Democrats Get Ridiculous Exploiting Mark Foley Scandal
posted 10th October 2006 in Democrats, Election 2006, Moral Values, Sex and Gender by jclifford
The Mark Foley scandal has got me furious – not at Mark Foley, but at the Democratic Party, and its mouthpieces, Air America and Daily Kos.
Here are the same people who, back in the late 90s, were decrying the way that the Republicans were using a private sex scandal for political gain. Yes, President Clinton had committed a crime, but it wasn’t a public crime, they argued. Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky and his false testimony in connection with the affair didn’t have anything to do with Bill Clinton’s job as President, they said, and so it ought to be left a private matter President Clinton and his lawyers to argue out with prosecutors.
Back then, I made that argument too. I said that Bill Clinton’s private morality was not the public’s business. And now, I’ll say the same thing about Mark Foley. Mark Foley’s private mistakes are his private business. If Mark Foley committed a crime, then let him be punished for it. However, there is not yet any actual crime that has been discovered.
This is a very different matter from Tom DeLay’s legal troubles. Congressman Tom DeLay broke the law by abusing his public power as a member of Congress to change public policy to suit the whims of his cronies. Mark Foley didn’t. He could have been a school teacher, or a Boy Scout troop leader, sending sexually suggestive emails to teenagers. Mark Foley’s position as a member of Congress doesn’t enter into the matter.
Unfortunately, the Democratic Party doesn’t see things this way. The Democratic Party won’t hold to the same standards that it used to defend Bill Clinton. Instead, it’s adopting a new set of standards, and a new set of arguments to suit the political convenience of the moment. They’re going after Mark Foley, and trying to taint the entire Republican Party by association.
It’s ridiculous, and it’s frivolous. Are we really supposed to believe that the Republican Party has a policy of encouraging its members in Congress to engage in sexual communications with minors? I don’t like the Republican Party, but I’m not about to suggest that they’re all a bunch of pedophiles. The fact is that, back when the Democrats were in power in Congress, they had their own scandals over sexual affairs with pages – and in those cases, the sex wasn’t just a bunch of talk. Whatever group is in power, it will contain some members who choose to abuse that power. That’s not a campaign issue. It’s a fact of life.
If there were a pattern of systematic sexual predation against teenagers by Republicans in the House of Representatives, that would be a different story. There is no such pattern.
I don’t mean to say that moral values should not be a part of the Democrats’ campaign to take back the House of Representatives. I’m just saying that the moral values the Democrats talk about need to be directly related to public policy – the business of Congress.
Part of the reason that I’m so disappointed in the Democrats is that they’re spending so much time playing the Mark Foley card that they’re ignoring other vital issues of the day that have a true public component that speaks to the Republicans’ problem with moral values. Foremost among these issues the Democrats are ignoring because of the Foleypalooza is the Military Commissions Act, a terrible new law that revokes habeas corpus, legalizes torture, ends enforcement of the Geneva Conventions, gives legal amnesty to war criminals, sets up kangaroo courts, and provides the President of the United States with the power to throw people in prison for the rest of their lives without criminal charges.
The Military Commissions Act is a bad, bad, law that the Democrats should have an easy time talking about in moral terms. However, the Democrats aren’t doing it. They aren’t talking about the Military Commissions Act because they’re spending too much time going after the sexy Mark Foley scandal.
Let me give you an example of this monumental moral screwup. In Upstate New York, in the 24th congressional district, Democratic candidate Michael Arcuri is demanding that Ray Meier return contributions from the National Republican Congressional Committee. Michael Arcuri saying is that the NRCC took contributions from Mark Foley, and so Ray Meier is now himself connected to Mark Foley because he accepted contributions through the NRCC. A congressional candidate in New York State is supposed to be implicated in the Mark Foley scandal, just because he accepts money from the Republican Party? That’s a stretch through two degrees of separation.
The truth is that Michael Arcuri has just as much of a connection to Mark Foley as Ray Meier does – but not through donations from the NRCC. No, it’s much more direct than that. Before resigning office, Mark Foley voted for the Military Commissions Act. Guess what? Michael Arcuri says that he would have voted for it too. That’s just one degree of separation. Mark Foley and Michael Arcuri have the same political agenda to subvert the Constitution. That’s a real public scandal.
Michael Arcuri and all the other Democrats running for Congress need to get off the Mark Foley bandwagon, and get their own affairs in order on the truly serious issues of the day. For the good of the country, the Democratic candidates need to stop the scandal mongering, and start talking about the genuine moral issues of public consequence that they will be voting on if elected to Congress.
Tags: bizarre
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The Clinton matter was considered to be a question of private morality because it was between consenting adults. The pages in the Foley matter were neither adult nor consenting, and the pages in question were supposed to be under the administrative protection of Foley who used his position both to get access to the minors and to coerce silence. It is starting to emerge that Republican leadership did indeed know something was going on and refused to protect the minors for poitical reasons.
