Even the respectable journalists at The Hill. From its lead editorial:
Hastert and Boehner need to get on the same page or Republican troubles will continue to mount.
Oh, stop it.
[Via Wonkette]
Greenwald On The Foley Scandal
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.
GOP Losing Christian Right
Wow. That title felt really good to type.
But it’s true.
The evangelical base that Karl and Ken have worked so hard to feed and care for is deserting the Republican party:
A nationwide poll of 1,500 registered voters released yesterday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 57 percent of white evangelicals are inclined to vote for Republican congressional candidates in the midterm elections, a 21-point drop in support among this critical part of the GOP base.
Even before the Foley scandal, the portion of white evangelicals with a "favorable" impression of the Republican Party had fallen sharply this year, from 63 percent to 54 percent, according to Pew polls.
In the latest survey, taken in the last 10 days of September and the first four days of October, the percentage of evangelicals who think that Republicans govern "in a more honest and ethical way" than Democrats has plunged to 42 percent, from 55 percent at the start of the year.
Foley Blame Game & The Foley Effect
I wish I had kept this list earlier, because then I could hyperlink to examples.
But off the top of my head, this is a short list of all the entities named by the right wing pundits on AM radio and the right blogistan who are actually responsible for Foley’s malfeasance:
- Demon alcohol
- Catholic priests
- Gay GOP staffers
- ABC’s Brian Ross
- Gay Democrats
- The culture of pedophilia (sanctioned by Democrats, especially Bill Clinton)
- The Internet (invented by Democrat Al Gore)
- The pages themselves, playing a "prank"
Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge are advancing the latest meme, even though other pages are coming forward.
Seriously, blaming anybody other that Foley for Foley is just as stupid as blaming recent school shootings on Harry Potter books.
Now, the CW spread by the media is that the Foley sex scandal is dragging the GOP down and will hurt them at the polls. Time says so.
Well, maybe not. Time looked at registered voters, not likely voters.
Besides, the GOP was in a freefall before the Foley scandal broke, and it was due to Iraq. Check out the latest from Pew Research:
The big issue remains Iraq:
And here’s my favorite poll result:
I must say, I like the way things are looking.
“Let’s Not Mince Words…”
Let’s not mince words: President Bush is a profound threat to the US constitution.
From the AP …
President Bush, again defying Congress, says he has the power to edit the Homeland Security Department’s reports about whether it obeys privacy rules while handling background checks, ID cards and watchlists.
In the law Bush signed Wednesday, Congress stated no one but the privacy officer could alter, delay or prohibit the mandatory annual report on Homeland Security department activities that affect privacy, including complaints.
But Bush, in a signing statement attached to the agency’s 2007 spending bill, said he will interpret that section “in a manner consistent with the President’s constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch.”
His contempt for the rule of law needs to be ended.
A Foul Wind
Well, this doesn’t sound good….
Thousands evacuated from N.C. town
APEX, N.C. – As many as 17,000 people were urged to flee homes on the outskirts of Raleigh early Friday as flames shot from a burning hazardous waste plant and a chlorine cloud rose high over the area.
Family wakes up after knock on the door at 1 a.m.
All area hotels were booked up, according to Radford, and at least 200 residents had gathered at an elementary school that was transformed into an emergency shelter.
At the shelter, the parking lot was full as several hundred residents and their pets milled around, including Cory Cataldo, his wife, Sherry, and their two young sons, according to AP.
Cataldo said the family was awakened around 1 a.m. by a knock at the door, and a man told them to evacuate because of a chemical fire. "That’s about all I needed to know," he said. "My first concern was just to get everybody out."
The downtown is covered in thick black smoke, and Radford said he is concerned about people who have ventured near the fire for a closer look. Residents as far as two miles away could see the plume or smell the chemicals, officials told AP.
"People are going to want to come in and sightsee at this fire scene," Radford told AP. "They will either get terribly sick or they will be arrested. No questions asked."
Live local NBC affiliate coverage here. Other live news coverage here.
Friday iPod Random Ten
I’ll Never Fall In Love Again – Jill O’Hara & Jerry Orbach (Promises, Promises Original Cast)- Hot Lunch Jam – Soundtrack from the Motion Picture Fame
- Our Love Is Here To Stay – Ella Fitzgerald * Louis Armstrong
- Martha My Dear – The Beatles
- Prologue – Renaissance
- The Voice Of Enigma -Enigma
- Let The River Run – Carly Simon
- It Don’t Matter To Me – Phil Collins
- Birdland – Manhatten Transfer
- Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing – Stevie Wonder
Office Space
At the office of the people who make Red Bull, you can get from floor to floor by using the slide.
