Red State has figured out who to blame in regards to the Mark Foley scandal:
To be sure, the blame for the mishandling of this matter rests with the House Republican Leadership. But I’m struck by a letter released this weekend by Nancy Pelosi. In it, she wrote:
The fact that Mr. Foley was engaging in this behavior with underage children, that the Republican Leadership knew about it for six months to a year and has characterized the inappropriate behavior as “overly friendly” and “acting as a mentor” and that apparently no action was taken to protect these underage children is abhorrent.
Shouldn’t we also call on the media to tell us what exactly they knew and when they knew it. And shouldn’t we also ask the leakers of the information, who were undoubtedly Democrats, what they knew and when they knew it and why they waited almost a full year to leak the information instead of taking immediate action to stop Mr. Foley.
So the blame lies with the House Republican Leadership, but just for shits and giggles, let’s blame the media and the Democrats anyway. This will prbably be the actual strategy, by the way. Try to smear shit all over both houses, just so they can say that both parties are equally bad.
Pb
More here:
Of course, the difference between me and Red State here: I know how to cite a source, whereas all they have is hatred for Democrats, and therefore unfounded wild-ass speculation against Democrats.
ThymeZone
Sure, and this should hardly be surprising if that’s the tack they take.
We are talking about a political machine that has managed its way through almost six years of the most horrendous government, policies, collossal fuckups and failures, DeLay and Abramof scandals, the apparent “firing” of its most popular and most statesmanlike cabinet member, the cronyism and incompetancy in every corner and at every level of government …. do you really think that a little sex scandal is going to be more than they can handle? They’ve dealt with worse than this. This is just another comma on the Karl Rove Joy Trail to a new and better America, with honor and dignity restored, etc.
Just one of many reasons why I say, yet again, and obviously to the deafest of ears, the whooping and celebrating going on in Demblogovia is way out of line. This thing is unlikely to move a lot of votes to our column and more importantly, unlikely to move a lot of seats in the House into our column. If it does, then it will have to trump a straight flush of much more important things in our hand right now, including Iraq news going from bad to worse, a string of reports and books detailing the tragi-comic stumbling and bumbling of the White House into and around in circles in Iraq, and a public that is pretty well fed up. Trump all of that for a month, during which the Gop will be beating it back with everything they have, which is a lot, on the noise machine channels.
I predict, and hope, that Dem congressional candidates will keep their eyes on the ball in their districts and continue to fight the same good fight they have been fighting … and winning … all summer and into the fall.
Plenty of time to milk the Foley story next year when we have the committees and the subpoenas, but to get there, it’s necessary not to get distracted.
Sine.Qua.Non
Surely that wasn’t an apologist viewpoint I was just reading. Sheesh.
About the only thing you should be feeling right now is outright disgust for this pederest.
Pb
And for those Republican partisans who were wondering about how this story broke… It sounds like it came from the interns that the House Republicans were so busily ignoring and marginalizing:
Tsulagi
That will probably be among the best of them. But all will involve to some degree “Turn down the spotlight, to be fair you need to spend your time looking over in the shadows where I’m pointing.”
At least this weekend will be fun watching the Grand Old (queen) Party try to sync up their spin and stories. After showing how tough they can be in ordering others to torture and be tortured, they wanted to come out swinging dick on the weekend talk shows and in their home districts. Spend time deliciously calling Dems the party of cut and run.
Instead, they’re spending time explaining how one of their own was playing with his dick while IMing page boys, and trying to get their stories straight as to why their leadership did nothing about it.
Perry Como
They were Democrat pages trying to set Foley up.
Jolamer
I know where you’re coming from, ThymeZone, but anything that depresses the Republican GOTV effort in November is critically important. With the massive House redistricting effort over the last decade and as many as five incumbent Republican Senators running dead even against challenging Dems (and Santorum and Burns currently down), convincing even a small percentage of far-right values voters that their party’s leaders will put politics over even the basest of the moral issues that concern them will kill the Republican party in November.
Dems have needed a national story in this vein from the beginning of this campaign season–Abramoff hasn’t gained traction and Plame fell through as an election issue as Libby got his trial pushed back to 2007 and Armitage successfully took the rest of that bullet for the WH (over Novak’s protests that Armitage was “deceptive”). Think of it this way: Schiavo in early 2005 did more to damage Republican approval ratings than either of those two major issues in 2005-2006, and although Foley’s indiscretions are a minor blip in the grand picture, the complicity of House GOP leaders is definitely on par with what Frist and company pulled on Schiavo and has the same potential to dominate headlines as we’re leading up to November 7th. If anti-Republican disclosures and stories take the upcoming news cycles, Republicans will be unable to counter the looming anti-incumbent mood in the run-up to Election Day and will summarily lose Congress.
(Not to say that individual Dems should let up on Iraq/national security so they can campaign against Foley, but letting this story fall through the cracks would be a catastrophic tactical blunder, and non-campaigning Dems need to work to uncover the details and the extent of the House leadership’s complicity to give the story legs nationally.)
ThymeZone
What in the world is that referring to? Is there anyone around here who can think and actually make an argument?
Apologist? That doesn’t even compute.
Look, kids, you have ONE MONTH LEFT to garner the votes to pick up 15 seats in the House of Representatives and maybe stave off destruction of the country for a couple of years. That’s your shot. Do you really want to waste it slobbering over lascivious IMs and beating your chests over a sex scandal? A sex scandal that ANAICT, so far, has no actual sex in it?
If I’m the GOP, I’m already figuring out a way to make this work for me. Already this weekend it has distracted from a tsunami of bad news about this government and its demented policies over the last five years.
The election will not be held in the blogosphere. It will be held in fire stations and community centers in everyday America. What matters right now is what matters to the people who will show up to vote in a month, not what matters to the snark factories on Internets. Wake up.
scarshapedstar
All together, now:
If you’re fucked and you know it, blame the Clenis (heh, indeed)
If you’re fucked and you know it, blame the Clenis (heh, indeed)
If you’re fucked and you know it, Unka Karl says “don’t show it”, when you’re fucked and you know it, blame the Clenis (heh, indeed.)
sglover
Just one of many reasons why I say, yet again, and obviously to the deafest of ears, the whooping and celebrating going on in Demblogovia is way out of line. This thing is unlikely to move a lot of votes to our column and more importantly, unlikely to move a lot of seats in the House into our column. If it does, then it will have to trump a straight flush of much more important things in our hand right now, including Iraq news going from bad to worse, a string of reports and books detailing the tragi-comic stumbling and bumbling of the White House into and around in circles in Iraq, and a public that is pretty well fed up. Trump all of that for a month, during which the Gop will be beating it back with everything they have, which is a lot, on the noise machine channels.
I vehemently disagree. Look at what it’s already done: Foley’s gone, and there’s no GOP candidate to replace him. It’s very, very hard for me to believe that covering for a known pederast is going to help Hastert and Boehner, though I don’t know how safe their seats are. Perhaps their resignations will be coming up in the next few weeks?
In any case, after a week when Dems (again!) demoralized their base with their “defense” of habeus corpus (half-hearted and inept as usual), this is a time when they really need to rally their constituents. They need to show that they know how to fight. If that means fighting dirty with a sex scandal — oh fucking well. They’d only be borrowing Chapter One from the GOP playbook.
If this were a Dem scandal, by now Atwater and Gingrich and Rove would be going on the Sunday gasfests and saying stuff like, “the pedophile, er, I mean, Democrat party”. It’s pigfucker time. I don’t think that all or most Republicans are pederasts. But I sure do want to see them deny it.
Hyperion
Pb, i saw the cited WHInternNow comment at Greenwald’s site.
however, the story it was associated with is curious. evidently Tim Mahoney (Foley’s opponent) said something in early september about Foley having a “dirty little secret”. most kossacks’ comments are centered around the assumption that Mahoney is hinting about Foley’s sexual orientation. that’s the context of WHInternNow’s comment.
so i’m wondering: what did Mahoney mean? if he knew about the page stuff, how did he find out?
capelza
TZ…who wants to waste time obsessing over Foley…but the point that the GOP knew about it, ignored it and kept it on the down low. The GOP leadership of the house protected a skanky man to keep power. That in a nutshell defines their whole career…why not push that?
sglover
If I’m the GOP, I’m already figuring out a way to make this work for me. Already this weekend it has distracted from a tsunami of bad news about this government and its demented policies over the last five years.
Get real. There’s been a “tsunami of bad news about this government” for the last THREE YEARS!!! Despite that, somewhere between a third to a half of our fellow citizens think more of the same is just fine. Powerful guys putting the moves on 16 year olds, or covering up same, seems to be the only thing the ignorami can comprehend. And it shouldn’t be any great stretch to use that attention-grabber as a segue to a discussion of more refined brands of Republican sliminess.
scarshapedstar
ThymeZone, if the dead-enders and dumbshits don’t understand by now just how fucked we are, all the “bad news about this government and its demented policies” in the world aren’t going to save us with one month left.
It’s dead girl / live boy season from here on out, and that’s fine by me. Karl Rove figured this out a long time ago; don’t try and tell me that the SwiftLiars were a form of “substantive criticism”. It’s time to fight fire with fire and you concern trolls can go fuck yourselves.
Pb
Hyperion,
Judging from what they cited alone, I don’t think he knew, and I doubt many Kossacks saw that diary at all (I didn’t at the time), and fewer still read the link. I agree with the guy who said this:
p.lukasiak
that Foley was gay (and had a taste for considerably younger me) was one of the worst kept secrets in the gay world.
But that Foley was stupid enough to hit on underage congressional pages …now THAT was news.
(oh, and just so the wingnuts don’t have to, let me state that Barney Frank was an idiot for having a lover who ran a male prostitution ring…. and Macbuckets is gay.)
Andrew
Remember, the actual touching of the khram is legal with the 16 year old boys in D.C.! It’s the sexy talk on the internets that is illegal.
p.lukasiak
Do you really want to waste it slobbering over lascivious IMs and beating your chests over a sex scandal? A sex scandal that ANAICT, so far, has no actual sex in it?
someone hasn’t been keeping up with the “instant message” transcripts that have been posted…
scarshapedstar
Remember, the actual touching of the khram is legal with the 16 year old boys in D.C.! It’s the sexy talk on the internets that is illegal.
It’s also illegal if the sexy time liquid explosion gets on a blue dress.
scarshapedstar
And, for the “it’s not so bad” crowd, I eagerly await your explanations for when it inevitably comes out that either Foley sent this kid pictures of his pathetic little dick, or demanded that the kid do the same, or both. “Must have been some kind of webcam malfunction!” “He meant to send a picture of SpongeBob!”
My god. I wish I could feel pity for you guys.
Blue Neponset
I don’t know how Erick can write that stuff. He is a pretty good political spinmeister, but I can’t imagine a worse tact to use than blaming the press and the Dems for what happened with Foley. This scandal is a big shit sandwich for the Repubs and they are going to have to take a huge bite of it before the country moves on to something else. My advice would be to take the bite sooner rather than later. The longer they wait the more the Repubs look like Cardinal Law.
KC
Yeah, no matter how you cross the t’s and dot the i’s, the stalwart, god-fearing, leadership of The Party of Morality decided to keep the possibly illegal sexual antics of one of their members in the dark for political purposes. It’s pretty pathetic really. What’s even more pathetic though, is now they’re trying to drag down everyone with them.
Disgusting.
fishbane
If that is the strategy, it is pretty dangerous. Haskert has a problem, and this close before an election, encouraging the opposition to spend time talking about a child molester in office, complete with all of the coverup, sounds like a bad idea.
DougJ
Actually, he’s right about the media.
Pretty dumb to ask what Democrats knew because part of what’s rotten in the state of earmarks is that the Democrat on the page board was never told anything.
Please forgive the pun calling Congres “the state of earmarks”. I’m a little frazzled today.
EL
You should see what’s going on over at freeperdom. Despite occasional voices trying to insert facts, the group-think is that ABC and CREW had the graphic IMs for a year (which they didn’t, just the original email)and decided to unload them only at the strategic time. Goerge Soros having contributed to CREW, they’ve concluded the whole thing is a George Soros plot. A few stabs at “blame the victim,” as well.
capelza
reposting this..put it on the wrong topic:
Well…I did finally click on that RS link.. :(
What I find really sad is that suppssedly conservative people are suddenly twisting themsleves into pretzels about whether a guy who is doing what Foley did is “okay” because in some states the age of consent is 16. I wonder how many of these people would have been so eager if Foley was a Dem. They’d be citing Foley’s own law. The one poster, Steve gets it.
ThymeZone
Yes, but it’s not. And we don’t have those fellas.
I don’t agree that the electorate is “the ignorami.” We were winning this election cycle well before anyone ever heard of Foley.
tBone
People in fire stations and community centers are going to pay a lot more attention to a juicy sex scandal than murky, legalistic arguments about torture, et al. That’s just the way it is. Like I said last night – the media is going to flog this one for all it’s worth, no matter what the Democrats do. (And yes, I do like to use the term “flog” when discussing this story.)
As for Dems in Blogospheria sniggering over this – well, duh. Welcome to the Intertrons.
ThymeZone
It’s time to stay focussed and keep our eye on the ball.
I’m pretty hopeful that our candidates will be doing this, even if the blogapalooza crowd can’t.
If a candidate has an opportunity to score points against a particular GOP opponent with Foleygate, fine, use it. But general confetti-throwing over this scandal is not going to accomplish anything.
Don’t underestimate the bottomless put of self-reference in the blahsphere. Don’t overestimate the reaction of Mister and Missus Suburban Missouri to this story.
People will remember that the country was in the toilet and the GOP had no plan to reverse the flow, long after they have forgotten the name of
TomMark Foley. Trust me.Richard 23
Just Barking Mad, indeed:
Nobody’s defending Foley of course, nobody’s condoning what he did, nobody’s excusing his behavior, but it goes without saying that this disclosure is the Democrats’ fault and they did it too!
ThymeZone
I seriously doubt it. Even if they flog it, which they will not, they will not flog it in a Dem-friendly way as you imagine. They will flog it in a “some say” way as they usually do. And no matter how much they flog it, it either wins votes or it doesn’t …. and I don’t think it does. The media “flogged” Reagan, especially in his second term, and the result is that you’d think he was Abraham Fucking Lincoln and George Washington put together, the way half the country remembers him. The public does not trust the media.
The Other Steve
Well obviously it’s the Democrats fault. The Democrats are supposed to keep the Republicans honest right? Because otherwise we’d never have any honest Republicans.
So clearly this is Nancy Pelosi’s fault.
Oh yeah, and Herbert Hoover.
capelza
TOS..of course it is the Dems fault. We MADE Foley do it! And it is our fault that we didn’t force an investigation from the Page’s committee because we didn’t KNOW about it. We MADE Hastert, Reynolds, Boehner and the NRCC ignore it months, because we weren’t told. It’s plain to see how it is our fault…
ThymeZone
Righteous indignation = no votes
Snark = no votes
Gotcha / Hypocrisy / Irony = no votes
Blog feeding frenzy = no votes
What is worth votes? Voter discontent with the disconnect between promises and delivery. Unease about security. Discontent with George Bush. Pocketbooks and health. A general feeling that the party in power isn’t getting the job done, and can’t with the personnel it has now. All of which we had a week ago.
