Gleen Greenwald makes the convincing argument that the Foley Folly is the most powerful scandal to come out against the GOP because it finally finally finally exposes the GOP playbook (used in Iraq, Katrina, etc.) to the public for what it is:

In that regard, this scandal is like the CliffsNotes version of a more complicated treatise on how the Bush movement operates. Every one of their corrupt attributes is vividly on display here:

The absolute refuse ever to admit error. The desperate clinging to power above all else. The efforts to cloud what are clear matters of wrongdoing with irrelevant sideshows. And the parade of dishonest and just plainly inane demonization efforts to hide and distract from their wrongdoing: hence, the pages are manipulative sex vixens; a shadowy gay cabal is to blame; the real criminals are those who exposed the conduct, not those who engaged in it; liberals created the whole scandal; George Soros funded the whole thing; a Democratic Congressman did something wrong 23 years ago; one of the pages IM’d with Foley as a "hoax", and on and on. There has been a virtual carousel — as there always is — of one pathetic, desperate attempt after the next to deflect blame and demonize those who are pointing out the wrongdoing. This is what they always do, on every issue. The difference here is that everyone can see it, and so nothing is working.

He then concludes:

The same people who impeached a popular, twice-elected President of the U.S. over a sex scandal involving consenting adults, who caused our country’s political dialogue for several years to be composed of the filthiest and most scurrilous speculation peddled by some of the lowest bottom-feeders and dirt-mongers, and who constructed a political movement based in large part on sermonizing about private sexual morality and demonizing those who deviate, are now protesting — without any irony — the fact that a sex scandal is distracting from the Truly Important Issues our country faces and that Mark Foley’s sexual pursuit over many years of 16 and 17-year-old Congressional pages is nothing that really matters.

It is as though Republicans are being punished for all of their serious political sins at once, in one perfectly constructed, humiliating scandal designed to highlight their crimes and exact just retribution for them. The Foley scandal is shining a very bright light on their conduct, not just in this one incident but with regard to how they have been governing the country generally over the last five years. That is why this scandal is so important and it is why Bush followers are so desperate to proclaim the whole thing over with — even if it means having to jump on a pathetic Matt Drudge item to do it. The one thing they don’t want is for a clear, illuminating light to be shined on how they conduct themselves.