If the boy scouts had a scout leader doing that stuff, you would not be so tolerant. And if the BSA knew there was a boy scout leader doing stuff like that and did nothing about it, you guys would be all over BSA like white on rice. So now the republican party gets a free pass?
>>>>If there were a pattern of systematic sexual predation against teenagers by Republicans in the House of Representatives, that would be a different story. There is no such pattern.
We don’t really know that yet, do we?
Well, no, greenpagan, we don’t know that yet. Just like we don’t know that there isn’t a secret Martian conspiracy behind Mark Foley’s behavior.
But, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof – not just idle suspicion.
And Alan, I’m not giving the Republican Party a free pass. I’m giving them a fair break, just like I demanded that Bill Clinton get when he screwed up.
Organizations like the Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church have institutional problems that need to be addressed as such. Besides, I don’t ever advocate that the leaders of the Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church get thrown out of power, as people are suggesting with the Republican Congress. I just express my disapproval, and suggest that people stay away from those organizations.
There is no indication of a political policy issue that makes this a responsible election issue. That’s the main difference, Alan. Dealing with public officials with public responsibilities is not the same as just coping with people that we don’t like.
Considering the way our elected officials in Washington (Republicans and Democrats alike) have been treating interns and pages like members of a harem, I think it might be time for some institutional change. At the very least, we shouldn’t have pages and interns below the age of consent, it seems to me.
After Clinton and Condit, I’ve got a real hard time believing anybody was actually shocked by this Foley thing. Yet here we are again a few years later, SHOCKED once more that innocent youths to whom people in positions of power have ready access are sexually exploited.
Ya think?
It’s like cockroaches–for every one you see, figure there’s a hundred or so you don’t.
The reason for the loud denunciations from the Democrats is really quite simple: They’ve learned,(from the Republinazis), that the great mass of voters don’t give a rat’s ass about the issues. Give ‘em a juicy sex scandal, though, and look out! That entire party is automatically guilty by association (Facts be damned, we got a SCANDAL!). Hey, it worked for the Republinazis, courting the voters by claiming the mantle of the “Party of Family Values”, while reviling the Democrats for their “immoral views” (their words, not mine). Now the shoe is on the other foot. And do you really expect them to leave an effective weapon laying on the ground instead of picking it up and USING it? Get real. If you truly want the Democratic Party to control Congress in ‘06 (And I REALLY hope that happens!)are you willing to quibble over the tactics? Ever heard the old adage,”Sauce for the Goose is Sauce for the Gander”? Politics is hardball…and when we have this advantage this close to the elections, we’d be FOOLS to not use it. Let’s get that Majority back in both houses…then let’s start the Empeachment investigations on Bush/Cheney.
Perhaps the underage scandals are just the canary in the mineshaft. For every minor we know about with a problem, how many adults?
When I was abroad with a government agency, the officer in charge of making sure everyone got the monthly subsistence allowance was busy inviting blonde women to lunch. When I made sure his invitation to me included his pregnant wife, the invitation evaporated and I suddenly found myself in a strange country with no money. I found out about two others, both blonde with similar situation. “Of course you’re having problems, you turned him down,” I was told by one of them, as my jaw dropped. “That’s how those Washington types operate.” No one, but absolutely no one within the agency would speak out. The guy was born in Africa with an American wife, and this agency was desperate to recruit minorities. He’s still there. The other thing they would always throw in everyone’s face is that the agency was politically fragile and if any problems became publicly known, the agency would be destroyed. The forms for reporting problems were secretly xeroxed and passed from hand to hand, but those who filled them out would find the forms never got outside the agency to embassy security, and they would suddenly find themselves having problems. One officer going stateside passed out blank forms and solicited anonymous remarks to be hand-carried to Washington, but of course it made no difference, as those at the highest levels wanted no hint of problems breathed in their fragile political air. Oh, yes, these were democrats.
I didn’t think anyone would comment on this one. We expect the Hollywood “casting couch”; is this now expected in Washington too? It also smacks of a complex underlying problem with difficult if any solutions. We prefer easy explanations and quick fixes. The underage pages were much more exciting with more grist for the mill.
Mike,
Here’s the problem: I am becoming deeply concerned that the Democratic Party is on its way to becoming just like the Republican Party. Oh, there are still some good Democrats in Congress, but there are some very nasty ones too, and since George W. Bush took office, the national Democratic Party has become more and more insistent that Democrats leave their spines at the door.
… and this is with Howard Dean in charge? No. Howard Dean is not in charge of the party. Rahm Emanuel and Charles Schumer are, and those two are willing to do anything to get power and keep it.
A couple weeks ago I started hearing from people Out East I hadn’t heard from in a while. Still going on. Nice to hear from old buds. And oh, by the way, someone is looking for stories about government misdoing, it has to be about sex. The request is routed through dem offices but supposedly originates with republicans. wtf? fight or flight?