George Bush is the driver in this election cycle, and this scandal doesn’t touch him. Meanwhile, the Machine can keep this “scandal” confusing to most voters for four weeks, without batting an eye, unless there is a lot more we haven’t seen or heard yet. “Dynamite in the distance” is all it takes, and as we all know, they have that routine down to a science.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
TZ,
But this has the element of S-E-X.
tBone
Reagan didn’t have a series of IMs showing him hitting on teen boys, either. Dead girl/live boy trumps everything, no matter how much spin the GOP tries to apply.
tBone
I completely disagree. The real nightmare for the GOP in this is that the story is so easy to understand – all you need is a two-line excerpt from one of those IM exchanges. Pretty difficult to spin a Republican congressman talking to a 16-year-old about “spirting” in a towel.
ThymeZone
Pay attention, folks. This is a FOX ANCHOR taking the neocons and Bush to the woodshed this weekend …
Watch the whole thing, and then tell me that Mark Foley’s stiffy is what you need to be talking about right now.
Pb
Blue Neponset,
Heh.
ThymeZone
The silver lining for the GOP is that this story is going to be relatively easy to blur and defuse for four weeks.
These guys blurred nonexistent WMDs, for which a war was started and thousands died, for three years without even breaking a sweat.
Now when that stuff has finally gained traction, you want to pull the camera away and look at some cornholer’s email?
Not a smart move, my friends.
ThymeZone
Exactly why I advise against putting eggs into this basket.
It’s giving away the high ground we gained at great pain of effort and cost over the last five years.
Don’t discount what has been accomplished. We don’t need this nonsense.
Pb
And they couldn’t have done it without the help of a complicit and uninterested media. So, pop quiz, do you think they’ll be all over this story, or will they keep running with the sex scandal? Neither story is good news for the Republicans, mind you, but the media will cover what they want to cover, which is what they think will make them more money, not what might actually be more important for America.
ThymeZone
And they will cover it in their “some say” fashion, interviewing plenty of GOP blabbingheads with their Mehlmanisms and their Rovisms and their Barltettisms and their mealy-mouthed deflections, and the water will be muddied up and the issues unclear until at least after the election. And they will USE the thing to filibuster and keep the lenses and microphones away from the stuff represented by my video link above (courtesy DKos) which is where the real energy driving this election is going to come from.
Bush himself will demagogue this thing and come forth and make some sanctimonious speech about it. He’s the real election issue, and this scandal doesn’t even begin to touch his vestments.
capelza
TZ…outside of the blogoshpere, what fucking “high ground” do the Dems have?
They lead in polls, if they still do, not because of any high ground, but because people are just sick of the same old bullshit. If I hear, one more time that the Dems don’t “have a plan” I am going to punch someone, because they do..but this is the “accomplishment” of the Dems. Noone listens. It is media driven..and the media does not report anything of the kind. But the media WILL report about this.
And I’ll remind you of another minor scandal, the Swiftboaters, that cost Kerry the election because he took the high ground. Fuck that…
This is a real “live boy” scandal…but the important thing is that reaction or lack there of of his cronies is the story..it dovetails nicely the years of cronyism, corruption and complete lack of concern for anyone who isn’t one of them…hypocrites, to boot. I bet everyone of those fuckers voted for Foley’s bill.
So it IS about everything you’ve talked about, but with SEX, not just any sex either..but that which our contry is truly obsessed with…PERVY PEDOPHILE SEX.
Does Foley have a Myspace page? :p
Pb
I have no doubt that the GOP spin machine will try its best, but I think this one is going to be pretty tough to spin, it’s just too basic and too visceral, which is just the sort of thing that the GOP has been using to win elections for years, except that it isn’t a manufactured issue, either, but rather a full-blown GOP cover-up turned clusterfuck.
DougJ
CREW engineered all this to help the terrorists. We undermine Congress at our own peril. Remember THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO WANT TO KILL US!!!!!!! Which is much worse than merely wanting to molest our children.
ThymeZone
Well, all I can say is, with the kind of thinking I’m seeing here, it’s no wonder how these guys have danced circles around us.
You guys are seeing this through revenge and rage filled glasses, and not being coldly analytical about it at all.
The media is not going to go with the stiffies and the towel squirts. The sex part is titillating only to people who are titillated by that sort of crap. And no matter how disgusting it may seem, the perpetrator has resigned in disgrace. He’s gone. You WANT to take the stain and move it to Hastert. Won’t work, but even if the stain is portable, you get nothing much more than a swing at Hastert’s seat, you don’t get fifteen seats.
Fifteen seats are what counts, and we have a very good shot at those seats even if Foley never happened. Quite honestly, anyone who doesn’t know that shouldn’t even be commenting here on this subject, they are just dead-ass wrong.
Don’t let your imaginations run away with you. And don’t let the GOP turn this into another jackalope rodeo. Your visions of the contrary are, at this juncture, just wishful thinking.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
That’s it – they can’t nuance their way out of this.
TZ, I don’t get your reaction. I figured you would be leading the “hang ’em high” mob. And I’d be right behind you.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Are you high? Of course they will!
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Bigger, and bigger…
Kirk Spencer
Thymezone – I think you’re the one missing the point.
The high ground is based on two facets:
The party in power is corrupt.
The party in power avoids accountability.
The sex story is more of the same. Someone somewhere has started a word-pattern that wraps the whole thing together, and I commend it to your attention:
They put an Arabian Horse Judge in charge of disaster management.
They put oil company lobbyists in charge of our energy policy.
They put Dubai in charge of our port security.
And they put a child predator in charge of the Committee for Missing and
Exploited Children.
Who will you put in charge in November?
matt
What the hell happened to Red State? That place began as a fiercely partisan website, but it was still relatively moderate (or maybe reasonable is a better word) at least when compared to FR, LGF, ect. Now it’s just another joke.
tBone
I don’t want to pull the camera away from anything. It’s going to happen regardless because the media can’t resist a scandal like this. And as several of us have said, it’s an almost impossible story for the GOP to spin because the basics are instantly understandable.
You seem to think that we’re advocating that the Dems drop everything and go all-Foley all the time, which is not the case.
ThymeZone
I don’t agree. Watch the YouTube link I posted. I think that’s where the high ground is.
All the rest is just rhetoric. The GOP machine will see to it that enough people think so, that’s what they do for a living, and they are very good at it.
ThymeZone
Oh, I disagree. I think they are quite capable of spinning this into a wash, if not a plus, if this were happening in a vacuum. I never underestimate them. I never overestimate the press. I never count votes I don’t have.
Personally, I think we have the House without Foley or anything else we didn’t have a week ago today. Anything that rattles that, I’m agin it.
Once the election is over, and we win, we can knock ourselves out over Foleygate.
capelza
So TZ, when the GOP tries to turn this around and blame it on CREW (whoever the hell they are) the Dems should take the high road and continue to talk about torture (apparantly the American public does not care) or the state of healthcare or the war or how the GOP really isn’t keeping us that safe from terror oreven corruption.
All the things that mattter and NONE of the things that the American public does seem to care about that much, other than a nebulous “Yeah, something’s not quite right but the Dems would be worse”….? The Dems should just ignore it as the GOP is already trying to twist it onto them? As I said before…ask John Kerry if he should have told the Swiftboaters to go to hell. The GOP house allowed this to go on even telling any Dems about it…they chose money and power over the safety of children…it is THE metaphor for the whole gang.
capelza
That last sentence should have read WITHOUT telling any Dems.
demimondian
TZ — I don’t agree.
I don’t agree because I think that the Democrats can, will, and should interpret a victory in November to mean whatever they want it to mean no matter what it really meant.
Think back to 1994. Was the 1994 election about the “Contract with America”? Hell, no! It was about the post office scandal, Clinton’s tax increase, and the health care plan’s failure. The new majority didn’t choose to interpret it that way, and, in a very real sense, they were right. They had been elected as people — and this is what they believed, or, at least, wanted to believe they believed. People who voted the class of 94 in got what they voted for, even if that isn’t why they voted for them.
That’s what mattered in 1994, and, if the Democrats win in November, it’s what will matter in 2006. In the end, the election will have been about Iraq — and about the Congress’s new responsibility to investigate the Bush administration and to reign in its more enthusiastic elements — no matter what micro-events lead to a win. Ignoring that is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
demimondian
capelza:
It is indeed.
Safety for our cities? Where’s Osama?
Safety for our homes? You’re doing a heckuva job, Brownie!
Safety for our children? Why did Boehner and Hastert cover up for Mark Foley?
I know it’s hard to believe, but these show that the GOP will let your children be tortured, your homes destroyed, and your very lives ended if that will get them more power.
ThymeZone
All politics is local, and this is nowhere more true than in the House races.
House candidates should stay focussed and talk about the things that have been moving the trend lines toward D all year, all summer, and so far this fall.
They should continue to run against George Bush.
ThymeZone
Please replace, on your virtual blog, my previous blockquote with this one.
Pasted, without cutting. My bad.
Rudi
Hey I’d pay good money to see Lee Atwater speak on the Sunday talking head shows. That would be one hell of a job on the corpse. The wires would show on the jaw…
Rudi
*makeup job on the corpse.
capelza
TZ, I don’t know about your local race, but my rep and her GOP opponent are in a headlock of negativity at each other. George Bush doesn’t enter into it. I don’t want it to just be about George Bush, but about the entire GOP!
I want her to say…THIS is the kind of stuff that goes on with the GOP in charge. I wouldn’t put all my eggs in the W basket either.
ThymeZone
Well, this isn’t 1994. But yes, it was, more than you think. It was about a seemingly practical plan for America versus a grandiose, seemingly untenable scheme to have the government take over health care. It was perceived tax relief after a bitter battle over the budget. It was about a party — the GOP — getting its act together with a coherent winning message.
“Mark Foley likes boys and so Republicans are bad” is not a winning message.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
I don’t think there’s anyone on this site who believes that should be the message. The message is of competency and accountability – and Foley proves the GOP has failed yet again.
ThymeZone
Try to imagine, capelza, a happy Iraq, thirty dollar oil, and the head of OBL on a stick.
Do you think the Foley scandal would be worth a plug nickel in that case? No, obviously, it would just be a blip.
Instead we have a quagmire, seventy dollar oil, no OBL, and the Middle East a giant clusterfuck.
Without Foley, the trend lines have all been moving D.
Now comes Foley with his hard on. That’s your winning issue?
Only in Blogville could such an idea take hold.
sglover
Watch the whole thing, and then tell me that Mark Foley’s stiffy is what you need to be talking about right now.
What the hell are you going on about? Who is saying that Foley’s troubles are the ONLY thing we should talk about? Everyone knows that for years there’s a wealth of Pederast, er, I mean Republican, sliminess to talk about. Strangely, none of it’s gained the traction necessary to really put the GOP’s neck on the block. This surely does.
Goddam, you sound like every Beltway consultant who’s ever lost an election that should have gone Democratic. Are you Marshall Wittman in disguise?
ThymeZone
Really? So Dems have been losing for failing to capitalize properly on sex scandals?
What the hell are you talking about?
Votes for Dems are being counted in polls from coast to coast. Now comes this stupid scandal which has not accounted for ONE POLLED VOTE and the blogs are in a frenzy.
I am a person who responds in kind. If you talk to me as if I am stupid, I am going to do the same to you, and I am better at it than you are, I assure you. So knock it off.
If you have an actual argument, make it.
capelza
TZ..it is not THE winning issue, but it can be the last fucking straw. It is the door opener, something that the vast majority of people who are not on blogs can understand and FEEL (because that’s how most voters vote)…and while their jaws are still dropped, THEN I can explain to them about all the other stuff and they might actually listen for once..about why torture is a bad thing, why this is just the most easliy understood form of corruption…because it is. You don’t see Dateline shows trying to bust lobbiests.
It is the camelback meeting the straw.
sglover
“CREW engineered all this to help the terrorists. We undermine Congress at our own peril. Remember THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO WANT TO KILL US! Which is much worse than merely wanting to molest our children.”
And don’t forget, Saddam’s sons molested children, which just goes to show…. Something….
“Well, this isn’t 1994. But yes, it was, more than you think. It was about a seemingly practical plan for America versus a grandiose, seemingly untenable scheme to have the government take over health care. It was perceived tax relief after a bitter battle over the budget. It was about a party—the GOP —getting its act together with a coherent winning message.”
Well, it also had a helluva lot to do with Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” finally coming to complete fruition in the wake of the 1990 census and consequent redistricting. I think that’s a rather more important foundation than a PR stunt from self-proclaimed “transformational figure” Newt Gingrich.
That political alignment still endures, but six years of epic GOP failure has kinda taken the bloom off the rose. Consequently, they have to cling to the bone stupid, with nebulous promises of “values” and “strength”. Pedophilia-related cover-ups are a stake through the heart of the “values” lie — ask the American Catholic Church about maintaining moral pretensions after an episode like that. (If another large-scale terror attack occurs, the GOP will be in deep, deep shit about “strength”, too. Trouble is, that might also be the end of representative government and Enlightenment ideals.)
demimondian
TZ — I remember 1994. I was in DC during 1994. The Republican media consultants were saying to the pols: “Don’t buy into it. You don’t have a mandate for the Contract; it didn’t move voters towards you — it was only released in mid-October!”
And the consultants were right. What most people don’t remember is that NONE of the goals of the Contract were ever fully met. They were too unpopular.
Capelza’s hit this one on the head. This is a story that is simple: Foley was a predator. He was turned in. The House Republican leadership responded to that by protecting his position in the House? If they’ll do that to pages they know, and with whom they deal, how can you believe them when they talk about torture, or Iraq, or terror? You can’t.
ThymeZone
Well, I seriously doubt it. Besides, a “last straw” is really not needed, IMV. I think that boat has left the dock.
Yes, and they are falling into the D column without Foley. The house is now ours to lose, AFAIC, we don’t need a sex scandal to get this done.
As I said, properly used in specific races, it might be useful. But as a general “throw the bums out” motivator, I don’t think so.
ThymeZone
Exactly, and just about killed the rosebush. Lefties … that’s my team, in case we forgot … seem to be acting as if they are in a panic and desperate for something to tip the cow. Well, I think the cow is already down.
I think my lefty friends are suffering from PTSD.
ThymeZone
Erm, if I see the GOP consultants in a panic over Foley, then I’ll smell blood on the story. But I don’t. I see them in a panic over their internal polling numbers that are telling them that the House is lost.
But meanwhile blog lefties are acting as if we have lost the House already. Weird.
ThymeZone
Have we not read a paper in the last six months? The GOP thinks it is going to lose the House. They have been pimping up churches to do GOTV messages on Sundays, they are scared shitless.
Jay C
And this would be different from most Republican talking-heads HOW?
sglover
Really? So Dems have been losing for failing to capitalize properly on sex scandals?
Look, Clausewitz — that the scandal happens to be based on sex is a secondary issue. People who argue for exploiting it only do so because, in this age of shabby public discourse, sex scandals make the screamsheets. If you haven’t noticed that, I’d really love to live in whatever blissful zone you inhabit.
