This is beautiful!
The republican party is coming apart at the seams. Finally, these lying, hypocritical bastards are being called to task. The party's over; the piper must be paid. For twelve long years these people have raped our country; they have all but destroyed the social and economic infrastructure of our once-great nation. For too many years, the American electorate just sat back in numbed apathy and let it happen. From the day twenty-six years ago, when they foolishly sent a feeble minded, failed "B" movie actor by the name of Ronald Reagan to the White House, they have watched their standard of living slowly but surely disintegrate. They have seen their earning potential dwindle to the point where the middle class is in serious danger of extinction. But finally I think the people (or a significant number of them) are beginning to awaken from the right-wing coma they've been snoring under all these many years. Did you have a nice nap, folks?
Morning in America, indeed.
In terms of pure political theater, the last week and a half has been the gift that just keeps giving. First it was the publication of the Bob Woodward's book, "State of Denial" which stated - How shocking! - that the Bush administration has been lying to us, from day one, about the war in Iraq (WELL, DUH, BOB!) And then along came the strange, weird saga of Mark Foley. The congressman from Florida who has been writing the laws regarding Internet predators is revealed to be, himself, an Internet predator! Isn't that sweet? He might even end up being jailed by the very laws that he wrote! And you think that's bad? Wait! It gets better - I mean, worse: The GOP leaders in the House, including Speaker Denny Hastert, have led a concerted effort to cover it up. The person who knew about the details of Foley's "naughty e-mails" (Tony Snow's own words) longer than anyone, Thomas Reynolds of New York, for some unknown reason (Nudge! Nudge! Wink! Wink!) received an unheard of $100,000 contribution from Foley to the Congressional Campaign Committee of which Reynolds, himself, is the head of. Coincidence? Of course it was!
And now poor old Mark is claiming that the bottle made him do it. Hmm. I've put away some serious amounts of booze in my day and I don't ever recall getting so shit-faced that I became week in the knees for any guy - underaged or otherwise. Maybe I was just too drunk to remember but I really kind of doubt it. And now Foley is claiming that, as a youth, he was molested by a "clergyman". How convenient. His Attorney says he will announce the name of the (Priest? Rabbi? Minister? Mullah?) at a later date. Right. Do a little research beforehand, ay, Marky? Make damn good and sure that the clergyman, in question, is good and dead. Do these assholes even have a clue as to how transparent they are?
I'm loving this! Watching these people literally implode right in before my eyes is too good to be true! The Germans have a word for it, "sschadenfreude" - which means, shameful glee. Should I be ashamed of myself for feeling so joyful at what is, beyond any doubt, a hideous tragedy? Yes. Yes I should - but I'm not. So sue me! Another self righteous, full-of-shit politician has bitten the dust. To give you an example of just what I'm talking about, I was going to print, verbatim, the transcript of the Instant Message that Foley exchanged with the Page in question but I decided against it. They're just too disturbing to read and there is such a thing as "good taste". What? You're surprised to find out that even I have standards of decency? Cut me some slack, Jack!
In the meantime (very mean), the right-wing propaganda machine has gone into overdrive. Faithfully referring to their carefully coordinated "talking points", they were like Pavlov's dogs on the political talk shows last night, constantly bringing up the names of Barney Frank and Gary Studds, two democratic members who were involved in their own sex scandals decades ago. FOX News identified Foley as a democrat and Matt Drudge even stupidly blamed the Pages themselves for "egging him on". As outrageous as that statement is, it didn't surprise me at all. Nothing that comes out of the mouths and minds of these fools shocks me any longer. They have so dumbed down our national political dialogue that in the space of thirty years, we've gone from the sage commentary of Eric Severeid to the daily, half-witted rants of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. As Mort Sahl once speculated in a slightly different context, this just proves that Darwin was wrong!
I cannot emphasize this point too strongly: This is one of the most important elections in American history. If the republicans are allowed to retain control of both houses of congress next month, you might as well kiss your country goodbye. Look at it this way: Think of all the destruction that George W. Bush has inflicted on the nation and the world in the last four years, bearing in mind that all the while he had a re-election or a mid-term to worry about! If the GOP wins next month, there will be no stopping him. Do you want this murderous little thug to carry on with a lap dog, sycophantic congress? Or would you rather that body be controlled by an opposition party that will resist him and, if possible, impeach him? And can you imagine what will happen to our Justice system if he's able to fill another vacancy on the Supreme Court? Those are the very serious questions facing us at the moment. They'll try every "October Surprise" imaginable between now and then - Don't fall for it! They'll conjure up images of terrorists in your home town - Don't buy it! They've been lying to us for the last six years and that's not going to change - ever.
The damage that has already been done to the United States of America by the Republican party is now beyond the point of accurate calculation. The worst mistake the electorate could make at this point in our history would be to consolidate the problem by giving them two more years to pound the final few nails into our national coffin. As things now stand, we are not beyond hope with respect to recovering from the damage done to ourselves and our standing within the community of nations by this nightmare of an administration. But an additional two years of this unchecked madness might very well mean the end of America's grand, two-hundred and thirty year experiment in Representative democracy. We've got a pretty good thing going here. Please, let's not blow it, OK?
Pray for peace.
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net
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