupid.
Were I feeling generous, which I normally am but not so much when these idiots are active participants in the ruining of the country, I'd say that they were "idealistic". That they "believed the lies".
There's no shame in being an ex-Republican. Once upon a time - Eisenhower, say - the party had some morals and some decent ideas. And even if you disagreed with them you knew they wanted to do what was best for the country. Even George Bush the Smarter was a fairly decent president. Hell, Richard Nixon wasn't all bad. Not like this crew we've got now.
But to be a George W. Bush supporter - or a supporter of the Republican Congress - now? Sorry. If you don't like the local Democrat then vote third party or run your God-damned self or just stay home, but to vote Republican these days is basically an admission that you'll happily suckle at the anus of Satan.
But enough castigation of the stupid. Back to castigation of the evil.
So, as I say, it's basically no surprise at all that the Republican congressman in charge of "protecting the children" is an aspiring child molester. Frankly, if you want to be a child molester, the Republican party is your first home. Check out this list of Republican pedophiles. The last entry is a bit ridiculous, but just look at the rest of them. Even I was taken aback by the sheer volume.
I hear that the next Republican national convention will be held in Minneapolis-St. Paul. The Twin Cities had better lock up their children.
However, I think the common theme in the Republican party is not so much pederasty, although apparently that's one of the planks in their party platform, as it is hypocrisy. I mean, Foley chaired the damn Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus. This is the party whose announced cornerstone is the banning of homosexual marriage, and the guy's flirting with teenage boys. The party that tells all the busybody type of Christian that the Democrats are immoral and that they, the Republicans, will bring morality to government. The party that runs on the slogan "small government" and balloons the Federal bureaucracy to its greatest size ever, and pays for it by selling interest-bearing debt to the Red Chinese.
They did, however, cut taxes. For rich people. So there is that.
Anyhow, the buzz here inside the beltway is that the Foley scandal may be enough to hand the House over to the Democrats. To which my reaction is, who are the fuckwits still voting Republican? This is followed closely by: of course it will not hand the House to the Democrats, Diebold will see to that. And as a distant third: if the Democrats do somehow take control of the House, I expect to see some God damn ruthless efficiency in exposing the the outright criminality that's now endemic in all branches of the government. Like a disease, Republican corruption has infected everything they've come into contact with.
"True enough," you might say, "but aren't the Democrats just as corrupt? They are politicians after all. Look at that William Jefferson cretin, stashing outright bribes in his freezer." And you have a point - if all the elected officials in Washington were to spontaneously combust, both Democrat and Republican, both current and former, the country would be much better off. However, the key difference between the parties is this:
There are corrupt Democrats. The Republican party means corruption.
And anyway, let's look at just the most recent scandals. There's Jefferson, and he should be tarred and feathered, absolutely. But then in addition to Foley and Cunningham we have, let's see, all those Abramhoff guys including Congressman Ney, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Congressman John Doolittle and Senator Conrad Burns, Lester Crawford the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Alphonso Jackson the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and a whole boatload of Republican lobbyists and aides. There's Brian Doyle, the Deputy Press Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, busted for soliciting sex from a 14 year-old (pedophilia really does seem to be a plank in the Republican party platform), and Claude Allen, the one who was committing refund fraud at Target.
What a moral group of individuals!
And as for adultery - let's see, there's Bill Clinton, obviously. As well as, oh, John McCain, Rudy Guiliani, Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Henry Hyde, Ronald Reagan and Strom Thurmond, Representative Dan Burton and Representative Bob Barr...
This whole Foley thing really ought not suprise anyone. Nor the fact that the Republican Congressional leadership knew about it for a long time and did nothing about it. After all: the character of these men has been obvious from the start.
- Sun Ra