The Dems got hammered in ’00 and ’02 and ’04 because they refused to believe what the other side was really like, and they weren’t aggressive about using material that had essentially been handed to them by the GOP. They really let themselves get rolled in the run-up to the Iraq war, by following the kind of “clever” ju-jitsu that you’re advocating. More recently, Kerry got pilloried because he was foolish enough to imagine that the obviously cooked-up Swift Boat disinfo would fade away. But it didn’t — because the right-wing noise machine kept stoking the flames.
I am a person who responds in kind. If you talk to me as if I am stupid, I am going to do the same to you, and I am better at it than you are, I assure you.
Oh my, aren’t we impressed with ourselves! But you haven’t shown me any special insight so far, ace.
tBone
So what? You argue upthread that blogs don’t matter anyway. If that’s so, who cares if we take this opportunity to point and laugh? No one seriously thinks the Dems should turn this into Monicagate Part Deux (although you seem hellbent on believing that), but it’s certainly an entertaining sideshow.
ThymeZone
Watch the machine turn it into something else.
Clarence Darrow once said, or reportedly said, never ask a question in court unless you know what the answer is going to be.
I know the answer to this question: Who wins the House if the trends stay as they were a week ago today? We do.
I don’t know the answer to this question: Who wins the House if Dems try to ride the Foley story through October?
Given that situation, I am advising against the latter strategy. And for this, I am being greeted as an invader from the Planet Satania here. The worst I can be is wrong. It’s not like I am trying to steal your wallet.
ThymeZone
Oh, but you have.
“You’re wrong!”
Well played. Really, I am learning from you now.
capelza
Whatever, TZ…I’m not running out and shouting it to the rooftops, but god damn, I will cop to sniggering today. I love watching rightie blogs twisting themselves into knots defending the undefensible.
In the real world, the Dems won’t have to use this, the media will do it on their own.
Are Darrell, Mac, Pat R, Blog Reeder ALL off today?
demimondian
TZ — I haven’t treated you like a visitor from Satania. After all, this isn’t Friday, and this isn’t Kak.
ThymeZone
I hate to be so disagreeable, but I don’t think the media will do anything spectaular here.
However, I like the phrase “res ipsa loquitur” here. The thing itself speaks. I think the thing does speak to some extent, and to the extent that manipulators try to speak for it, or get in the way of it, I think they lose. Especially in the short window of time here before this election now.
“I’m shocked … SHOCKED … that politicians are acting badly” is not the refrain that gets votes right now. People generally despise all politicians right now. And they despise the media.
Staying on target and on message … “George Bush is wrecking the country” …. is what I am for.
ThymeZone
My agent, Mephistopheles, will be the judge of that.
demimondian
Uh..no.
The media will run with the FILTHY NASTY PERV HOMO FAGGOT angle, although they won’t come out and say so. If we let them do that, then we lose. We need to be above the fray here and focus on what we really ought to care about, which is the failure of the House leadership to provide oversight for Republican members. We can let the media keep the story alive, but we have to redirect it away from the fag-bashing it’s going to become if we let it.
sglover
Have we not read a paper in the last six months? The GOP thinks it is going to lose the House. They have been pimping up churches to do GOTV messages on Sundays, they are scared shitless.
Where to begin? This from the guy who “assures” me of his rhetorical karate skills.
You seem to think that a Dem sweep is a done deal. That’s not true at all. The political analysis that I’ve seen (the Cook Report, various polls, and so forth) indicate that while one house might fall into their hands (barely), Democrats have an uphill struggle for control of both. It is absolutely not the time for complacency.
(It’s worth noting that, in the absence of the Foley episode, Congressional Dems managed to once again demoralize their base with their tepid response to last week’s gutting of habeus corpus looked like. So this *sniff* sex scandal may have already helped pull their bacon out of the fire.)
But you really cut your own argument’s Achilles’ heel when you cite GOP attempts to rally its church-going constituents. If you’ve been paying attention at all, you should know that this is perhaps the most valuable voting bloc in modern American politics — self-organizing, highly motivated, eager to spread the word and show up at the polls. But kind of unsympathetic to things like pedophilia, last I heard. You think, Clausewitz, that it might be valuable to point out to them how the “Party of Values” covers up for pederasts?
sglover
Oh, but you have.
“You’re wrong!”
Well played. Really, I am learning from you now.
I think I’ve shown the weaknesses in your arguments, assertions really, in some detail. As have others in this thread. I thought you had some thermonuclear logic tricks up your sleeve. Where are they?
ThymeZone
Before you can learn to argue, you need to learn to read.
I have never said any such thing. The phrase “Dem sweep” has never passed my virtual lips.
I am talking about picking up about 15 seats. That is not a sweep, that is a narrow margin that gets us a speaker, committees and subpoenas, and control of the rules. That’s all we need, and yes, I think that many seats are ours unless we fuck it up.
More importantly, the Republicans think so too. I think they are the ones who should be in a panic. I think they are already in a panic.
What are you so afraid of? That I might be right? Horrible … you get your government back. Wow, your head must be exploding now.
ThymeZone
Wow, then I must be losing.
Oddly, I feel good, though.
So, I guess you’ve beaten me senseless. I surrender. Mercy!
demimondian
You have a higher opinion of my party than I have, Herb.
ThymeZone
Cleverly hidden in my posts. But shhhhhh … it’s just our secret.
capelza
Well yeah…I have said this here and elsewhere. My point was that we don’t have to beat the icky drum, that is already being done by a media that smells a juicy story with little or no ambiguity, oh yeah, and SEX. But we shouldn’t just drop it like TZ wants because frankly I don’t think the Dems are THAT far ahead. Or rather, if memory serves, wasn’t Kerry polling ahead in 2004 as well? The GOP leadership irresponsibly let this go on and that..well hell I agree with you..nuff said.
ThymeZone
I was working for the Democratic Party in 1956. I attended the convention that nominated Kennedy. I shook hands with Eleanor Roosevelt.
Let’s just say, I am a Blue Dog Democrat by upbringing.
ThymeZone
What is it about this place that makes people put words in others’ mouths?
I advise not overplaying this hand. Not dropping it.
capelza
TZ…I love your stubborness.
However, while I might be guilty of putting words in your mouth, from things like this I got the impression:
I do admit that I may have misunderstood.
The Other Steve
Shouldn’t this be:
“Ok, sure… Mark Foley likes boys and Republicans covered it up. But the Democrats would be worse!”
ought not be a winning message
ThymeZone
Well, I’m a longtime fan of yours here. You should post more.
ThymeZone
More likely, I am not explaining that well.
Let me try this: It is not necessary to wave a flag about a thing in order for that thing to work for you in politics. Sometimes all you need to do is stand back and let your opponent take careful aim and shoot himself in the foot. I think this is one of those times.
Andrew
Guess what? The Republican leadership has known about Foley since 2001.
FIVE YEARS.
Down goes Hastert! Down goes Hastert!
capelza
Thanks TZ…I have been out of the serious posting this summer. Words seem to have failed me, as has my creativity. I blame Darrell!!!
I agree that the GOP may have shot themsleves in the foot, I just don’t want them finding a way to shoot ours while they hop around (like we had anything to do with it). And if they start to stumble because of it, I confess that I’ll be happy to give them the push they need to fall.
tBone
I don’t think you’ll get much disagreement about that on this thread. I haven’t seen anybody here suggest the Dems should make a concerted effort to capitalize on this issue; we just want to stand on the sidelines and snigger while the foot-shooting is taking place. I take my entertainment where I can get it.
capelza
I wonder how blind-sided the rest of the GOP were in this whole thing? Did Rove have an inkling or was it an “October surprise” he only wishes was one he could spring on us? What does the rest of the House think, or the Senate.
scarshapedstar
TZ is the least-camouflaged concern troll ever. My God, to hear him tell it, the absolute best electoral strategy the GOP could pursue would be for John McCain and Rudy Giuliani to get caught fucking the same (male) goat at the same time, while sticking a burning American flag into the belly of a pregnant woman.
And the best Democratic response to such a scene? Meekly remind people that healthcare is expensive, and then pop back into our groundhog den. Because the media is innately anti-Democrat, and it’s not because of a concerted effort by TZ and his ilk or anything. Similarly, all that nasty “snark” really turns off Joe and Sue Republican. Remember the lily-white, attack-free Karl Rove campaigns that led to the Republican victories of 2000, and 2002, and 2004? Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Don’t listen to this tool. He is not on our side. And by “us”, I mean people who’d rather not see congressmen raping adolescents.
capelza
scarshapedstar …TZ may be a lot of things, but a concern troll he is not. I take it you’re not from around these parts..
Gold Star for Robot Boy
This is a new creature to me. Someone care to descibe?
ThymeZone
Always a good strategy. You can’t go wrong.
Heh. Funny. Anyone who disagrees with you is in favor of raping adolescents.
Thank dog there is a blogosphere, lest you be wandering the streets unsupervised.
capelza
A concern troll is someone who pretends to be sympathetic while suggesting unhelpful or damaging tactics or bahaviours, because, you know, they only have our best interests at heart…not really.
tBone
Concern Troll
ThymeZone: stubborn, argumentative, prone to highly-entertaining rants, but emphatically not a concern troll.
ThymeZone
Concern troll
A faux Dem who proposes bad ideas under the cover of Demitude.
You can disagree with me all you like, but there isn’t a more rabid Dem on the board than I am.
ThymeZone
I kind of like “Always right.”
But that’s just me.
tBone
So you admit it, then – you’re a member of the right masquerading as a Dem. You fiend.
demimondian
Da Bears are poundin’ my Seahawks. Damn.
Anyone who thinks Herb is a concern troll hasn’t dealt with him. He ain’t.
demimondian
No, damn it, I’m demi, and I am not a concern troll!
ThymeZone
Nuh uh. If I were a righty, I’d get my instructions from Gawd.
I just get my ideas from clean living and hard work.
Okay, clean living.
tBone
Ah. This would explain why I have no ideas, then.
ThymeZone
Stand back and give the cameras room.
ThymeZone
Be patient. I never took up clean living until I was fifty.
capelza
So…ABC has been all over this. Does this mean I can watch the new Lost season and not feel like a whore?
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Concern troll
Ah. Gotcha.
Naw, TZ ain’t no such thing. He’s just combative – and a tad overconfident about the Dems’ chances in November.
Perry Como
Andrew Says:
It’s disgusting that CREW has been sitting on this for 5 years. And why didn’t the Dems do anything about this? I blame the Democrats and the media for this entire problem.
ThymeZone
It’s all part of an evil master plan!
ThymeZone
I can understand that fear, really. But if we can’t win fifteen seats in this cycle, honestly, we don’t deserve to govern. We’d need to go back to the drawing board.
capelza
Oh you brat! I clicked on Pajamas Media against my will…
I have been diligent about not watching ABC, but I know it’s oing to be hard at 9 PM on the 4th. I can’t take back that angry email. Can I?
Proud Liberal
Lets all remember what TZ was saying yesterday. He was saying that he didn’t think this story had any legs. Well, he was as right about that as he is about the impact this huge story will have on November’s election. Despite Woodward’s book. Despite the NIE leak. Despite the release of a video of Atta and other 911 attackers, the Foley story has dominated the news. TZ doesn’t get it. He is EXACTLY why the Dems lose. They think the public is more interested in high minded policy debates. I wish he was right. But alas, he is dead wrong.
Here is what the National Review Online has to say:
What Mr. Miller and most politically astute followers understand and TZ doesn’t, is that this is not about a sex scandal. This is about the corruption of the Republican party. Not in a financial sense, but in a power sense. This is an EASY story to understand whereas Abramhoff was not. The Republican leadership was more interested in keeping Foley’s seat, and maintaining power, than they were in protecting underage pages in the care.
Dynamite. It fits right in with the Dems game plan, not a diversion as the clueless TZ suggests. How many times have you heard about the “culture of corruption”. Well, this story is the culture of corruption in a nutshell but one that the public can very easily understand and be disgusted by. Getting free golf junkets may annoy people, but seeing a congressman’s graphic sexual IM’s to a minor is something else. And, and this is the important thing, the GOP leadership knew about it, and did NOTHING.
Again, dynamite.
ThymeZone
Wow, I had no idea I had that kind of power.
Suddenly, I feel very attractive to women.
demimondian
Not quite. As an icky-nasty-cover-eyes-while-watching sex story, this may well have legs — nobody can speak to that. TZ is saying that it isn’t enough to run through to 11/7. I’m willing to grant that latter claim. It certainly helps — everything can help — but it isn’t enough by itself.
ThymeZone
Sorry, I gotta go. I am going to Safeway for a few hours.
scarshapedstar
I’m generally a lurker, but this seems like concern trollism at its very worst. Perhaps it’s actually head-in-sand/anus, but his response to a clear-cut bright shining GOP embarassment handed to us on a silver platter seems to be:
Do nothing.
Fuck that. Every goddamn time the GOP’s collective ass is exposed, the “sensible” types urge restraint. And every goddamn time, the GOP manages to defend the indefensible and walk away scot-free. You know why this kills us? Look at some dumb motherfucker like Glenn Reynolds. Let’s use him as a case study.
Rational human beings look at the literally numberless scandals of the past six years and the increasing Republican dominance in their wake, and feel despair. We see our own party only bothering to speak out on totally not heard since 1992. It’s time to make a run to the Republicans’ right.
Now, tell me. Doesn’t that sound a tiny bit like TZ’s grand plan?
scarshapedstar
Er. that got screwed up. Ignore the incomplete above comment.
I’m generally a lurker, but this seems like concern trollism at its very worst. Perhaps it’s actually head-in-sand/anus, but his response to a clear-cut bright shining GOP embarassment handed to us on a silver platter seems to be:
Do nothing.
Fuck that. Every goddamn time the GOP’s collective ass is exposed, the “sensible” types urge restraint. And every goddamn time, the GOP manages to defend the indefensible and walk away scot-free. You know why this kills us? Look at some dumb motherfucker like Glenn Reynolds. Let’s use him as a case study.
Rational human beings look at the literally numberless scandals of the past six years and the increasing Republican dominance in their wake, and feel despair. We see our own party only bothering to speak out on totally not heard since 1992. It’s time to make a run to the Republicans’ right.
Now, tell me. Doesn’t that sound a tiny bit like TZ’s grand plan?
Andrew
At this point, it looks like there are 4-5 GOP Congressmen very closely connected with [i]the coverup[/i]: Hastert, Boehner, Alexander, Reynolds and Shimkus.
There is suspicious money and there is potentially REAL live boy sex, in addition to the very illegal sexy internet chat.
The realpolitik is that this issue could flip a few extra races, starting with Foley’s own seat, that were supposed to be safe for the GOP. That is what could swing Congress, not more complicated news about NIEs and whatnot.
Proud Liberal
oh… and TZ also said this election is about Bush. Huh? Bush is not up for re-election. Sure his poor approval is a plus for Dems overall, but its CONGRESS that is up for election not the president.
