He was goin' down the grade, doin' 90 miles an hour...

[rain_gryphon]

Okay, you Brits who wish ill upon the Republicans, now's your time to gloat! I'm not sure the European media has really grasped the enormity of the catastrophe that Foley has uncorked on his fellows, a scant month before the election. While I'm a Republican, I also love a good political trainwreck, and this bids fair to be one of the truly memorable ones.

*****

*snerk* One of Joe Negron's advisers (the replacement candidate for Foley) was apparently overheard this morning describing the Republican candidacy as 'completely doomed'.

*****

Hastert's apparently determined not to resign. He intends to be found in the wreck with his hand on the throttle.

*****

Foley's lawyer makes the interesting statement "Mark Foley has never, ever had inappropriate sexual contact with a minor in his life". Presumably he's trying to leave himself some room to argue that there are appropriate forms of sexual contact with minors, in case he has to use that wiggle room later.

Comments

[patch-bunny.livejournal.com]

I heard Mark Foley doesn't like to use bookmarks. He prefers to bend over a page.

Let the humor begin!

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Ba-dum-bum! *ching!*

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

A question about the Mark Foley thing... the Washington Times editorial uses phrases like "underage" and "possibly criminal", yet as I understand it these pages are all 16 or over. Is the age of consent in Florida older than 16 (I've found conflicting statements online), and/or is there a law similar to the UK one whereby people "in a position of trust" have a higher age of consent for anyone they get sexually involved in (18 in the UK, as opposed to 16 normally)?

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that anyone can authoritatively answer that yet. This is going to be such a huge mess, with overlapping jurisdictions, contradictory laws, etc. In general, I think out laws about 'positions of trust' specify an inclusive list such as teacher, minister, etc. but leave room for others. This will lead to much argument and drama.

Foley's pretty much toast at this point anyway. Hastert and Reynolds are the ones who're going to be interesting to watch. They've been busy trying to throw one another to the wolves since Monday morning. Reynolds says that he found out some months back, and (properly) took the matter to Hastert, who's the leader of the Republicans in the House. Reynolds says that Hastert told him it'd be taken care of. Hastert is denying, albeit with very careful phrasing, that he recalls that discussion.

There are also uncorroborated reports now that Republican pages have been warned by various people at various times over the years to beware of Foley.

The peculiarly American twist of this is that if a Democrat had been caught doing this, the blame would attach to him personally, and not to the party. There'd be a brief kerfluffle, and life would go on. The Reagan wing of the Republicans (I'm a Goldwater Republican), which Hastert and Foley both belong to, have built their powerbase by pandering to the religious right, and by trying to entangle politics with morality. This is their nightmare come true.

The Republicans as a whole will suffer in this election, but there's a golden opportunity for some long-overdue housecleaning.

[rabbitboy.livejournal.com]

"The peculiarly American twist of this is that if a Democrat had been caught doing this, the blame would attach to him personally, and not to the party."

Well not only that, but Democrats would have stood behind and defended him. They wouldn't have defended the actions necessarily (there might be some defense with carefully worded caveats to allow said defender to weasel out of them later if necessary), but they wouldn't be catapulting him overboard. Which is exactly what Republicans have done and are doing. They're running scared and shrieking from the whole Foley situation, desperately trying to make sure it's clear they had no part of any of it, wailing and foaming how "disgusted" they are and how "disgraceful" it is, which only makes the party look even worse.

Of course, given the circumstances, they don't have a choice. Republicans have been pandering to the religious base so hard and heavily, to react in any other way would simply destroy them quicker, instead of the slow crumbling and rotting that's going to happen now.

There's also the fact that had this been a Democrat, the facts about this would either have come out much, much sooner, or would have been buried, white-washed, and swept aside. All this information has been intentionally held back until now for exactly the effect it's going to have. To affect the election in November. It's a classic October Surprise setup. A lot of people will see that and take it into account, but not the majority, which is all Democrats care about.

It really isn't fair. It's the epitome of dirty politics. But Foley and company still fucked up, and fucked up in one of the worst ways possible. You make your bed...

But on the other hand, if this really does just obliterate Republican chances in November (and it's really not a question of if at this point, but just to be fair), Republicans can and will lay the blame on this event, rightfully pointing out the dirty politics involved and use it as their scapegoat. That way when they lose big, they can play the victim card of dirty politics orchestrated by Democrat "operatives". A lot of people will see that for as phony as it would be, and it won't work as well as if they had a massive portion of the media on their side, but like I said... it's the majority that matters, and it's all they really care about.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Frankly, there are times when the only thing you can do is scream like a little girl and run away. For the GOP, this is one of those times.

In the long run, I don't think this will do a lot of damage. It'll clean out some people who needed to be gone anyway. Over the short run, it's gonna be like firecrackers in the henhouse.

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

by pandering to the religious right, and by trying to entangle politics with morality

The religious right is far less powerful in Britain, but the second part of that reminds me of nothing so much as John Major's Back to Basics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_Basics_%28campaign%29) campaign. As can be seen from the litany of scandals on that Wikipedia page, it did not have precisely the desired effect!

Of coruse, the Tories lost in 1997 because they had been perceived as being economically incompetent since autumn 1992, but the fact that they spent much of the intervening period as laughing stocks didn't help since people were less than inclined to take anything they said seriously.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

It doesn't help that the Republican party doesn't stand for anything more than being the Republican party anymore. They certainly aren't the party of limited government - they're proposing to dictate to the states who can be allowed to marry. They're not the party of financial responsibility - even allowing for the exigencies of wartime, they tax and spend as badly as the Democrats. They're sure as Hell not the party of "America First" when they want to grant amnesty to illegal aliens. The only real domestic identity they had left was as a party that advocated traditional values, and try as I might, I can't imagine any plausible way that they could have blown that to smithereens any more effectively than what just happened.

[maxgoof.livejournal.com]

Foley didn't uncork it a scant month before the election.