Foley-obia: Just in case there is any doubt ...

Just in case I've left some doubt as to where I come down on the Foley issue, here is a straightforward clarification.

I think Foley is where he needs to be. In therapy, in a rehab. I think he did the right and honorable thing in resigning.

Although I do not subscribe generally to the left's penchant of turning everyone into a victim, I do see Foley as a victim of his own secrets. He had an alcohol problem that impaired his judgment and had he not been a gay man not entirely comfortable with that fact, or at least one who had tried to keep this part under the radar, he would not have left himself wide open to this prank and any number of other forms of blackmail. It is for this very kind of reason that we take great steps not to have people in our intelligence services or in sensitive positions with skeletons in their closet. Secrets equal power to those who threaten to reveal them.

And make no mistake, these very bright and very politically astute young men may have started this whole excercise for shits and giggles, but the moment they went up to FILE and hit SAVE on those AOL IMs, they became conspirators with an agenda. They had power over a Congressman to be used at will.

Foley is getting his punishment with loss of job, destruction of his reputation, shame, a future life always under a cloud. What punishment should these young men and their enablers face for trying to fix an election and blackmail members of Congress? Yes, blackmail because that is what the militant gay group wants. Blackmail of the closet gays to toe a party line against their political principles in order to advance an agenda other than the one the voters elected them to carry out. 

Comments

[PBCliberal]

I think you're coming along very nicely. This whole Foley mess had turned out--for those who have followed it closely--to be an excellent primer on why dishonesty in government is a bad idea. We couldn't grasp the lesson when it was WMDs or Niger yellocake, or Condi saying she wasn't told of an impending attack when she was, or the Bush regieme cooking the books on Iraq results revealed through Woodward and the Intelligence estimate last week.

Its not Foley's alcoholism (if it exists), or his homosexuality. Its the party that has used homosexuality to scare its base and get them to the polls, when their minds should have been on higher things. Your party did this to itself. If you're the victim, you're victim to your own game gone awry.

You ask about the punishment the "young men and their enablers" should receive for trying to "fix" an election, and then try and suggest that they're members of some militant gay group. These are conservative republican operatives working in right-wing campaigns. They were outed by conservative websites.

Edmund has now hired an attorney, who is reported to have told the Daily Oklahoman, "There is not any aspect of this matter that is a practical joke nor should anyone treat it that way."

There is something seriously wrong in your party when it says one thing publicly when it knows the complete opposite to be true; the Foley mess is simple, and accessible, and has a prurient component which makes it great gossip, but the problem is far reaching and can be seen in "Mission Accomplished" signs and in the way Condi Rice reads the title of a Daily Briefings when she's called before the 9/11 commission.