And if you work at Google, you have a nice break room…
These and other seeeeeriously cool workplaces discussed here (packed with photos!)
Dobson Tells Why Boys Aren’t Glad To Be Boys
Focus On The Family’s James Dobson asks: "Is Your Son Glad To Be A Boy?" and then answers his own question with an apparaent "no".
He starts off with some supposedly true anecdotes:
"Our son was using our home computer to do some research for a report he’s writing. While doing a search, he accidentally stumbled onto a porn site. He frantically clicked the ‘back’ arrow but couldn’t get out, then panicked. I wish I would have given him permission ahead of time to simply turn off the computer if something like that happened. That was three days ago. He’s still upset.”
DOBSON’S REASON WHY THIS SON IS TROUBLED: "The sexual revolution and radical feminism."
OUR REASON: The kid is so coddled that the site of some nudie pix on the computer traumatizes him for weeks. He becomes so paralyzed by the images that he can’t think to turn off the computer unless he has parental permission!
"I’m concerned about the way the media portrays men. My husband and son can’t watch a sports event on television without being barraged with inane commercials that sexually exploit and yet glamorize women, then make men look like idiots. Hitting the mute button doesn’t help. The ridiculous images still flash across the screen.”
DOBSON’S REASON WHY THIS SON IS TROUBLED: "The negative content prevalent in most mass media."
OUR REASON: The screams of panic that a father exhibits in front of his son as he scrambles to hit all the buttons on the remote control simply because Homer Simpson appears on the television.
"My son had the saddest look on his face when he came home from school today. I asked him what happened. He says his teacher doesn’t like any of the boys in his class. She has repeatedly reprimanded my son for being too rambunctious. Now, he’s deathly afraid he is going to fail second grade.”
DOBSON’S REASON WHY THIS SON TROUBLED: "The favoritism shown to girls in public schools."
OUR REASON: The whininess he exhibits he’s expected to behave in school.
How To Live To Be 100 Or More
Lay off the following:
- Alcohol
Indulge in the following:
- Coffee
- Cigars
- Sex
So says this study of Cuban centenarians.
There’s a Clinton joke to be made about cigars and sex, but I’ll leave it to your imagination.
Foley Fallout
It’s rather pathetic to watch the right wing pundits try to spin the Foley mess as a Democratic foible.
Jonah Goldberg asks: “Where was the left’s furor over the Clinton sex scandals of the ’90s?”, claiming that Democrats are being a bunch of hypocrites.
Well, Jonah — the Democrats DID had furor over the Clinton sex scandal in the 1990’s, but we also had prespective. What Clinton did with a consenting adult is hardly comparable to what Foley did with underage minors. Get the difference. Attempts to equate the two, as if they are moral (not mention legal) equivalents is sheer desparation.
One theme that runs through rightwingers op-eds is the fact that Foley was gay, as if that was the issue. Well, perhaps it is an issue for the GOP, no friend to the gay population. But for the rest of us, the issue is pedophilia, something which is gender-neutral.
The key sentence in Goldberg’s piece is this:
What liberals don’t understand is that social conservatives actually believe their moral rhetoric, even when it’s politically inconvenient.
Really, Jonah?? Because that’s at the heart of the controversy. Social conservatives DON’T follow their moral rhetoric, especially when it’s politically inconvenient. If that were so, then Hastert would have dealt with the Foley issue when the facts were presented to him.
And it wasn’t too long ago that you, Jonah, and others wanted Tom Foley to keep his leadership role, even though he was fucking indicted. So don’t breach that your politics doesn’t influence your sense of moral outrage.
But the best attempt in trying to spin this against the Democrats comes from none other than Ann Coulter, whose headline says it all: “Who Knew Congressman Foley Was A Closeted Democrat?“? Nice try, Ann. But the Foley scandal (not only Foley himself, but the failure to deal with it) are GOP problems. And, by the way, Ann — it’s not that Foley is gay (that’s YOUR prejudice, Ann, not Democrats) — it’s that he was a pedophile. Got it?
