Blumenthal: The Coverup That Kills

[kskiska]

A sex scandal in the US Congress has Republicans pointing fingers as mid-term elections near

Sidney Blumenthal

Maf54 (7:37:27 PM): how my favourite young stud doing

Maf54 is Mark Foley, the Florida congressman and chairman of the missing and exploited children's caucus of the House of Representatives, writing an email in 2003 to a former teenage House page, one of the young interns who run errands within Congress. With the exposure last week of a series of emails to pages, Foley resigned. One of the pages had told his parents, who told their Republican congressman, who told the House Republican leadership, who kept the sexual predator in their midst a secret.

(snip)

From the moment he arrived on the scene, it was well known to people in the press and politics that Foley was gay, part of a gay network that honeycombs the Republican party. As the Republicans demonised gays for partisan advantage, the party became the largest walk-in closet in Washington. After the scandal broke, one gay Republican described Foley to me as incredibly indiscreet. Almost everyone on Capitol Hill knew that Foley spent an inordinate amount of time hanging out with pages.

(snip)

In 2004, the Republicans galvanised their voters through referendums against gay marriage in swing states. Last June, Hastert unveiled the Republican platform for the 2006 campaign, the "American Values Agenda". Now the Republican leaders' blame-casting resembles the last scene of The Treasure of Sierra Madre , where the varmints battle each other as their gold dust blows away.

more…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1887756,00.html

[JohnnyLib2]

1. Blumenthal piles on

Guess it's trendy.

[Demeter]

2. Clinton's Lawyer Says Hastert Should Not Resign

He says there's no legal nor ethical basis for Hastert to be canned (by Democrats, or in general) for a bad decision; however, it is the GOP grassroots and the elected and in jeopardy fellow GOP who want him out. I can't blame them; it reflects poorly on a party to have such a fool as a leader. It reflects poorly on GOP principles to knowingly leave even the possibility of a sexual predator and workplace harrasser on the loose among minor children.

And I think it would do the country good to have Hastert and probably Reynolds, too, gone from power.

So it's up to the voters--maybe they will be sufficiently displeased to dump these two House leaders into the circular file. We can only hope!

[kskiska]

3. Hastert was hand-picked by Tom DeLay

to be his surrogate, since DeLay knew he was too radioactive to ever be Speaker himself. He needed someone in there compliant enough to do his bidding. Now that DeLay is gone, we're stuck with this ineffective boob.