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You are here: Home / Politics / Republican Stupidity / The Buck Is A Bitch

The Buck Is A Bitch

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For now Fordham’s the fall guy:

Those sources said Fordham, a former chief of staff for Congressman Mark Foley, had urged Republican leaders last spring not to raise questionable Foley e-mails with the full Congressional Page Board, made up of two Republicans and a Democrat.

“He begged them not to tell the page board,” said one of the Republican sources.

People familiar with Fordham’s side of the story, however, said Fordham was being used as a scapegoat by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

They said Fordham had repeatedly warned Hastert’s staff about Foley’s “problem” with pages, but little was done.

As Kevin Drum observes the two stories are hardly exclusive. Kevin also speculates that Fordham could spill the beans, but I doubt it. If Elliot Abrahams has a job in DC then Fordham can look forward to a well-paid second act in some other department. As long as Fordham sticks to omerta somebody will make sure that he keeps making payments on his second home.

***Update***

Undoubtedly Kirk Fordham forced the GOP leadership to ignore Foley’s behavior as far back as eleven years ago.

Reader Interactions

24Comments

  1. 1.

    Pharniel

    *sigh* seriously. sending the entire lot of them to gitmo isn’t even near enough i’m afeared.

  3. 3.

    Richard Bottoms

    Haven’t enjoyed myself like this in ages. BTW, where’d all the Republican apologists go????

    This popcorn is great, pass the salt please.

  7. 7.

    Tsulagi

    Guess we get to keep munching the popcorn while watching the shell game of who’s the bad apple while fingers are pointing to look that way. These guys are funny.

    Don’t be so sure there won’t be any bean spilling. Don’t know about the laws in DC or federal ones that might apply, but in my state I’ve heard it’s a felony to cause or aid and abet the corrupting of a minor’s morals. It’s sort of a catchall. Age of consent doesn’t apply to this statue and it gets you on the sex predator list. Now if one or more of the Dobson acolytes in DC were to be threatened with something similar, their lips might loosen.

    I’m still waiting for a page parent to show up. If they said they were lied to, that would be gold.

  8. 8.

    ThymeZone

    My take on the rightwing faux-tian crowd istoday that they are taking this as a win … for themselves.

    They talk and act as if this “proves” that gays are dangerous, that constant vigilance is required to protect America from Satan’s Agenda …. they don’t have a lot of party loyalty and think nothing of throwing Hastert or anyone else who disappoints them, under the bus.

    So they might lose some seats in the short term, but they will gain power in the long term.

    That’s my takeaway from listening to Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Council, today. One almost gets a sense that he is glad to see this blowup, glad to see the evil of teh gay exposed for all its shocking penis-into-child hideousness.

    These people truly are crazy.

  9. 9.

    Steve

    in my state I’ve heard it’s a felony to cause or aid and abet the corrupting of a minor’s morals

    Sounds like that would make it illegal to send your kid to work in Congress.

  11. 11.

    Faux News

    They talk and act as if this “proves” that gays are dangerous, that constant vigilance is required to protect America from Satan’s Agenda …. they don’t have a lot of party loyalty and think nothing of throwing Hastert or anyone else who disappoints them, under the bus.

    An apt observation. Of course Tony Perkins et. al. have nothing to say about the Hetero man who shot 10 Amish girls, killing 5, in PA on Monday.

    (Cue crickets chirping)

  12. 12.

    Pb

    Ouch. Kos has more from Novak:

    The fact is, Foley was reluctant to run for re-election because of pressure over his homosexuality. He was reportedly considering two private-sector jobs already, after the White House had panned him as a Florida Senate candidate, reasoning that he could not win statewide. But National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) Chairman Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.) talked a reluctant Foley into staying. Naturally, Reynolds, as the campaign chairman, wants all incumbents to stay in the House and to minimize open seats. Foley filed as a candidate in Florida on May 8 of this year, after Reynolds and other Republican leaders had been made aware of the e-mails by the page’s congressional sponsor, Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.), in April. It would have been a good time to ease Foley out, because his district is solidly Republican enough that another candidate could have carried it easily.

