The Foley Coverup

In case you've been living under a rock, Mark Foley, Republican Congressman from Florida's 16th district, recently resigned after news broke of his sexual email and instant messaging conversations with underaged, male Congressional pages. I don't plan on making a habit of talking about stupid scandals like "Foleygate" that have little or nothing to do with real issues. What warrants mention, however, is the Republican Party's reaction to the news.

Overwhelmingly, Republicans have tried to distance themselves from Foley. Lou says that because of his hypocrisy, he's not really a Republican at all (if that was really a qualification to be a Republican, it would be the US's smallest political party). Fox News -- the conservative propaganda machine that is perhaps more truthfully spelled "Faux News" -- seems to agree with Lou, because they went to the extreme of labeling Foley as a Democrat at least 3 times during The O'Reilly Factor (insert "O RLY?" joke here) (Update: They've done it again). Then again, they're no better, since they reportedly knew about it last year, but kept it under their hats. That's hypocrisy.

Others have tried to blame the whole thing on anyone associated with the Democratic Party. These tactics range from unfounded claims that the timing of the story's release is politically motivated (Fox News could have broken the story at any time), to attempts to downplay the issue by evoking images of Monica Lewinsky, to slurring homosexuals and blaming both Foley's actions and the cover up on America's "Tolerance And Diversity". These people don't even subscribe to the philosophy of "love the sinner, hate the sin". All they know how to do is hate.

Foley's actions may have been disgraceful, but they can't match the disgrace of his party's reaction.