But, thanks to the cluelessness of this administration they have managed to put themselves in the middle of it as well:
Opposing an independent investigation? House leadership “very aggressive” in handling this?
and again why should this be part of the Dems campaign to take back congress? Well Joe Gandleman gives us an idea of how some voters might view this (with the exception of policy wonk TZ of course):
capelza
To be a concern troll one has actually be part of the opposition. TZ is certainly NOT the opposition. This is a stratagy disagreement. Now if Mac or scs had typed all that, then yes, you’d be correct in calling them a concern troll.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
scar,
You were dead-on with your first comment, but the follow-up totally missed the mark. ;)
scarshapedstar
Okay, last try.
I’m generally a lurker, but this seems like concern trollism at its very worst. Perhaps it’s actually head-in-sand/anus, but his response to a clear-cut bright shining GOP embarassment handed to us on a silver platter seems to be:
Do nothing.
Fuck that. Every goddamn time the GOP’s collective ass is exposed, the “sensible” types urge restraint. And every goddamn time, the GOP manages to defend the indefensible and walk away scot-free. You know why this kills us? Look at some dumb motherfucker like Glenn Reynolds. Let’s use him as a case study.
Rational human beings look at the literally numberless scandals of the past six years and the increasing Republican dominance in their wake, and feel despair. We see our own party only bothering to speak out on 1% of these outrages, and when they do they’re immediately undercut by some turncoat piece of shit like Holy Joe. And the public doesn’t even notice this pathetic drama playing out because the media portrays everything as a high school debate, where truth is meaningless and everything’s a matter of opinion. Every single one ends up as a muddle and then the next scandal begins. There aren’t even discrete scandals anymore; it’s simply a state of existence of which a new facet fades in and out each day.
Glenn Reynolds looks at the literally numberless scandals of the past six years and sees nothing but pathetic, grasping attempts by the moonbats of The Left to undermine The President. They all peter out in the grand Arena of Ideas because they’re all bogus. He looks at the increasing shrillness of The Left and feels smugly superior, occasionally reminding us that if The Left ran on his pet issues then he’d be more inclined to vote for them, but they’re unfortunately too consumed by snark and BDS to take his sage advice. He’s thoroughly convinced that nobody who matters pays attention to CNN and the liberals therein, because all they ever show is the very moonbattiest moonbats and their liberal lies. Well, and occasionally Glenn Reynolds. But the point is, nobody ever looks at the facts like the number of schools painted in Iraq, they only care about scoring cheap debate points like the number of people maimed and killed, which is so small in the grand scheme of things. And eventually, all the Left’s smears run together into one grand amorphous Bush-bashing.
As I mentioned earlier, though, Glenn has plenty of ideas to help the Democrats. For starters, cut all that nasty criticism. Righteous indignation is right out; sensible people tune out all that shrill stuff. After all, the Bush administration (like all sensible conservatives) has our country’s best interests at heart. You can impugn someone’s methods, and Glenn often does, but their motives are untouchably pure. (Except when it comes to The Left; they’re objectively Pro-Saddam, and On The Other Side.)
Don’t snark, ever. Reasonable people don’t snark. Remember those purple heart band-aids that the Republicans wore at the convention? Remember the infamous RNC press release mocking Al Gore’s “invented the internet” (yes, I’m aware that Al Gore said no such thing) interview? History regards those as colossal mistakes, due to the Republicans losing the presidency in 2000 and 2004. Whoops, sorry, I’m snarking! I think we lost 10,000 votes right there. Point is, there’s no value in trying to gin up contempt for your opponents. Politics is a gentleman’s game and we all agree to disagree and that’s that. (Except for those Pro-Saddam On The Other Side types, they’re totally different. And the Feminazis. They’re simply moonbatty. And the morons who don’t understand that gun control leads to murder and raising taxes makes the government poorer and, well, you get the picture, which is that everything has unintended negative consequences except tax cuts for the rich.)
Gotcha/Hypocrisy/Irony is pure suicide. No conservative would ever do a thing like try to juxtapose global warming and global cooling in an effort to prove them mutually exclusive. They would never, for example, flog a story about an environmentalist flying in a jet, driving a large vehicle, or driving a short distance to get to a press conference about rising gas prices. They would never try to make a comparison between the number of people killed by the Iraq War and the number of people killed by Saddam in an effort to prove that The Left “doesn’t really care” about human life. Ditto for abortion and the death penalty. No conservative has ever tried to compare support for one and opposition to the other, and if they did, they were run out of town on a rail because that’s electoral suicide.
And the ultimate mistake is for us to actually try to make the media cover a story we feel is being ignored. Remember the Right’s ill-fated attempt at unseating Dan Rather?
(Crap, I’ve been breaking rule #2 again, haven’t I?)
No, the only thing the Democrats can do is call for a wall between us and Mexico, privatizing ever more things that the Republicans don’t even have the courage to privatize (sort of a Nixon Goes To China strategy, but for Medicare and Social Security) and a more hawkish position on Iraq.
Yes, that’s right. It’s time for a bold new idea that we have totally not heard since 1992. It’s time to make a run to the Republicans’ right.
Now, tell me. Doesn’t that sound a tiny bit like TZ’s grand plan? Is this not cause for concern among any of you? I smell a closet kool-aid drinker.
ThymeZone
I can’t decide. Should I hang around the cat food, the car magazines, or the baby section?
“Oh, your kitten likes Fancy Feast? Mine too. What’s her name? Awww. Does your, um, husband get along with Fluffy? You don’t?”
Oh yeah!
jdw
Do republicans have any ethics at all?
What evidence is there that any Democrat knew? NONE. On the other hand, we have much evidence that the republican leadership knew. At any rate, even if democrats knew or susected something, they still would not be able to launch any investigation because reublicans have blocked EVERY SINGLE investigation that democrats have requested. These people make me sick.
Andrew
No.
That was tough.
capelza
Mmmm…cat food and babies. Shows you like cats and tots, women like that. Car magazines…NO. Just NO.
I always find a man looking for a ripe avacado irresistable myself.
Proud Liberal
Kevin Drum “gets it”.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
Produce, like Otter in Animal House.
“Mine’s bigger.”
Gold Star for Robot Boy
I was saying as much yesterday.
Andrew
Mark Foley, June 6, 2002 address to departing pages:
Hot cruising emphasis courtesy Americablog.
Proud Liberal
Corruption. One party power. Lack of accountability. Coverups. Misleading statements. No oversight. Unconcern for anyone other than their own skins. This ‘scandal’ sums up all the complaints about the Republican congress in one nice easy to understand powerful story. And TZ wants to take this gift and ignore it because, well, its just man on man fun that is none of our business. Can anyone be more clueless?
ThymeZone
Some do, and some don’t. Neither party owns ethics.
Only 14 years ago, an arrogant and self-serving Dem majority held sway in Congress.
Someday, another arrogant and self-serving Dem majority will hold sway in Congress.
Right now, an arrogant and self-serving GOP majority holds sway in Congress.
Time for a change.
Andrew
I feel really dirty now because I’ve used the bathroom in that Morton’s.
DougJ
I think I understand the Republican counterattack on this one now. They’re going to investigate how the story was broken, start throwing ABC reporters in jail, start harrassing CREW, start talking about George Soros. That’s how this is going to play out. The idea is in part to intimidate people into not coming forward. I wonder if they’ll be able to get someone to claim some Democrat did the same as well. That’s how I see this playing out.
DougJ
I think TZ is wrong. But I’m biased — I live a mile from Tom Reynolds’ district.
ThymeZone
I get that a lot. Car magazines are definitely a weakness of mine. And airplane magazines.
For some reason, women see guys reading these magazines and just shake their heads. It’s the same way I feel about Arts and Crafts.
demimondian
TZ — don’t just go hang out in the cat food section, bring along your granddaughter, and have her charm the females. As I discovered with each of them, a man toting a baby is utterly irresistable to single attractive females. (Damned if I know why — “Hey, sister, see, I’m thoroughly owned right now. You ought to come on to me.” Makes no sense.)
ThymeZone
You might be kidding, but that’s probably not unlikely.
These assholes can spin this into a jackalope stampede in no time.
ThymeZone
Maci owns whatever room she is in. She’s got charisma.
Good idea, thanks for the tip …..
capelza
When I buy mags I might have Architectural Digest or Fine Homebuilding, Pacific Fishing (a business rag), and Family Circle all in the same pile. The last one is for the best cake decorating for kids…I’ve inherited a pile of toddlers with my husband’s kids.
Hunting mags, even though I partake myself, seem to be the “car” mags in this house…
Oh, oh…I know…hang in the dvd rental part (ours here has one)…
DougJ
You might be kidding
I’m not. They can’t afford to give an inch here with the race for the House so tight. The percentage move here would be to throw Reynolds or Boehner or Hastert to the lions and move on. But I don’t think they can do that without losing the House in November. So they’ve got to double down, as it were.
ThymeZone
Good idea. I’ll be reading Field & Stream, in the cat food section, with Maci.
Feeling very powerful all of a sudden, I will be a babe magnet, a walking talking WMD (Weapon of Many Dames).
Krista
Now that would just look weird. Don’t mess with the magazines or the cat food. Bring Maci, and get your arse over to produce. Pick up something unfamiliar and look charmingly befuddled (not too befuddled — you don’t want her thinking you’re in the early stages of Alzheimer’s), then ask an attractive woman what on earth one does with such a thing.
sglover
Oy.
Me (quoted, essentially, out of context): You seem to think that a Dem sweep is a done deal.
TZ (emphasis added): Before you can learn to argue, you need to learn to read.
I have never said any such thing. The phrase “Dem sweep” has never passed my virtual lips.
I am talking about picking up about 15 seats. That is not a sweep, that is a narrow margin that gets us a speaker, committees and subpoenas, and control of the rules. That’s all we need, and yes, I think that many seats are ours unless we fuck it up.
My actual quote (emphasis added again):
You seem to think that a Dem sweep is a done deal. That’s not true at all. The political analysis that I’ve seen (the Cook Report, various polls, and so forth) indicate that while one house might fall into their hands (barely), Democrats have an uphill struggle for control of both. It is absolutely not the time for complacency.
I.e., my contention is that even a bare Dem majority in a single house — the 15 seats you’re talking about — is nothing to take for granted.
ThymeZone, go fuck yourself. Before counseling other people to “learn to read”, you might want to do it yourself. Maybe it will help with those world-beating argumentative skills that I’m still waiting to see?
DougJ
Sglover, don’t fight with TZ. You’ll never win.
ThymeZone
First, it’s difficult to talk about a guy named Boehner in this context. I mean, it’s hard.
Anyway, Hastert’s district went Bush by twelve points in 2004.
I don’t know if he is actually vulnerable. But what is going to happen is, the GOPpers are going to press for a criminal investigation, and then hide behind the “We can’t comment on an ongoing investigation” mantra for the near term. Something along those lines. Make it appear that things are being taken care of.
Other than that …. whoever mentioned Drum, has it wrong. Nobody crossposts more Drum here than I do, but this is one where Drum has it dead wrong. Drum is the best lefty blogger there is, AFAIC, but he is wrong about this case. Media is not wanting a man-boy or man-man sex scandal. They want nothing to do with it, in my estimation. They are still referring to the Foley communications as “overly friendly,” if that gives you any idea.
ThymeZone
Heh. That movie went to DVD a long time ago, compadre.
Andrew
It’s pretty win-win for the Dems. If Hastert stays in the race with the “can’t comment” strategy, they can paint the Republicans as pervy enablers. If one of those safe seats is forced to resign, well then that’s one more seat in play.
Also, besides using babies to pick up chicks, let me recommend puppies. Almost 100% guaranteed hit rate.
ThymeZone
I’m not taking it for granted. I’m saying it’s something that we are probably going to do, at “great pain of cost and effort” IIRC my own words … and therefore, not something that should be futzed with by falling in love with this stupid scandal. I am saying the exact opposite of what you are saying I’m saying.
ThymeZone
Yeah, my Safeway won’t let me take a dog in there.
DougJ
Reynolds is likely to lose anyway. He’s only 2 points up in the latest poll. And I think it’s fair to say this scandal won’t help. As I said, I live there and the area is trending Democratic (it’s a bastion of old school Republicans like John who are slowly learning how whack the party has become).
sglover
What Mr. Miller and most politically astute followers understand and TZ doesn’t, is that this is not about a sex scandal. This is about the corruption of the Republican party. Not in a financial sense, but in a power sense. This is an EASY story to understand whereas Abramhoff was not. The Republican leadership was more interested in keeping Foley’s seat, and maintaining power, than they were in protecting underage pages in the care.
Dynamite. It fits right in with the Dems game plan, not a diversion as the clueless TZ suggests. How many times have you heard about the “culture of corruption”. Well, this story is the culture of corruption in a nutshell but one that the public can very easily understand and be disgusted by. Getting free golf junkets may annoy people, but seeing a congressman’s graphic sexual IM’s to a minor is something else. And, and this is the important thing, the GOP leadership knew about it, and did NOTHING.
Well said. TZ boasts above about his long history as a card-carrying Dem. Sweeping statements about generations are always suspect, but his capsule biography reminded me of the late Mary McGrory. In the last year or so of her life she was still yammering on about the evil of Richard Nixon — yet she managed to get completely suckered by Colin Powell’s disinfo presentation before the UN. Dems of TZ’s outlook have presided over the decline of the old New Deal coalition, in large measure by ducking out of fights. They simply assumed that they had the winning position. Sound familiar?
t. jasper parnell
It depends, the influence of this horrid little story, if it emboldens those reporters who know about the various other scandals, Hasert’s rapid ascent to great wealth via crooked land deals for example, to peat and repeat them; then this story is the straw that broke the camel’s back. If, on the other hand, the focus remains narrowly on this particular instance of gross misuse of power, then no. I would hope, however, flood gates open, in large measure because the current crop is so wretchedly stupid corrupt and etc, and the water washes clean our nation. On a more realistic note, I suspect that the next Democratic inhabitant of the White House or a Democratic congress will, in fact, make no attempt to roll back the various horrors agains the constitution embodied in that bill. We are screwed, regardless of the party in power as power is what the parties seek.
ThymeZone
That’s an example of where a targeted blast might be helpful. But time is your enemy. Facts are still coming in, and the enemy is still assembling his forces.
You can’t go out and wave a semen-stained towel just now and call out Reynolds. A week from now, two weeks from now, they can pull some fast one and turn the tables.
If you wait two weeks for more facts and vetting a strategy, it’s too late. It’s mid-October. If your guys has Reynolds down to 2 points, he should be able to close the deal in a time like this without grasping at something like Foley. But, maybe not.
However, either way, that’s a special case. Jumping up and down on blogs is not going to get the job done. You need focussed strategy in a case like this.
Which is, of course, my whole point. Stay focussed on what is already moving you in the right direction.
Andrew
Just dress it up like a baby — oh my god, scratch that — that would be too powerful for any female to safely handle.
Perry Como
A cucumber or zucchini is perfect for this task.
ThymeZone
Not me. I had it pegged as bullshit four years ago.
Ground long ago covered here.
Your material is turning into farce. You thought that those old coalitions would last forever? Of course they declined. The collapse of the labor movement alone sealed that deal a long time ago.