UPDATE:? Greg Sargant: Wingnuts Have New Theory On Who’s Behind Foleygate: The Clintons
Greg is absolutely correct, the Republicans and their sad little sycophants are completely tone deaf on the Foley scandal. I caught a bit of Hannity’s show yesterday, during which a caller who seemed generally sympathetic to the conservative world view tried to explain to Hannity that pedophilia is not a Republican value. Hannity continued to defend Hastert, like the good little soldier he is, continually reiterating yesterday’s talking points — that Hastert never saw the more explicit IMs, never even saw the emails — all he knew was that Foley was sending “overly friendly” emails to a page whose family was disturbed by this and asked him to stop. The caller tried to point out that knowledge of a fifty-something congressman sending “overly friendly” emails to a teenager should have been all Hastert needed to know, but Hannity was having none of it. I just don’t see it and hey, what about this unrelated thing a Democrat did once? Yadda yadda yadda.
It’s really quite astonishing, that they think they can win this one with arguments like that. That they imagine parents across America will say to themselves, heck, what’s the big deal about an overly friendly email? Of course, I’ve certainly been astonished in the past, by the things they can apparently get away with. But when it comes to something so basic as an older man in a position of authority who’s supposed to be protecting teenagers but is instead hitting up on them, I find it hard to believe that most people are going to be swayed by a nitpicky little argument about the difference between instant messages and email.
Purely from a strategic standpoint, if ever there was a time to just toss in the towel and admit your guys fucked up, this is certainly it.
?
Obama ’08
Newsweek is reporting that Senator Barack Obama may be seriously looking at a 2008 Presidential bid:
Ask Washington insiders about Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential hopes, and you’ll get a pat response: great idea, a cycle or three from now–or maybe this time as veep. But they need to get out more. I’ve talked to Democrats in 10 cities in the last four months and found Obama fever throughout the Democratic Party. Besides an online Al Gore boomlet, no one else raises a reaction anything like it. More impressively, there’s now a distinct possibility that Obama may seize the moment and run in ’08.
Boys Will Be Boys (And Girls Will Be, Too)
Yes, it does happen a lot. It’s almost a rite of passage.
"Dad goes upstairs to check on boys in shower. Finds hair covering shower floor. Sees older brother hiding Mom’s razor, and younger brother with puzzled expression. Shall I finish the story, or… ?" [See picture at right]
"I once did that to my brother with my dads electric shaver (a long time ago!)"
"I’m sorry, but this is funny. Something to talk about when the boys grow up."
"My daughter just did the same thing a couple of weeks ago, but the front and with scissors. I think every kid does it, but it’s probably easier with a boy. My little girl went from Shirley Temple to Joe Dirt in about 2 minutes while I was washing dishes! I did my best to fix the damage, but she still looks like a boy until it grows out."
"Our third son did the same just a few weeks ago, but with scissors. Off went all of his hair with attachment #3 (3/8 inch)."
"I remember when our daughter decided her bangs were too long. She cut them right back to the top of her head."
"Awesome. I’ve got a 2 year old and a 1 month old, both boys. I’m looking forward to their hijinks. :)"
"When I was six my Dad was supposed to be watching us while my Mom was at work. Instead he watched TV. I took the opportunity to try out my new Crayola scissors and cut all the hair off of my younger sisters (two and four). All my mom could do was buzz it down and put them in a wide assortment of hats. For months people thought my sisters had leukemia."
"I wish I could say I had a brother that did that to me… Unfortunately it was I who went ahead and gave myself a hair cut with crayola scissors, while watching Pinocchio and eating a box full of clorets…"
"In the first grade, back when I had long hair, I cut a large chunk out of the front of my hair. Two days before school photos were taken, of course! And then I blamed it on Thad Smith, the class scapegoat (he drooled and was big for his age)."
"My parents have told me that my brother had been doing this to me regularly when we were children. btw he is a hairdresser nowadays"
"I havent had the kids cut their hair yet. But my 18-month old daughter did happen to find her way into a bottle of vaseline. She managed to get about half the bottle rubbed well into her once beautiful mane of hair. It took about 5 corn starch shampoo treatments to get it back to normal."
"My 8 year old chopped a chunk out of the front of her hair a couple of years ago, the most annoying thing about this was she had just grown her hair to all one length, long enough for me to be able to put it up easily for her ballet class."