    This one’s a real page turner!

  13. 13.

    Richard 23

    This only puts blood in the water. It doesn’t however stop the bleeding. If leadership thinks this will end the story and the criticism they’d better think harder.

    If the GOP is stupid enough to take a cue from its fundie wing and make this about gays and decide to purge their party of homosexuals it certainly won’t help their PR.

    I doubt they are that stupid. Maybe they’ll just tell Mehlman and others to keep more firmly in the closet. That won’t help either.

  14. 14.

    ThymeZone

    Of course Tony Perkins et. al. have nothing to say about the Hetero man who shot 10 Amish girls

    Satan, uh, works in mysterious ways.

    Or something.

    Look, we’re the family values people. We can’t be psychoanalyzing every bad person out there. We are starting withe the low hanging, uh, fruits. So to speak.

  15. 15.

    Tsulagi

    Sounds like that would make it illegal to send your kid to work in Congress.

    Yeah, I guess after the Foley drama I could be tagged with knowingly aiding and abetting. But not to worry, after this no way in hell would I allow either to be a page in DC. Way too many Dobson cloaked pervs.

  16. 16.

    Punchy

    If leadership thinks this will end the story and the criticism they’d better think harder.

    Nobody gives a fuck if they canned some nobody from a nobody Congressman. The only person people will continue to bitch about, no matter how many clowns they pink-slip, is Hastert and/or Boener (sp?).

  17. 17.

    Demdude

    They talk and act as if this “proves” that gays are dangerous, that constant vigilance is required to protect America from Satan’s Agenda …. they don’t have a lot of party loyalty and think nothing of throwing Hastert or anyone else who disappoints them, under the bus.

    I watched Perkins & Buchanan on Hardball and other programs. It really get me furious when these crackpots start talking about statistics “proving” their point. I wish someone would actually push back and ask them the source of the their “studies”. Of course we know they are bullshit, but someone needs to clean their clock once in awhile. Of course they wil just lie about it again anyhow, but it would be nice to watch them get challenged.

  18. 18.

    sglover

    They talk and act as if this “proves” that gays are dangerous, that constant vigilance is required to protect America from Satan’s Agenda …. they don’t have a lot of party loyalty and think nothing of throwing Hastert or anyone else who disappoints them, under the bus.

    So they might lose some seats in the short term, but they will gain power in the long term.

    That’s a bad bet, though. In the long run, unless we go whole hog into the 14th Century, gays are only going to be more accepted. It’s going to be more difficult to use them as bogeymen.

  19. 19.

    Richard Bottoms

    Fordham quite or was fired, take your pick, because his one of the closted gay staffers who have “nis-served” the House leadership.

    Expect the next few days to hold leaks of just who is in the closet on the Hill.

  20. 20.

    Steve

    Andrew Sullivan spotlights this amazing quote:

    “As for the alleged abuse, it’s time to ask some tough questions. First, there is a huge difference between being groped and being raped, so which was it Mr. Foley? Second, why didn’t you just smack the clergyman in the face? After all, most 15-year-old teenage boys wouldn’t allow themselves to be molested. So why did you?” – Catholic League president, Bill Donohue.

    The Catholic Church really needs to call this guy up and get him to stop using the name “Catholic,” because he absolutely kills them every time. Man, he makes the Catholic Church’s ACTUAL response to the pedophilia scandal look almost adequate by comparison!

  21. 21.

    Richard 23

    That’s a bad bet, though. In the long run, unless we go whole hog into the 14th Century, gays are only going to be more accepted. It’s going to be more difficult to use them as bogeymen.

    That’s why there’s Bum Fights. The homeless are destined to be the next gay. Everybody moves up a rung. Or not. The most recent 60 Minutes that featured angry young men beating up homeless people really pissed me off. Sorry, off topic.

  22. 22.

    Andrew

    The most recent 60 Minutes that featured angry young men beating up homeless people really pissed me off. Sorry, off topic.

    I was quite happy to learn that those young, white, middle class assholes will be somebody’s prison bitch for the next 30 years.

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