You should be writing to Joe Biden and Joe Liberman, not me.
t. jasper parnell
RE Shepard Smith, watch it again the fox news host argument is that democarcy gets in the way of victory; get rid of the political limitations on all[-olut war and viola America wins. Democracy bad for Athens worse for America; if ThymeZone thinks that is the best way to elect a democratic whatever; he is wrong.
ThymeZone
World beating? I only have to beat you, which so far hasn’t taken that much effort.
Try not to blink, you’ll miss something.
ThymeZone
Oh great, an aging Boomer who doesn’t know what a zucchini is. Whose side are you guys on here?
ThymeZone
For a minute there I though Birdzilla was back.
demimondian
I’m on the side of America, Herb. I stand for truth, and for the protection of the young from the depredations of the old
Jess
TZ–
Go for the pet food section–it offers a wealth of conversation openers. People will talk forever about their pets, and women love men who have a soft spot for animals. Plus, as Krista would point out, there are so many great opportunities for dirty puns in that section…
Back to Predatorgate: there’s two strategies to consider here: what will encourage people to vote Dem; and what will discourage people from voting GOP. I think TZ is right that this won’t help the first objective, but I think it will do a lot to help achieve the second. But probably not if it’s the official voices of the Dem party speaking out about it. It’ll have to be a back-door effort (speaking of dirty puns…) that the Dem candidates can distance themselves from.
ThymeZone
Oh, I do. The soft spot is in my head. I think I spent about two grand last year on veterinary bills. I just spent $400 to put a cat to sleep and do a cremation so that we can put her on the wall unit here next to the other cat’s ashes. My living room is turning into a goddam pet mausoleum.
I’ve got one cat here that we rescued, literally, from inside a wall when she was a feral kitten. Her way of showing gratitude is to bite us. For this we buy her IAMs food and give her her own room to sleep in at night.
DougJ
Noted without comment.
ThymeZone
Well, I’m in Arizona. Even here, the folks at the store will know it’s a dog in a baby outfit.
Just because we send McCain and Kyl to the Senate doesn’t mean we are completely inept out here.
sglover
Other than that …. whoever mentioned Drum, has it wrong. Nobody crossposts more Drum here than I do, but this is one where Drum has it dead wrong. Drum is the best lefty blogger there is, AFAIC, but he is wrong about this case. Media is not wanting a man-boy or man-man sex scandal. They want nothing to do with it, in my estimation. They are still referring to the Foley communications as “overly friendly,” if that gives you any idea.
Oh. Like this example (emphasis added):
A Republican staff member warned congressional pages five years ago to watch out for Congressman Mark Foley, according to a former page.
Matthew Loraditch, a page in the 2001-2002 class, told ABC News he and other pages were warned about Foley by a supervisor in the House Clerk’s office.
Yeah. This story is a real liability for Dems, you bet.
sglover
Aw hell. Forgot to close the bold tag.
DougJ
TZ — one more thing…the conduct of the GOP leaders here should be an issue. Foley’s conduct should not be a party-wide issue, he’s just one pervert. But a party that puts people in power who condone predatory sexual behavior is a party that deserves to pay a political price.
Jess
My condolences. My beloved kitty died in my arms last year and I miss her like crazy. She used to bite me too when she was a young punk. She would also beat up my boyfriends–no doubt acting on my repressed desires.
Hyperion
along with millions of other americans if i correctly recall the bump in the war approval numbers after his presentation.
Steve
Isn’t it amazing that the Republican partisans at Redstate take it as a given that NO Republican would have turned this guy in?
We already know some Republicans were complicit in the coverup, but even though no one can name a single Democrat who knew, this guy finds it hard to believe that ANY Republican would have done the right thing if he came into possession of this information.
That’s a hell of a commentary on one’s own party.
ThymeZone
The story is not the issue.
The issue is that a loss of focus at this juncture, in favor of trying to grab points from a moving storyline, is not a smart thing to do, when we are already winning.
What they deserve is one thing, what keeps us on track to a House majority is another. What they deserve, all of them, is to burn in hell right after being waterboarded until they shit their pants. But politics is not about what is deserved, it’s about what works.
Jess
I agree, DJ–well put. I also agree with Drum’s point that the people who are all confused about the policies of this administration will understand this bit of nastiness on an intensly visceral level. These will be some of the same people who got all hot and bothered over Clinton’s blow job–they probably won’t ever vote Dem, but they might be more reluctant to vote Republican.
ThymeZone
We hear you. Our two departed cats had a combined age of about 38 years. One of them, Beebs from Thebes, I’d had since she was a “clinic cat” as a kitten and needed a home. Knowing that I was a sucker, they called me …
The other one was the venerable Squeaker Doodle (Who Always Used Her Noodle), a pet store cat that Maci’s mom acquired as a kitten.
Now we are down to three ungrateful cats. Franklie (My Dear), Dweezil, and Mothercat. Totally spoiled and absolutely insane, all of them.
CaseyL
The latest twist in the story is beyone even GOP coverup: it’s how the GOP knew about Foley as far back as 2001, yet encouraged pages to have some, ah, private time with him.
If the latest twist is true, the entire House GOP leadership has just imploded.
No wonder the wingnut chorus is frantically trying to find some way to pin this on the Democrats. But they’re wrong, even if they’re right.
Let’s say the GOP can find that a Democrat mentioned the problem and that’s how it hit the news.
If the GOP House leadership not only ignored the problem, not only covered up the problem, but actually and actively enabled Foley’s private contacts with pages – then whoever finally stepped forward to tell the story would rank as a hero.
demimondian
The demi-bunker still houses four of the tooth-bearing monsters: George and Gracie (rescued as a pair when one year old because their owner’s daughter had developed asthma), Jasmine (one of a litter of kittens born next door), and Sirius (rescued as a kitten by the eldest of the demi-offspring).
srv
Thymezone, you rented your Hertz Shelby yet?
demimondian
More than that, the story got embroidered with claims that Republican pages were warned, but Dem pages weren’t?
If the story is true, then it’s an unmitigated disaster for the Republicans. Ignoring a predator is one thing; shielding him or her, another altogether. Aiding and abbeting a predator just doesn’t sound credible.
But what do I know? I lost a bet with my father (I think) over whether Watergate would bring Nixon down.
Jess
My mother ended up with NINE semi-feral cats that way. Somehow they (the cats) all knew they could sucker her into taking them in. She’s even had racoons and possums decide to become housepets. Now she’s finally down to three cats and one racoon. The racoon’s the friendliest of the lot.
Steve
I think TZ has made some good points in this thread. I don’t know that I agree with him on the overall issue, but then again, I don’t think anyone is saying the Democrats are going to change their entire message to all pedophilia, all the time.
TZ remembers, I’m sure, the end of the 2004 campaign when the NYT published a big expose on Al Qaqaa, the Iraqi munitions dump that troops hadn’t bothered to secure during the invasion. It wasn’t how they planned to make their closing argument, but they got seduced by the opportunity to jump on board the news cycle. In the end it turned out to be more muddled than that, it’s unlikely to have shifted any votes, etc. So there’s an argument to be made about keeping your focus.
On the other hand, a very basic question: how much of the Dems’ current lead in the polls is attributable to the Dems’ actual campaign strategy? From where I sit, the GOP has basically imploded by screwing everything up, and getting embroiled in scandal after scandal. Unlike the House Bank scandal, which was basically whipped up by Newt Gingrich as an election ploy, it’s been the media driving these scandals. The Dem strategy for the better part of this year, as far as I can see, has been “let’s not do anything drastic, and coast into a majority by default.”
So I’m not real worried about them getting off message, because their message isn’t great to begin with. I agree with TZ that they need to keep having their press conferences and hearings about Iraq, they need to keep talking about jobs and universal health care, and all that good stuff. But the fact is, whenver Nancy Pelosi calls a press conference from here on out, the press is going to be asking questions about Foley even if she’s there to talk about Iraq. And I think the answer is, hit hard, raise questions about the Republican leadership – don’t just blow off the question and insist on talking about Iraq, cause frankly, when the Dems talk policy and substance the media just sticks them on page A17 anyway.
One other point: I agree with TZ that the media is not going to obsess over this quite like, say, the Lewinsky scandal. You’re not going to hear news anchors repeatedly reading excerpts from the lewd IMs because, with a minor involved, the vibe is “creepy” rather than “racy.” So they’re going to dance around the lurid details a lot more than they would in your normal sex scandal. However, at least judging by this weekend’s developments, this story does seem to have serious “drip drip drip” potential. New angles keep coming to light, which is going to keep the media talking about it for a while. I think the Dems need to treat that as a given, and use it to their advantage, rather than just being annoyed that the media wants to talk about sex scandals instead of nine-part plans for Iraq.
srv
Me thinks Al Maviva has returned
Andrew
Rebuttle to all them fancy words Steve wrote: But there’s gay underage sexy talk.
CaseyL
I know someone who rescued a feral kitten at age 3 weeks. Do you know how much constant care is needed to keep a kitten that young alive? Feedings every 2 hours, massaging the tummy after feeding to stimulate the intestines and bowels into working…
I met the kitten when she was 4(?) weeks old. Thereabouts. She was about the size of a hamster and looked like a mouse. She was the most adorable thing in the known universe. Also adventurous, afraid of nothing, and she loved to be held and petted.
When she reached adulthood, she was a complete sociopath, if that term has any meaning for cats. She adored the woman who’d rescued and nurtured her… but she harbored a violent hatred for every other living thing that ever crossed her path. She attacked visitors, other cats, even her rescuer’s husband. She drew blood on a number of occasions. If you petted her, she might purr and lay down – and then, in a nanosecond, turn into a little bundle of snarling claws and teeth.
Her rescuer, who hitherto would rather have her own teeth pulled than ever, ever have a cat declawed, had to have this one declawed.
And when company comes over, the cat has to be put into a kennel.
It’s very wierd. Because that was the most socialized cat ever – and she still turned out to be a nutcase.
DougJ
I’ve always believed that being right is part of what makes something “work”. It’s not the only thing obviously, since Republicans are almost never right these days, but think of it this way: the Republicans have everything — their own news station, a mainstream media that largely does their bidding, better organization, a better get out the vote operation, better political strategists, more money, more and better-funded think tanks, a complete lack of scruples (scruples being a political liability), Diebold machines they can tamper with at will — and they still hold bare majorities of the House and Senate and they almost lost the last presidential election.
Why is that? Why aren’t the Republicans more politically dominant? Because they are wrong about absolutely everything while the Democrats are right about around 50% of things (I think John’s accurate about this). Right versus wrong still counts for something. More than people think. And the GOP leadership was wrong to brush this under the rug. That’s what makes this a valid political issue.
Steve
Hehe, sorry. When I’m tired, I’m less succinct, and I’m not very succinct under the best of circumstances :)
mrmobi
Wow. TZ, you have really been taking some heat here, and just for suggesting that we are already winning!
Given the uneven, to put it mildly, way the maintstream media covers politics, I can’t help but agree with you that it’s profoundly stupid to try to hype this story.
We (Democrats) find ourselves in the midst of a monumental failed foreign policy gambit undertaken by an administration that couldn’t find its’ own ass with both hands and a map, and we seem eager to divert from this slam dunk (excuse me, please) issue to cover a sex scandal.
Anyone here ever heard of Bill Clinton? How about over-reaching? The sex scandal folks tried damn hard to sink the Clinton ship with a sex scandal, and failed.
Remember the Clinton team’s slogan for their election, “It’s the economy, stupid?” For now until 2008, probably, it should be, “It’s the Iraq War and the Phony War on Terror, stupid.” Everything else is, as TZ says, just a distraction, and one which we, as Democrats, have little control over.
Pb
…instead of the NSA spying scandal, which they knew about *at the time*, but instead sat on for a year because the administration cowed them into it.
DougJ
When do we get the terror alert? Tuesday? They can’t do it tomorrow.
Pb
Not in this case, though–a modicum of scruples would have saved them here. Ultimately, never doing the right thing–often *due to* that lack of scruples–hurts the Republican party. But it hurts America as a whole even more.
ThymeZone
No, I am not allowed near a Mustang now. It makes the missus do that thing. Basically, it’s a hands on hips thing with a certain look.
I threatened to buy an airplane. She laughed. Ha ha! I threatened to buy a motorcycle. Hands on hips! Over my dead body!
I did see and touch a couple of Shelby GT500’s last year at the Barrett-Jackson Car Auction in January. I must say, the car is a beast when you see it in person. I was used to the standard Mustang body, having driven the ’05 for a year and half. But the Shelby has a bigger front end, and it is just …. intimidating. And those rear tires. They are putting a lot of torque on the ground back there. So you know, I saw it and these thoughts flashed through my head. One, I can’t drive this thing, I’d go to jail or be dead in a week. I have a lead foot.
Two, they are going to jack up the sticker price and the $40k car is going to go out the door at 60 or even 80 and I just can’t be putting that kind of dough into a car.
So anyway. I showed her the magazine stuff on the Hertz Shelby and she just put her hands on her hips and made a noise and looked out the window.
Zifnab
Karl Rove and Tom DeLay play by the 51% rule. They only need 51% of the people to believe what they want to get what they want. Gore was exposed to the 51% rule in ’00 and Kerry in ’04. The Texas Legislature discovered the 51% rule during redistricting. The House and Senate discovered the 51% rule during the nuclear option.
With 51% you can change the rules of the game however you please and piss off 49% of the population at your leisure. A combination of fear politics, base pandering, and demagoguery wins them the bare minimum number of votes they need to get what they want and I haven’t seen a great effort by the Republican majority to bring more than the prequisite number of people into the fold.
I think if the Republicans had actively done more to expand the Cult of Bush beyond the more traditional conservative circles, they might have held out longer than they did. As it stands, even if you take over the government and the media and the money and the voting machines, if you’re only interested in winning over 51% of the people eventually you’re going to fall short of your target.
DougJ
I don’t think that’s true. That’s like Tiger Woods deciding to play by the one-stroke rule or Roger Federer playing by the “every set must end in tiebreaker” rule. If you can completely dominate the opposition with a minimum of effort, then why not do it? Rove may be satisfied with 51%, but believe me, he’d take 60% if he could.
ThymeZone
Yes, when we pulled Dweezil out of the wall, she was about that age. Luckily the neighbor knew how to “nurse” a kitten that age and she got the cat weaned and gave it back to us. Did the whole bottle thing.
When Dweezil was a kitten, she would sit on top of your head and watch tv. Now she has turned … not mean, but cranky, for some reason. She bites me if she is hungry and doesn’t get fed on demand. Walks right over and bites me. We have this ritual. Sometimes I yell at her. Don’t bite me, you little furry pissant. And then she hisses at me.
But after she is fed then she is more relaxed and I can pick her up and hold her without fear of being shredded.
For more on my life story, you can send for some of my booklets. Or I might do a series on TLC. ppGaz, Big World, something like that.
The Other Steve
Ok, a couple of things here.
I do think Steve is right in that the Dem strategy has been largely to coast to victory based upon the fact that Republicans are really bad. That’s been their strategy for the past 40 years, so why stop now.