"They all do it! My two boys have done the same and even far worse. You get mileage from it later since you have a photo! The fun of being parents is watching your kids do this kind of thing. It’s what makes it worthwhile!"
"Yes, they all do it. When my son was three, not only did he cut his own hair….he held the cat down and cut the whiskers off the cat too."
"I’m an older brother but I actually did this to myself when I was little (actually I used a pair of scissors to remove a huge chunk of fringe, but near enough). Don’t tell anyone though, I’m still embarrassed about the hair affair."
"One day I found the clippers Mom had in a closet somewhere and must have decided I could give myself a better haircut than that sadist at the shop could, so I did. I ended up with a reverse mohawk, freaked out and ran to my room and pretended to be asleep when the parents found the evidence. They did not fix it. At least right away."
"At Christmas one year I was recovering from a tonsillectomy, had some metal scissors and was still loopy from the anesthesia. I was putting the cool metal on my face and opening and closing the scissors. My sister came in, laughed at me and told my mom that I had shorn off half of one of my eyebrows."
"My buddies daughter did that with scissors…by the time they caught her, she had hacked off over half of the hair on the top of her head. She wore hats for about 6 months."
"We’ve been lucky in the “haircutting” department. With our FIVE kids especially. One or two have tried it, but never really got very far."
"My four years old daughter did it with scissors some months ago, fortunately she was just making some ‘retouches’ and didn’t cut too much. The one who lost all her hair was the poor Barbie, she looks like Sinnead O’Connor now…"
"I shaved my whole head including eyebrows when I was about four. Now I’m forty four and I want to do it again… but not the eye brows just the head."
UPDATE: More stories here:
"Josie cut her hair and her sister’s hair last year. Lou’s was so badly butchered we had to give her an intentionally asymmetrical haircut (very Carnaby Street ca 1966) to keep her from looking like a boy; if we had evened it out she would have looked like a Louis, not a Louisa. The good thing about hair is, it grows."
"It won’t be the first bad self-haircut the hairdresser has seen, and it certainly won’t be the last. I think it’s a rite of passage for children and their parents to mangle the hair at least once."
"I just recieved a phonecall from my mother saying that my 4 year old daughter is crying because she cut her own hair. I’m thinking to myself, ok, maybe its not so bad so I tell them to send a picture to my email. Her hair is butchered!!! Her bangs are cut all the way across down to the scalp and there is a huge chunk missing from the side of her head. It has taken her 4 years to get hair down to her shoulders and now I am gonna have to cut it atleast to her ears all the way around!!! My mother tells me that I am over reacting but I dont think I am. I dont see how this can be fixed by any hairdresser and it will take forever to grow back. "
IN RESPONSE TO THE COMMENT ABOVE, the Editor of The New Homemaker writes: "It’s just hair. Your reaction is going to affect her reaction. If she gets upset, remind her that she cut her hair and maybe next time if she decides to do that she’ll remember how she feels right now. Both of my girls have cut their hair, pretty badly. It all worked out okay. Hair grows back. Just repeat to yourself–HAIR GROWS BACK."
"Mad now, but take pictures, you’ll have a laugh later!! Ok, granted, it hasn’t happened to me (yet. but my daughters are now 6 and 8 and HOPEFULLY have outgrown this stage!). But I think I would take pictures, since I’m a scrapbooker anyway (or at least I claim to be). Always take pictures, you can blackmail them later. "
UPDATE: More here and here and here and here and here. My God! You would think it’s an epidemic!
I only cut my own hair once. I was 20. I had bleached blonde hair then (think Billy Idol). I was "punk" (when punk was big) and I lived in London. That probably doesn’t count though, right?
“The Real Issue”
When a 16-year-old boy is not safe from sexual solicitation from an elected representative of the people, we should question the moral direction of our nation," a conservative advocacy group said on Monday.
The [Family Research Council] also said Foley’s behavior raises the "real issue" of homosexuality and child abuse.
Cybercast News Service
Conservative Group Examines ‘Real Issue’ in Foley Case
October 4, 2006By that logic, I guess the Amish school killings raised the "real issue" of heterosexuality and child murder.
In Other News
18 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq in the last four days…
…including eight U.S. soldiers who died in gunbattles and bomb blasts Monday in Baghdad — the most killed in a single day in the capital since July 2005.