by Steve Young with a Crucial Assist from Ms. Sandy Sand
The allegations of a child predator being amongst their ranks have been known by Republican leaders for close to a year and they let him continue to serve.
Let me repeat that.
The allegations of a child predator being amongst their ranks have been known by Republican leaders for close to a year and they let him continue to serve. Serve and legislate to you...AND YOUR CHILDREN!
Satire? Funny? As a crutch, Rich.
If the Republicans refuse to protect underage children in harm's way, how can we expect them to protect our older children in harm's war? Say, in a war. A war where information detrimental to your children has been known for years yet concealed so that the war abusing hundreds of thousands, men, women and children, could continue.
Simply, we shouldn't expect them to protect our kids. Why? Because the only thing the Republicans in power care to protect is their power, whether that be an alleged child predator or an entire country's predator.
Mark Foley's folly with kids should remain the prime illustration of everything that is wrong with the GOP. Not that they all molest children, that we know of...yet. But that the Republican Party will go to any length, hiding NIE reports or excusing comments of "The insurgency is in it's last throes" and inadequate body armor as just "commas" or nanoseconds" in history.
Oh, to be sure, they'll be out there castigating Foley now and how they find his actions reprehensible. "My God, the last thing we'd want to do is empower the child molester, especially the child molester we've been empowering the last year."
It started just a few hours ago as Brit Hume(who O'Reilly says has never shown bias with Bill Clinton) on Fox News Sunday defended the GOP and how they handled Foley vs how Dems handling their "sinners." He neither differentiated the under-age of Foley's target nor the time it took - nearly a year- before they outed Foley (which he said has yet to be confirmed). When just that information was brought up by Fox "liberal" Juan Williams, Brit was struck dumbfounded answering, "what do you mean?"
Monday morning Hannity will undoubtedly dip into his litany of Clinton blow jobs and Kennedy's Chappaquiddick, as well as what terrific cars General Motors make, to counter what should be a pox infecting the body (used to be) Grand Old Party. He has to. They all serve to put food on his table. Ruth Chris grade food for his children. The question Sean has to ask is: Would Mrs. Hannity allow her children to be babysat by the same guys who allowed Foley to remain to chair the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus?
That's right. Up till this past week, Denny Hastert, John Boenner and the rest of the Republican good old boys kept 52-year-old Mark Foley (R, FLA), who was sending "are you horny" e-mails through the Internet to a 16-year-old boy, to stay on in office AND as chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus. This is same Foley who had introduced legislation in July to protect children from exploitation by adults over the Internet.
Websters needs to strongly consider retiring the word "hypocrite."
And this is the same Foley who said that, "We track library books better than we do sexual predators." Certainly, Foley should know. One wonders how long he's been getting away with it and what the depths his deceit of the public has wrought.
If it weren't so all-firing sad, it would all make for a great Onion story.
The office of House Speaker Hastert, who earlier said he'd learned about the e-mails only last week, admitted sending the information to the authorities last fall. They said they were only told the messages were "over-friendly." Over-friendly? What do they think of out boys coming home in boxes? Over-wounded?
Soccer moms, Baseball dads. Mr. and Mrs Bill "Jessica's Law" O'Reilly. The Hannitys. Focus on the Family members, whose founder James C. Dobson, told you this week that it would be "downright frightening" if Republicans lost control of Congress. Every single voter needs to ask themselves who are the ones who are really "downright fightening."
Ask yourselves what else the Republicans have hidden when selling the Iraq War while selling out the country to foreigners, out-sourcing well-paying jobs while in-sourcing cheap labor.
Ask yourselves why, really why, the GOP allows drug companies to write prescription drug legislation and support credit card companies against the public in making it nearly impossible for honest citizens to file for bankruptcy even when it was caused by undue medical charges.
Ask yourselves why there was no attempt to secure our borders until days before an election.
Ask yourselves whether you should trust those who hid a child abuser with your children and their future.
Look at your children.
Then ask yourself why the hell you would give these guys another chance?
Steve Young is author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" (Tall Fellow Press) and the wacky new children's novel, "15 Minutes" (HarperCollins)