I am disappointed this came up now, as the Woordward book coupled with the NIE stuff from last week was setting up a very good story about how fucked up the Republicans are on national security. But whatever, those issues are just as good in 3 weeks as they are today.
Most importantly, however, this is the last week Congress is in session.
And guess what? They’re going to spend their last week talking about why Hastert didn’t tell everybody else about this.
I don’t know what their real plan was, probably something to do to pandering about abortion or something. But I am confident they did not want to talk about this.
To understand the degree to just why they don’t want to talk about this. Pelosi and Reid called for the Attorney General to investigate earlier, but the headlines now read that Hastert has called for that. He wants this to go away for now, and being a smart cookie he realizes the easiest way to make it go away is to side with those who want to investigate. If he pushed back, it’d just make it worse.
ThymeZone
The foundation strategy of declaring war on half of your own country is a limiting factor. When “winning” is basically edging out a demonized opposition, there isn’t much room to build a cushion.
DougJ
Not if you can deny them the right to vote.
ThymeZone
I’m for that. I’m for denying Republicans the right to vote.
CaseyL
Quite frankly, I’d be happy to deny the right to vote to anyone who gets the entirety of their information from paid political ads aired during the last few weeks of campaign season.
All this rush to Get Things Done and Get Airtime 4 weeks before the election because people “don’t pay attention to politics” until this late in the game… just boggles my mind. I mean, I don’t expect everyone to be politics junkies like we are, but how can a reasonable adult live in blissful ignorance and only tune in one month before the election?
ThymeZone
That buys them a lot of time. We all know how long investigations take in Washington DC, where the investigators are required to work under water and to have their eyes poked out.
The liklihood that anything useful comes out of this in the next four weeks, unless Disney has some other stuff to leak that we don’t know about, such as video of Foley Foley-ting Elian Gonzales or giving a blow job to Saddam Hussein in the oval office …. not high.
Andrew J. Lazarus
I don’t want to get into a flame war with TZ, but I agree he’s off on the dynamics of the electorate.
To be honest, Katrina wasn’t by itself shouldn’t have been such a disaster for Bush’s approval ratings. But it completely changed the narrative. He looked aloof and incompetent. No one really cared whether FEMA or the Army Corps of Engineers was more to blame.
Yes, the GOP was already on thin ice this cycle. (About time.) I wish more people were following the numbers of how bad Iraq and Afghanistan are. I’m floored by a memo from Jack Abramoff talking about the upcoming war in Iraq, written in March, 2002. (Think about it.) But with Foley, the narrative is now the complete corruption and cynicism of the GOP leadership, putting a known ephebophile in charge of their Missing and Exploited Children Committee. That’s family values as a sick joke.
My guess is Foley gave us about eight more House seats, including Hastert’s, Reynolds’, and of course his own.
Beej
I was going to say my two cents worth here is a digression , but I guess that’s not the case. The issue of Time magazine which will be out on Monday has a story about why the Repubs are not too worried about the elections. According to Time, those reasons are:
1. Redistricting has resulted in far fewer seats being up for grabs than in previous years. Since the GOP controls a majority of these seats, Dems are going to have harder time winning a majority in either House or Senate.
2. Repubs have and will outspend the Dems in virtually every race. They have the $$$, Dems don’t.
3. Repubs have a highly sophisticated, highly personalized, personal contact system in place and ready to get out the vote. Dems used to have the labor unions to see to it that their voters got to the polls. That’s no longer true. The party that can get their voters to the polls wins. Repubs have a big edge on how to do this.
Read the article for more. It’s all pretty depressing. I wonder if my local Democratic party headquarters needs a volunteer to knock on doors or drive people to the polls. I guess I’ll check on it. First thing tomorrow.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
But if you get 60 percent on board, it means you conceded something to get that last 9 percent – and these pigfuckers don’t concede shit.
ThymeZone
That’s right. They have new Buicks, and we only have classes every other Thursday on how to hitchhike to the polls.
DougJ
They do. But the driving people to polls thing is bullshit. Knock on some fucking doors. It’s a pain in the ass, but it’s worthwhile.
As for the GOP’s vaunted ground game — homey I ain’t concerned. I’m not sure it’s even real. The two states where they had the most success with this (Georgia and Ohio) both had Diebold machines the years of the “miracle” turn-outs. Coincidence? You tell me. All I know is that they don’t have Diebold machines where I live and we’re picking up a seat in November.
Steve
51% is a strategy for passing legislation, where you can actually count heads. I don’t think the Republicans have a national political strategy that is anything like “let’s barely win.”
ThymeZone
Turns out that Diebold is Kazakh for “Diablo” …
The Devil’s Voting Machine.
You’d know this if you paid more attention to Borat.
ThymeZone
Where Diebold machines come from.
Richard 23
Finally, the smoking gun: fonts & kerning:
Wanting so badly to relive RatherGate.
Krista
Note to self: let ThymeZone name next pet.
That’s some creative stuff, my friend.
And as for this:
I have no idea what you’re talking about. My mind is as pure as the driven snow.
Proud Liberal
TZ once again putting his cluelessness on display:
You are right, investigations take time and they can stall etc., but new revelations are not going to come from an congressional or justice department investigation but from the media. Perhaps you haven’t noticed, spending all your time in Safeways, but there is a media feeding frenzy right now. Not a scrap of information will not be examined and probed by our fearless press corp. (sex scandals do that, not the reasons for war).
What is going to help the truth come out is that apparently the GOP leadership is at war with itself. Remember they are ALL up for re-election. Nobody wants to be holding the bag alone so they are pulling others in leadership positions in with them, i.e. “well I did my part, I told Speaker Hastert”.
Every former page will be contacted by the media. Former rumours about Foley will now be fair game and examined. They are not just going to be able to sweep this on the rug, people are going to demand answers (did anybody see the CNN “man on the street” interviews on this? This is resonating with the public and htey are not happy).
If the “official” investigations slow things down that is even worse for the GOP. Drag it out for the next four weeks? Disaster. Their best hope is to get it all out there as soon as possible. Do your mea culpa’s, and hope the ADD electorate will forget about it by November.
billmon
“This will prbably be the actual strategy, by the way. Try to smear shit all over both houses, just so they can say that both parties are equally bad.”
And we should expect them to treat this differently from the way they treat every other scandal because . . . ?
The Other Steve
Oh thank God!
Mark Foley is entering alcohol rehabilitation.
Because, after all it is alcohol which causes one to want to have sex with little boys.
tBone
Finally. I’ve been waiting for this ever since the Foley story broke. Surprised it took this long, frankly.
p.lukasiak
The message of every Democrat should be “Dennis Hassert ant the rest of the GOP leadership are the kind of people you will have running the Government if you vote Republican — they’ve been covering up for George Bush for six years, and now they are covering up for sex crimnals. Haven’t you had enough yet?”
Back EVERY SINGLE REPULBICAN into a corner — every GOP candidate must be hammered until he condemns Hassert without qualification as an enabler of sexual perversity, and every incumbent who voted for Hassert needs to be held accountable.
The gloves MUST come off…. Dems have to say “If Nancy Pelosi had covered up the fact that a Democratic memeber of Congress was hitting on teenaged Congressional pages,I’d be shouting for her resignation from the roof-tops. This is unacceptable, and my opponents refusal to take a firm stand — to demand the immediate resignation Hassert and everyone else who knew about this in the House GOP leadership.”
Hell, if the Dems play this up right, they’ll have 15 resignations before election day, and 15 unapposed Democratic candidates….
This is HARD BALL…
The Other Steve
p.lukasiak – Looks like someone has gotten the message
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001650.php
Even Chris Shays is calling on Hastert to quit.
Tim F.
More greatest hits from the scandal squad at RedState.
Erick Erikson – the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Paddy O'Shea
If the GOP Congressional leadership can’t protect its teenage pages from pedophiles, how can they be expected to protect the rest of us from al-Qaeda?
Steve
I thought it was camping trips that did that.
Mike
And shouldn’t we also ask the leakers of the information….
Leakers? Weren’t the “leakers” other pages? And when did this information become a state secret?
Pb
Watch it, Tim, you don’t want to sound like me and piss off John!
I totally agree, of course. Erick is a tool and a dick, relentless in his hackery and nastiness. Red State was perhaps once too good for him, but sadly is no longer, and he has a lot to do with that, too.
capelza
Thanks for noting this. It crossed my mind. It says so much about them in a way they really wouldn’t like if they honestly thought about it. Bottomline, to them, no “decent” Republican would dream of turning in another Republican, even one like Foley. That’s really sick.
Tim F.
Pb, I have already given Erick shit over that inane post. If I was going to catch hell for it I probably would have by now.
Tim F.
edit: link.
Punchy
Two points–#1, if this were true, there wouldn’t be a University and a high school anywhere near each other in any city.
#2–they HAVE to check him into EtOH-rehab. this IS no rehab for pedophiles short of the pokey.
AND NOW THE BOMBSHELL, IMO:
Someone in the blogs is reporting that ONLY the REPUBLICAN pages were “warned”/notified. They didn’t tell any Dem pages for fear of not wanting the story leaked. Fucking incredible breach of safety and responsibility, if true.
One again, it’s ALL ABOUT THE PARTY.
The Other Steve
I don’t know how pages work. I assume that the different parties have different groups of pages working for them. So it’s unlikely that Foley would have been covorting with the Democratic pages.
I think it’s bigger news that they knew about this for years and did nothing about it.
Punchy
Yes, but that actually matters not a lick. The very idea–and I’m not even a father!–that there was a predatory monster prepositioning young men, and they ONLY warned a subset of them–nevermind that Rs and Ds dont mix…parents won’t care about that–is simply incredible. Putting partisan politics ahead of child safety. THATs how this should play out.
I fully understand WHY they would only warn the Rs. I do. But parents everywhere want MAX safety and kids, and for Rs to stand up and say “we couldn’t protect YOUR kid cuz he was working for a D” OUGHT to disgust parents of BOTH parties. God knows I would be furious beyond words if this were a nephew or cousin, god forbid my own child…
ThymeZone
A blog full of lawyers, and no lawyerly questions?
What exactly was known “for years”, and what exactly was or was not done about it? Without that information, what’s the “news?”
How long would we expect it take to get at that kind of definitive information?
The election is in five weeks.
Steve
Don’t turn into scs, claiming that the facts won’t be in until the year 2148 and we should all reserve judgment until then.
We’re not writing the 9/11 commission report here. Plenty of damning facts have come out already and it’s only been a story since Friday.
Hyperion
pages are not little boys.
a lot of salivating here that reminds me of the lewinski scandal.
wait and watch.
keep ammo dry instead of metaphorically firing off bursts skyward.
be secret and exult.
which (i think) is one of TZ’s points.
Pb
Tim F.,
Thanks for the link, I think I missed that one at the time. IMO, the fact that Darrell’s arguments were directly in line with Erick’s says it all. Actually, has anyone ever seen those two together in the same room?
ThymeZone
Cut the crap, man. I am making a reasonable proposition.
You have weeks to turn this into a clear political advantage. Your adversary can throw a blanket of “ongoing investigation” over it at a moment’s notice. They are going to game it aggressively.
You have relatively few facts and a lot of hyped semi facts. “This was known years ago” is not a set of facts upon which a case can be made, and you fucking know it.
Here’s the scenario: You are almost at the end of what might be the most critical off-year election cycle in our lifetimes, and one that is probably a win for our side. While frustrated bloggers are jumping up and down and foaming at the mouth, there is great risk here, and unless it’s a George Tenet “slam dunk,” restraint should certainly be on the table, if not mandatory.
Zoom ahead eight months. The Dems have the House, and the subpoenas. The Hastert-Foley case is all the rage on the Hill. People are looking at the news and saying, wait a minute, we wanted change, we gave these guys the keys to the Capitol, and there are fifty things that desperately need fixing in this country and in this world … and these fuckers are running up and down the halls of the Capitol talking about a sex scandal?
Get a grip. Show some goddammned maturity here, and don’t frigging call me scs because I don’t agree with you.
DougJ
TZ — I see your point, but seriously, don’t you think that the GOP leadership should be attacked brutally for this? I just can’t see a reason why they shouldn’t be — morally or politically.
Steve
I guess I missed the part where I said investigating this scandal should be a high priority for the Congressional Dems after the election. Perhaps it slipped out in a fit of immaturity, and if so, I apologize.
The “ongoing investigation” dodge is not going to work because the media is all over this one, and new information is coming to light on an hourly basis. They’re not going to just drop it because some Republican gives them a boilerplate non-response.
A lot of this seems to have devolved into an analysis of whether people are getting too excited about this in blog comment sections, as opposed to an analysis of what actual Dem candidates should be doing. Because I don’t think there’s any danger of Dems scrapping all their speeches about Iraq to talk about Mark Foley 100% of the time, and yet, I’m seeing Very Serious Advice that they should avoid doing exactly that.
Perhaps the blogs are too excitable, getting ready to string Hastert up on the basis of whatever half-assed allegation. Well, so be it, I see the energy of the blogs as a positive. The blogs get ahead of a story, digging for new angles, investigating things that might or might not pan out into an angle that can be used for electoral advantage. Already I’m seeing plenty of good research into Foley’s fundraising ties, into the allegation of whether Foley was blackmailed into flipping his vote on CAFTA. These are all entirely appropriate topics for the blogs to explore. I guess the candidates can keep on talking about their nine-point plans for port security that no one pays attention to, until the iron-clad evidence is in.
ThymeZone
Well Doug, if you were interested in what I think, you could find out by reading my posts.
Because I have said exactly what I think. But let me do your work for you and summarize it:
1) The facts are not all in
2) What counts is the election, the whole election, and nothing but the election
3) Unless there are definitive facts which clearly and unambiguously can be turned into votes in FIVE WEEKS’ time, we should be very careful since the election is probably going our way without the scandal
4) There will be plenty of time to bash people after the election, if that’s appropriate
5) Your opponent is crafty and skilled at turning chicken shit into fluffy down pillows, don’t overreact and play into his hands unless you have a slam dunk, which you do not currently have
That’s what I think. That’s what I said for two days, thirty nine different ways.
capelza
Tony Snow…spokesperson for the President and his party of “values”.
Proud Liberal
Was a case made that Max Cleland was soft on terrorism? Was a case made that John McCain was a little unbalanced? Was a case made the John Kerry faked his medal earning actions in Viet Nam?
Elections are rarely about “issues”. They are about a whole lot more. Elections are about “gut” feelings often times. Polls showed that most people agreed with Dem “issues” more than Bush’s issues and yet Bush defeated Kerry. Clinton once said its better to be Wrong and Strong than to be Right and weak. TZ doesn’t get that. He wants us to be nice, calm, reasonable and disuss the issues in nice nuanced terms. In other words he wants us to LOSE yet again.
No, Dems should use this scandal in the remaining weeks to remind the electorate what they don’t like about Congress. The corruption. The lack of accountability. The secrecy. The coverups. The protection of their own and damn the public mentality. This is manner from heaven for the Dems and they should take full advantage of it. No, not to attact the personal problems of Foley but to attack the GOP leadership that KNEW about Foley’s “interest” in underage male pages and did NOTHING to protect them.
ThymeZone
Very serious advice? What’s that, the kind of advice from people you call “scs” because they don’t agree with you?
You have one guy in an obscure blog making a point, which you can either agree with, or not. Apparently you can’t do that successfully without calling me scs, or inventing several of your patented strawman arguments and then setting fire to them.
Why don’t you argue my points on their merits? Or can you?
ThymeZone
An insinuation was made, to his detriment, yes.
Ditto.
An argument was made, to his detriment.
So what? You are now convinced that the election cycle hangs on who beats whom to the gutter?
Sorry, I don’t agree. And even if the gutter is the place to be, this case isn’t the right gutter to aim for, because it’s too soon, there are not enough facts, and you don’t have enough time.
It’s best to be right, and strong.
ThymeZone
Exactly what did they know, exactly when did they know it, exactly what did they do or not do, and how do you know these things? If you don’t know the exact answers, how much time do you need to find them out?
It’s October 2nd. The election is in five weeks.
Steve
I’ve made multiple posts in this thread in response to you, with a ton of substance.
It’s a shame you don’t want to respond to any of that substance, since you seem to be the only one on your side of the issue.
ThymeZone
I have, and I have not called you scs while doing it.
My argument is 100% substance. Whether you agree with it or not.
DougJ
TZ — you didn’t really answer my question. If we wait until after the election, the story will be forgotten. It’s important to go after it hard right now, because Republican leadership _did_ fall down on the job and that’s important. I’d be saying this if it were May or December. Yes, it helps with the election, I think, but it’s also the right thing to do.
tBone
Most of us are in agreement that Dem candidates shouldn’t get too distracted by Towelspirtgate, so who are you aiming your points at? There’s some disconnect here between what we’re saying and what you’re hearing, or vice versa.
ThymeZone
Hmm. Well, if that’s true, then the story isn’t worth your time now. Thus my suggestion that even with the House and hearings and subpoenas, if this story isn’t deep enough to push wars and healthcare and national debt and terrorism off the table next year …. how is it deep enough now to win an election for you? Given that you have probably already won it, you have only five weeks to close the deal, you don’t have all the facts for your story, and your opponent is probably going to play rope a dope with you for the next month on this thing?
It’s a judgement call, obviously, but any strategy that isn’t based on restraint here strikes me as being extremely unwise.
Remember, the more there really is to this story, the less we have to do about it to make it work in our favor.
ThymeZone
I’m hearing scs. Why is that?
Steve
Because the argument you keep advancing, over and over, is that no one can do anything about this story until we know EXACTLY what the facts are, EXACTLY who did what, EXACTLY when they did it. It’s a silly argument, at an scs-level of rhetoric, and it detracts from the numerous solid points you’ve made and which I’ve addressed above.
We can’t even satisfy that evidentiary standard with respect to IRAQ, for goodness sakes. Should we steer clear of that issue until all the facts are in?
I’ll repeat one of my basic points from above – the idea that the Democrats need to keep their eye on the ball presupposes that they got this far by having their eye on the ball. To me, the Democrats sure haven’t been doing very much to make their case this election cycle, they’re ahead in the polls because of GOP self-destruction, and their only “strategy” has been to duck every controversial topic and coast to victory.
So while I’m sympathetic to the idea of “don’t mess with the game plan when you’re winning,” I don’t see the Dems with a game plan, I see them as not wanting to run any plays at all. The reason they’re ahead is not because they’ve learned the lessons of 2002 and 2004, it’s because the Republicans keep digging their own hole deeper and deeper.
The news cycle is going to be all about this lurid scandal for a while, so there’s nothing to be gained by steering clear of it. Work it for whatever advantage you can get.
RSA
I think that overreaction should not be a problem with this story, for a few reasons. First, there’s no way that I can see for Republicans to spin this their way, so it looks like a freebie. Second, look at the laws we have on the books related to sexual predation: does anyone get dinged for overreacting, even to the point where neighboring towns have zoning law “wars”? Hardly. Third, I think that the main effect of this story will be on independents and Republicans, potentially shifting the votes of the former and depressing the turnout of the latter.
If it’s possible to explain how Republicans can turn this story to their advantage, I’d be interested in hearing it. I think that moralizing Republicans have boxed themselves into a corner. The only thing I can imagine is to draw an analogy to Clinton, but I don’t see how that could change what I called the main effect above.
ThymeZone
I’m responding to posts, Steve. Like you do. Am I allowed to do that, or is there a limit?
I see, and advancing a proposition that there’s a case here sufficient to sway a national election cycle, even though there are no definitive facts available, that’s not a silly argument? Sorry, no sale.
No, no sale. If you go out and watch closely some Senate and House races, you will see real campaigns around real issues. Lots of them. You might be looking for some coherent national message thing, but the Dem strategy is to keep the races local and run against George Bush. Whether you agree with that strategy or not, it’s not only viable, as I said, it appears to be winning. And winning is what counts, not winning with style or a big flourish.
In those two statements, yours and mine, is probably the difference between us on this topic. I’m fine with that difference, Steve. What’s your problem?
Disagree, I just described the plan, and it appears to be working. You just don’t like the plan, I think.
My argument is that there is a great deal to be gained by not overreacting to it. If we are saying the same thing two different ways, so be it.
tBone
I don’t know. Maybe because you’re sticking your fingers in your ears and arguing against imaginary people? Because this:
is exactly what I’ve been saying all along.
ThymeZone
Well, the problem there is that your predator has resigned in disgrace and is not on the table. An investigation will start and the info about the actual predation will be unavailable for a while, maybe a long while.
The part of the story that supposedly has legs is the “coverup” part. Might be some real meat there … or not. Don’t know yet. The problem with that part of the story is the timing issue. It’s October 2, and that material … unless somebody has a cache of facts they are about to spring on us …. can take months, even years, to come out. The GOP has all the players as far as we know, and they can to a large extent control the flow of that information. And believe me, they are not above trying to use that story to trap Dems into an overreaction and thereby deflect attention from their collossal failures.
Why take that chance unless you have an iron-clad slam dunk cut and dried win right in your hands? Which we don’t.
ThymeZone
And I don’t see myself arguing with you much. Instead you have stuck your nose into my beef with Steve, which is largely about his shitty “scs” remark.
So what is your point?
Tsulagi
Skimming the comments, looks like the discussion has been should the Dems use this in the midterms or not. Hell yes. If some dumb bastard is stupid enough, or in the case pervy enough, to hand me a weapon, I’m smart enough to use it.
For the past six years this Republican party has been all image, all the time. Nothing else. GI Joe/Jane swinging dick or tits for God and country. The last month leading to the midterms, the Pub nonstop image drumbeat would have been (and will still try to be) fight against the decadent Nazi appeasing party of cut and run. Over and over and over…See Kerry 04.
But now with this punch and a jab from Woodward, they’ve been knocked back on their heels. For a little bit at least. No way I would graciously back off to allow them to compose themselves and reload their shit. They want to live by the image, then stick it to them.
First, let the press go after them with the boxcutters. If I’m a Dem candidate for a House seat running against an incumbent Pub, I’ve got some new gold. If the opponent goes family values on me, guess what’s coming back. If it’s national security, then I might say “If you can’t trust these guys to provide oversight to protect your children working with them, how can you trust them to provide oversight on national security? They haven’t provided any. If they spent less time playing with their dicks, we might not be so screwed in Iraq and the terrorism threat.” I might put it a little more subtle than that, but that would be the message.
Steve
I’m hardly advocating “winning with style.” Style, I guess, would be loudly proclaiming the beauty of liberal ideals, running on a pledge of single-payer health care, etc., and getting swept into office on a mandate to advance these ideas. I’m advocating the exact opposite of “style,” in that I’m saying, a lurid sex scandal is on the news every night, don’t miss your opportunity just to deliver the umpteenth speech about port security. This story, for better or for worse, is what people are talking about today – not whether Medicare ought to be empowered to negotiate drug prices.
You seem to think the election is in the bag if we just run out the clock. I think (1) I’m not so sure, and (2) even if it is, you can always win a bigger majority of the seats. This story has the attention of the media, and it has the potential to make a Democratic tide that much bigger. Why avoid it?
RSA
I think this is exactly right. What are the dangers of diving into this story? You get some details wrong, maybe, but that’s not really going to hurt (especially because the whole truth probably won’t come out until after the election). In the meantime, you get Democratic politicians and straight news reporters asking questions to which the best a Republican can say is, “No comment. Can we change the subject, please?” I don’t think that will work; there’s too much chum in the water already.
scarshapedstar
ThymeZone, if we’re required to know all the facts before we make a criticism, doesn’t that mean that all the Republicans have to do in order to govern unquestioned is… not release anything to the public? Isn’t that exactly what they’ve done for the last six years? Hasn’t everything gone to shit? Isn’t it all because of “reasonable” people like you who are too naive to admit that the GOP are fully aware that they control the flow of information, and use this to their advantage by delaying or outright sabotaging any investigations into their wrongdoings and then turning around and proclaiming that no investigation ever turned up anything?
It’s all awfully self-serving. And you seem just as eager to serve them.
ThymeZone
If I said something “in the bag-ish” then I’ll take it back.
I don’t think it’s in the bag just yet. But I think the bag is open and the election is heading into the open bag as we go into the home stretch.
I think the trends are good and in our favor.
I disagree with you that this story works in our favor right now, and I have made that argument extensively. I propose that changing course to glom onto an unknown at this point, no matter how tempting, is a mistake, and a mistake that isn’t necessary. If we were behind or desperate, maybe. But we aren’t IMV.
So there we are.
Punchy
We’ve GOT to better than that. Here’s mine:
Mastergate
Girthgate
Googate
SweatyFoleygate
Flipthepagegate
IncrediblyNotTheBoyScoutsgate
Pb
There’s a nice little comment I saw on Daily Kos about this sort of argument:
ThymeZone
We are well advised to know the facts before we go balls to the wall with the thing and take away focus from what appears to be a winning election strategy.
That is not about “making a criticism.” It’s about overreacting.
ThymeZone
Well that is just nutty. The very last thing you’d accuse these chowderheads of is waiting too long for facts before taking ill advised action. Quite the opposite, and ergo, my point.
ThymeZone
You know, you are going to have to drop that line of crap before I can take you seriously. I do not have to agree with you in order to be a real, live loyal Democrat.
ThymeZone
I’m not dismissing anything. I’m advising caution.
Not even close to being the same thing.
Richard Bottoms
Please stop feeding the troll.
Looks like the FBI has some explaining to do:
tBone
Wait. Nobody told me I had to have a point to get involved in arguments on the Intertrons. When did this happen?
My point is you keep tut-tutting everyone who wants to talk about this story (on an “obscure blog,” no less), even when they largely agree with you that Dems shouldn’t overreact.
And now I’m officially out of ways to say the same thing 10 different ways, so please carry on your regularly scheduled argument.
RSA
LittleHornyGate? For some reason, the creepiness of that Foley line just sticks in my mind, especially given what follows. Sad.
Perry Como
I like IWouldDriveAFewMilesForAHotStudLikeYouGate.
Steve
Well, who knows what went on the FBI, but it sure rebuts the argument that CREW is “just as bad as the Republicans” because they supposedly held onto the information, “endangering innocent kids,” for political reasons.
If they turned it over to the FBI immediately then I don’t know what more they could have done. However, even though it’s obvious from reading the emails that asking the kid for his photograph had a creepy vibe, I’m still kind of iffy on whether that gives the FBI enough to launch an actual criminal investigation.
What troubles me more is that the Republican leadership supposedly asked Foley about that specific email, and his response was “oh, I just wanted a picture to see if he was alright after the hurricane.” I mean, if that’s a good enough answer to bring the investigation to a close, then it wasn’t much of an investigation.
(Does anyone remember how the first response by Foley’s office to these emails was “oh, we have a policy of getting pictures from all the former pages so we can remember them in case they ask for a recommendation someday”? Typical Republican behavior, keep throwing out wildly conflicting explanations until one of them sticks.)
tBone
You go to the blog with the creepy -gate prefix you have, not the creepy -gate prefix you wish you had.
ThymeZone
Maybe. “Alarm bells” is pretty thin gruel here. You’d have to know what they did and what they found out, if anything.
However, let’s say the FBI can in fact be found to have dropped the ball. All that does is shift blame to the FBI. If I am Hastert, I am happy to hear it. These guys rode “faulty intelligence,” so far, to a four year war with no end in sight. With the support of the people for three of those years in the face of collossal failures, one after another.
Time is your enemy here. Anything that takes time works for them.
Unless there is a big bomb just waiting to go off and blow the case wide open ….
Tsulagi
And the FBI is under the direction of?
Not to worry, I’m sure the AG has been diligently composing a directive to members of Congress and its IT staff to turn over all emails and other traffic sent to pages. Should be finished any day now with a time to comply sometime around mid-November.
Krista
Well, the bar was set pretty high at “Twatergate” if I say so myself. (Although sadly, I can’t even remember what that was for…some sort of prostitution scandal?)
Pb
Great stuff, I’d love to hear the rest of Foley’s standard questions for “former pages so we can remember them in case they ask for a recommendation someday”. Was there a standard form too, and if so, was ‘penis length’ one of the questions?
ThymeZone
Yes, of course. Tut-tutting. Very good.
What do you have to lose by taking a few days to carefully vet this story and its details in favor of making the best possible strategy decision? Asking tough questions and weighing the facts carefully and analytically?
Pb
Krista,
Flashback–I had forgotten too. Dusty Foggo and friends, livin’ it up at the Watergate. Hookers, poker parties, CIA…
RSA
This makes me think that it might be interesting to compile a list of questions that interviewers might ask the Republican House leadership. I’ll start:
Mr. Hastert, we have all seen the online exchanges between Mr. Foley and teen-aged pages. Has Mr. Foley told you of any sexual encounters he had with the pages in person?
Krista
Only when he eats too much cabbage. Oh, sorry…that’s put-putting, not tut-tutting.
Never mind, then.
Pb
George W. Bush, 1/08/2004:
tBone
Again, not disagreeing with you. If I was a high-level Democratic strategist, I’d probably take exactly the approach you suggest.
The fact remains, though, that I’m just some random idiot posting on a blog. I don’t think the future of democracy rests on me reining in my snark until after the election.
Does “reining in my snark” sound vaguely dirty to anyone else, or I have been paying too much attention to (insert prefix here)Gate?
Tsulagi
That, and please provide a pair of used underwear for use in possible identification after terrorist attack.
ThymeZone
Agreed. It doesn’t rest on getting unanimous consent to going all out on Foleygate either.
However, it does rest on not calling me … or any decent person … “scs.”
Ahem.
mrmobi
It seems to me that the way the media works, we are not going to get another opportunity to exploit the Woodward book, if we pass it up to take on this story, which may, as some of you suggest, explode into full-blown, career-destroying scandal. It also may not. It may also be deferred (the Party of Torture is very good at this) until after the election.
The Woodward book is doing damage already, exposing the Mr. McFlightSuit’s continuing lies about the state of Iraq, and showing a deeply disorganized and confused Executive Branch. Written by a widely-respected writer who most people today think of as an ally of the administration, based on his last couple of books, in my view, this is a slam dunk. Use it while it’s fresh. Use it now. Every report of the continuing catastrophe in Iraq is a couple of votes for Democrats.
ThymeZone
That’s my line, I think.
But the idiots are the Bushmonkeys, not us.
ThymeZone
I put-put in the general direction of the Republicans.
DougJ
Hmm. Well, if that’s true, then the story isn’t worth your time now
The same way investigating the fabrication of evidence of WMD wasn’t worth our time, the way the meeting Cheney had with Enron to decide energy policy wasn’t worth our time, the way investigating FEMA after Katrina wasn’t worth our time…when you want me to stop?
You know that I respect you, but if you think that the actual importance of a story has anything to do with how much coverage it gets, you’re very naive.
HyperIon
somebody called TZ ‘scs’. and that has pissed him off.
i don’t blame him. scs seems to be a real moron.
reading her posts makes my skin crawl most of the time.
could the slinger of that insult just apologize?
it’s the right thing to do.
then you guys can return to your silly “virtual” food fight.
Steve
Yeah, I apologize for saying “Don’t turn into scs.” Thanks for the Rodney King moment, friend.
DougJ
Mastergate
Girthgate
Googate
SweatyFoleygate
Flipthepagegate
IncrediblyNotTheBoyScoutsgate
Operation Enduring Pedophile
ThymeZone
Yes Doug, and the respect is mutual.
But what’s the real hook here? The story’s importance? How much coverage it gets? What the facts are? Where the ultimate blames and attaboys will fall out? Queer bashing?
I assert that the money in this story is in the propriety of Hastert’s and his cronies’ actions WRT Foley in the past.
There may be a large pile of stinking poo there. Or there may not. Even if there is, it is going to take time to dig down to the poo, expose it, and frame it for the camera. While that is going on, the world marches on, not slowly and inexorably, but in the blink of an eye, to November 7. Hastert and his, uh, butt buddies can easily rope the dope for a month on this. Muddy the water. Appear to be taking the lead. Meanwhile, a carefully crafted march toward 15 House seats hangs in the balance.
If we don’t get the seats, Foley doesn’t matter. If we do get them, Foley doesn’t matter. So the whole value of Foley hinges on whether, and how, the story can be turned into seats. That’s TBD and the dynamics are not simple as the chestbeaters in here believe. Not only are they not simple, they are mostly under the control of your enemy, until or unless a lot more comes out.
Meanwhile, are you enjoying all the chatter about Woodward’s book today? Oh, that. Yeah, while we make penis jokes, big pro-Dem news is right there for the exploiting.
Am I wrong? Maybe. But not naive. Naive to me is catching some guy with his dick in his hand and thinking we’ve won an election.
ThymeZone
Thank you. And I apologize for pretty much anything you think deserves one.
scarshapedstar
Well that is just nutty. The very last thing you’d accuse these chowderheads of is waiting too long for facts before taking ill advised action. Quite the opposite, and ergo, my point.
But your very argument assumes that they are playing “by the rules”. Waiting for the facts implies that the facts are going to come out at some point in the future. What if they don’t? Have you accounted for that?
Remember the runup to Iraq? We were told that, sure, maybe the evidence for WMD wasn’t exactly overwhelming (a vial of white powder, a picture of an airport or a greenhouse or something, “nuclear schematics” drawn in crayon, and the ramblings of a guy named Curveball) but Bush had the facts and we didn’t and that’s why we had to withhold our judgment. As soon as it was safe and wouldn’t compromise operational security, Bush would show us the overwhelming evidence of Saddam’s WMD program. And on the slim chance that the WMDs didn’t show up, heads would roll. It was perfectly reasonable. Except for one thing.
Everything the Republicans told us was a lie. There were no WMDs to begin with, everyone knew it, and we pretended like they were actually interested in the truth when we knew otherwise, and boy did we end up with blood on our hands.
Fast forward to right now, and the same lemmings are marching for the same cliff. Wait till the facts are in? News flash, they have the facts already. They’ve had them for one to five years. Right now they are actively trying to destroy as many of the facts as they can, I assure you. I will bet you one hundred thousand dollars that right now they’re trying to figure out just how many emails and IMs (and the holy grail, dirty pictures) they can completely wipe off the record. Obstruction of justice. Hello, anybody there? This is like trying to build a case against the Mafia. The more you stall for procedural reasons, the more time they have to silence the witnesses. Everyone knows it. They’re not playing by the rules, and if you pretend that they are, you’re going to get played for a chump. And you know something? It’s your own damn fault.
ThymeZone
Sure. My argument and its expected outcome rest entirely on the facts. If the facts don’t come out, there’s nothing to talk about here. Case closed.
“Waiting for the facts to come out” is the most basic part of due process. Getting to the facts is the first job in any such story.
Being out ahead of the facts is foolish, at the blog level, and irresponsible, at the government level. It might even be criminal at the government level.
We don’t win anything by trying to be more like Republicans than Republicans are.
ThymeZone
You are preaching to the choir, man. I was saying that four years ago.
DougJ
But what’s the real hook here?
The truth: that they covered it up for political reasons. They didn’t even tell the other members of the page board.
I don’t see it as complicated. The guy was a menace to teen-agers (16 year-olds are children, I don’t care what anyone says) and they did nothing about it because they didn’t want the bad publicity.
I’m pretty sure that’s what happened. And I’m pretty sure the public will be upset about it.
tBone
That’s where you’re wrong, moonbat. The public understands that adults can’t control themselves when they interact with hot young teens. It’s all Clinton’s fault for getting a blow job – his lack of control over his sexual impulses infected our entire nation.
And Barney Frank is gay.
t. jasper parnell
ThymeZone,
You missed my point: it was the Fox News anchor who attached politics as the ultimate cause of the problem. Not me. I like Athens, although I dislike Pericles.
DougJ
It’s funny tBone — I took the snark routine over to FDL yesterday and they were all screaming at me immediately. I lost much of my respect for them immediately.
Proud Liberal
TZ:
yes we know, and that is why most of us find your judgement rather suspect. How a scandal involving, as it does, nearly the entire Republican house leadership doesn’t somehow work in our favor is quite beyond me. But I admit perhaps I am missing something. TZ can you point me to any political pundits that agree with your assessment? I have read quite a bit about the Foley issue and haven’t really found anyone that doesn’t think this can do major damage to the Republicans this fall.
TZ:
The “story” is not about a “guy with his dick in his hand” its about a corrupt Republican leadership that are only interested in their own power and positions than the safety of those put into their care. A perfect example of everything the Dems should be running against. A “story” that makes it very easy for the average citizen to understand and more importantly, get pissed about. It will depress the “values” Republicans and will cause many of them to stay home. Rove believes that the last minute revelation of Bush’s DUI arrest depressed those values voters and cost him several million votes. If a DUI arrest can have such an impact what do you think this story, with the attendant coverup, will do to those voters.
TZ suggests on one hand the Republicans can slow walk this till past Nov 5th. Well, if everyone agreed with TZ, they could probably get away with that. That is just another reason why the Dems should keep the pressure on.
ThymeZone
If it were May, or April, I’d probably agree with you. But it’s October 2, and there isn’t time to make that case unless there is a load of facts we don’t have yet that are going to be sprung any minute now. A memo from Hastert, bury this, etc. Something like that.
Looks like Hastert’s opponent, Laesch, is running with this a la DougJ. I think he’s way out in front of the facts on this story at this point, but it’s his campaign, I hope he wins it.
Sun-Times:
ThymeZone
Well, then I concede. Pundits always know more than I do. That’s why I killed myself in 2002 when I said the Iraq war was going to be a big mistake, and that there was no WMD threat when everybody in the damned country said otherwise.
Yep, I have to hand it to you. You got me.
tBone
They have a headline yesterday called “Face the Snark,” for Chrissakes. WTF?
Proud Liberal
What TZ doesn’t “get”:
Proud Liberal
John Cole gets it. See his most recent post.
ThymeZone
It does have that potential. But it doesn’t matter IMV.
First, it’s too late. I believe that to realize that potential is going to take longer than the time available.
Second, I don’t think that the perception needs reviving. I think people still get it. If anything, it needs spreading to people who don’t have it yet … and that’s where my time factor comes in. I don’t think it can be done in the time available. If you had five months, maybe. Five weeks? The GOP can waste five weeks just getting their investigation team put together.
sglover
Here I am, back with a second wind.
Here’s the pattern I see with your “arguments”, TZ: You say that you respond to other’s remarks, but I’ve yet to see much more than a hand-waving “You’re wrong”, and a repetition of your own assertions. I don’t believe your assertions are so far off-base, but neither do I think they’re especially savvy, and I certainly don’t see them as any better (in either their logical structure or their factual basis) than those of your opponents. In my own case, I made fairly specific statements (e.g., about Dem tactics in the last three elections, about the role of the ’90 census and redistricting in the ’94 elections), and rather than tackle that kind of thing head-on, you’d rather boast about your vaunted rhetorical skills. Being an authority in your own mind doesn’t make you an authority.
You don’t think Dems should rely too much on the outcome of the Foley scandal. Fine. I’m not aware that anyone’s arguing that Dems should make the scandal the sole focus of their messsage. What’s being said is that Dems would be foolish to not take advantage of the scandal, because
1) It’s an obvious headline grabber.
2) It reinforces a deeper narrative about GOP corruption.
3) Congressional Dems have repeatedly (in ’00, ’02, ’04) dismayed their base by refusing to grasp opportunities.
4) Congressional Dems lose by default via (3) by doing the same kind of second-guessing (If we attack, the Republicans will say that we’re angry!).
They all seem like substantial points to me, and from we’ve seen in the thread, a whole bunch of other people seem to think so, too. Once again, I’m waiting to see your masterful vivisection of these points.
But actually, not. I know you’ll respond to this with more of your schtick. Enjoy it. As for me, I’ll know better than to waste time with you henceforth.
sglover
Tsulagi
First, let the press go after them with the boxcutters. If I’m a Dem candidate for a House seat running against an incumbent Pub, I’ve got some new gold. If the opponent goes family values on me, guess what’s coming back. If it’s national security, then I might say “If you can’t trust these guys to provide oversight to protect your children working with them, how can you trust them to provide oversight on national security? They haven’t provided any. If they spent less time playing with their dicks, we might not be so screwed in Iraq and the terrorism threat.” I might put it a little more subtle than that, but that would be the message.
and Steve
You seem to think the election is in the bag if we just run out the clock. I think (1) I’m not so sure, and (2) even if it is, you can always win a bigger majority of the seats. This story has the attention of the media, and it has the potential to make a Democratic tide that much bigger. Why avoid it?
both understand some pretty straightforward tactical wisdom in a way that eludes our self-professed maestro, TZ.
ThymeZone
I disagree totally with your assessment.
Obvious headline grabber? That only works in your favor if you have control of the headlines. The GOP has proven itself the master of news cycle control.
Reinforces a narrative? To those who know it, it doesn’t need reinforcement. What Dems need is new subscribers, not renewals.
Dems failed before? The failures in those years are complex stories. Not even you can wrap them up into a simple sound bite that speaks to this topic. Those failures have nothing to do with the Foley story, at all.
Second guessing? Jesus, I can’t believe I am hearing such nonsense. It’s day three of an unfinished story. It’s time to be carefully weighing and analyzing the facts, and gathering facts. Not making rash decisions and jumping out ahead of the facts.
Feel free to disagree, but your personalized arguments are just rhetorical crap. And your four points are non starters for reasons stated here and elsewhere numerous times.
Proud Liberal
thats because the Dems in the past have listened to advice such as yours. Your advise is to abdicate control of the headlines to the GOP. Don’t you see that? Taking your advice and sticking to the “issues” will not take the Foley story off of the front pagge. The story has a life of its own with or without Dem participation. If the Dems are silent on this it will leave the GOP to spin the story? That is your answer? Were you there advising John Kerry to not get in the “mud” with the Swift Boaters? To talk issues instead of something where you don’t have all the facts? You are most politically clueless individuals I have heard in a long long time.
You keep talking about waiting for the “FACTS” to come out. Well, we got plenty of facts so far. And the facts we have so far are devastating for the republicans. Anything else that comes out is icing on the cake.
Fact: Foley hit on underage pages. One page that was the target of Foley called his emails: sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick. I think that counts towards “unwanted advances” wouldn’t you?
Fact: Foley had disgusting and sexually graphic IM’s with underage pages.
Fact: The republican leadership knew that at least one page was disturbed enough about the attention of Mr. Foley that he complained to them.
Fact: Hastert inititally denied knowing
Fact: Pages were warned about Foley more than five years ago.
Fact: No investigation was conducted by House leadership to determine exactly what Foley was doing
You want to wait for more facts? fine. Wait. But the American public doesn’t need to know a hell of a lot more to be disgusted with the republicans.
ThymeZone
No, it’s because the GOP has spent years and tons of money and time mastering the art of controlling news cycles. They set out to do it, and they did it.
Actually, you don’t have anywhere near enough facts. Not even in the ballpark. To make the coverup case will require facts and timelines in detail. Those are absent. It will take time to get them.
The facts you list are (a) newsoids, so far as I know, without detail and without objective analysis, and (b) grossly incomplete.
Lacking is a smoking gun, and without one, all you have is blogtalk, really.
Again, it’s October 2. The clock is ticking and there is a high-stakes campaign already underway and apparently winning. How much time do you want to waste on this?
If the thing has more to offer, then it will come to you, you can’t run to it. It’s like baseball, you have to wait for the ball to come to you. You can’t go and get this ball right now. Even if you could, five weeks is not enough time to do it.
RSA
But voting isn’t about absolute numbers. To take a crassly political viewpoint, I believe that Operation Enduring Pedophile will significantly cramp Republican efforts to get out the vote. From this viewpoint, it’s actually good that this news is coming out so soon before the election; there’s little time for Republican voters to rationalize why they’re willing to support those who have protected Foley.
sglover
But voting isn’t about absolute numbers. To take a crassly political viewpoint, I believe that Operation Enduring Pedophile will significantly cramp Republican efforts to get out the vote. From this viewpoint, it’s actually good that this news is coming out so soon before the election; there’s little time for Republican voters to rationalize why they’re willing to support those who have protected Foley.
Somebody else who isn’t so full of himself that he can discern reality. As I implied above, how’s this pedophile angle likely to play among Rove’s church-going factions? Arithmetic tells me that demoralizing the other guy’s base is a pretty useful tactic. But TZ’s obviously way more knowledgable about these things than, well, anybody. He says so, so it must be true, right?
HyperIon
i just read that the fellow who said this is now backing away from the term “warn”. he’s waffling IMO. sorry, i cannot find the post but i’m sure it will get cited by others.
so….maybe it’s not a fact.
you know, lots of people are going to end up looking like idiots on this matter. i would prefer that they all had R after their names.
ThymeZone
You hugely underestimate the capacity of the talking point machine to handle this. I think.
DougJ
Okay, here I agree with you TZ.
ThymeZone
Right.