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Someone smarter than me posted this in his LJ. Someone smarter than him wrote it. So when I say this is one of the most brilliantly eloquent editorials I've ever read... understand my full meaning.

I'm curious to see some reactions, opinions, ect.

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"Ok, I'm sure you've all heard about the Mark Foley sex scandal in Washington. What follows is a lengthy, and very entertaining rant about said scandal by one of my favorite political cartoonists, Tim Kreider. Following that is a list, by no means exhaustive I'm sure, of some 50 or so Republicans, all congressmen, ministers, lobbyists, judges, etc, who have all been convicted of sexual misconduct with minors." LJuser Heliocide
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Before turning to the theme of this week’s cartoon, I cannot resist the temptation to pause and take pure vindictive pleasure in the Mark Foley scandal. I for one have no impulse to join in the unanimous chorus of moralists condemning Mr. Foley as some sort of sick predatory monster. His former colleagues are falling over each other in the rush to cast the first, or at least biggest, stone, calling him “abhorrent” and “disgusting.” Mostly he just seems immature and sad to me. Obviously sexually harassing your underlings when you’re in a position of power is wrong, and writing crude come-ons to sixteen-year-olds when you’re in your fifties is sleazy and pathetic, but it’s not like the guy was keeping bodies in his crawl space. Most straight fifty-year-old men would confess, under duress and out of earshot of their wives or mistresses, to being attracted to sixteen-year-old girls. As a friend of mine (who was then dating an 18-year-old) once explained to me, this isn’t *****, it’s ephebiphilia, attraction to young but sexually mature people, and it’s the biological (if not cultural) norm. Sixteen-year-olds are certainly not grownups, but they’re also not exactly children, as anyone who remembers being sixteen can tell you. What ******** the Congressman over, as if often the case with conservatives, was his timidity and repression. A Democratic lawmaker in poor Mark Foley’s position would’ve just called up a gay escort service and say, ‘hey, send me over a boy, make sure he’s eighteen and looks younger.’ Which is still illegal but well within the pale of Washington protocol. It is, as they say, going through accepted channels.

None of which is going to keep me from reveling in the spectacle of Republicans being force-fed their own guts in the last weeks before the election. Since they’ve posed as the defenders of moral values and the guardians of our children for so long, it’s a pleasure as rare and satisfying as a briny East Coast oyster or a fine Cuban cigar to see them exposed as fumbling perverts. The irony of Mark Foley as Chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus by day/ dirty old chickenhawk by night is only an especially heavy-handed example of Republican hypocrisy. It seems like I pose this rhetorical question every other week or so, but must every last conservative be publicly exposed as a hypocrite before the whole rotten ideology is finally discredited?

Still, let us make no mistake: no moral or logical points being made on either side are to be taken seriously, any more than are the impassioned arguments made by fans of opposing baseball teams about whether the ball was in or out. We all know which side everyone’s going to be on. The positions are just as predictable, and as arbitrary.

I will make two confident predictions about this scandal, based on a bottomless cynicism that has seldom steered me wrong with regard to politics. 1.) The fact that Mark Foley resigned instantly, foregoing the traditional twenty-four-hour interval of adamant insistence that he would never consider resigning, indicates to me that the e-mails and I.M.s we know about are but the tip of the iceberg. He was cutting his losses before anyone disclosed the taped phone calls and photos and videos and Imelda-Marcos-sized collection of underpants. Also, 2.) the fact that Dennis Hastert is saying he “doesn’t remember” being told about Foley, can mean only one thing to anyone who understands Washington legal language: he was told. Probably repeatedly, urgently, and in no uncertain terms. He is still in the I-will-never-consider-resigning phase.

Some conservatives have raised suspicions about the convenient timing of these revelations, and accused Democratic operatives of leaking the e-mails at a strategic moment for political gain. To which I can only say: man, I hope so. Wouldn’t that be beautiful? It would show that Democrats have finally, after over twenty years, learned something from Republican political techniques: fight dirty, stop at nothing, take no prisoners, destroy your enemies utterly and without scruple through any means necessary, no matter how vile. And I hope they have four or five more such bombs in reserve to drop in the remaining weeks before the election. Don’t let up until every last one of them has gone to rehab or jail. Humiliation and disgrace to all Republican scum. Swiftboat their asses, hard!


* Republican executive Randall Casseday of the conservative Washington Times newspaper was arrested for soliciting sex from a 13-year-old girl on the Internet.

* Republican chairman of the Oregon Christian Coalition Lou Beres confessed to molesting a 13-year-old girl.

* Republican County Constable Larry Dale Floyd was arrested on suspicion of soliciting sex with an 8-year-old girl. Floyd has repeatedly won elections for Denton County, Texas, constable.

* Republican judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest to fondling a 10-year-old girl and was sentenced to 10 years’ probation.

* Republican Party leader Bobby Stumbo was arrested for having sex with a 5-year-old boy.

* Republican petition drive manager Tom Randall pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 14, one of them the daughter of an associate in the petition business.

* Republican County Chairman Armando Tebano was arrested for sexually molesting a 14-year-old girl.

* Republican teacher and former city councilman John Collins pleaded guilty to sexually molesting 13- and 14-year-old girls.

* Republican campaign worker Mark Seidensticker is a convicted child molester.

* Republican Mayor Philip Giordano is serving a 37-year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing 8- and 10-year-old girls.

* Republican Mayor Tom Adams was arrested for distributing child pornography over the Internet.

* Republican Mayor John Gosek was arrested on charges of soliciting sex from two 15-year-old girls.

* Republican County Commissioner David Swartz pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.

* Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping his daughter between the ages of 9 and 17.

* Republican Committeeman John R. Curtain was charged with molesting a teenage boy and unlawful sexual contact with a minor.

* Republican anti-abortion activist Howard Scott Heldreth is a convicted child rapist in Florida.

* Republican zoning supervisor, Boy Scout leader and Lutheran church president Dennis L. Rader pleaded guilty to performing a sexual act on an 11-year-old girl he murdered.

* Republican anti-abortion activist Nicholas Morency pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor.

* Republican campaign consultant Tom Shortridge was sentenced to three years’ probation for taking nude photographs of a 15-year-old girl.

* Republican racist ***** and United States Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with a 15-year-old black girl, which produced a child.

* Republican pastor Mike Hintz, whom George W. Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign, surrendered to police after admitting to a sexual affair with a female juvenile.

* Republican legislator Peter Dibble pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl.

* Republican advertising consultant Carey Lee Cramer was sentenced to six years in prison for molesting two 8-year-old girls, one of whom appeared in an anti-Gore television commercial.

* Republican activist Lawrence E. King Jr. organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.

* Republican lobbyist Craig J. Spence organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.

* Republican Congressman Donald “Buz” Lukens was found guilty of having sex with a female minor and
sentenced to one month in jail.

* Republican fundraiser Richard A. Delgaudio was found guilty of child porn charges and paying two teenage girls to pose for sexual photos.

* Republican activist Mark A. Grethen convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children.

* Republican activist Randal David Ankeney pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault on a child.

* Republican Congressman Dan Crane had sex with a female minor working as a congressional page.

* Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his stepdaughter.

* Republican Judge Ronald C. Kline was placed under house arrest for child molestation and possession of child pornography.

* Republican congressman and anti-gay activist Robert Bauman was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar.

* Republican Committee Chairman Jeffrey Patti was arrested for distributing a video clip of a 5-year-old girl being raped.

* Republican activist Marty Glickman (a.k.a. “Republican Marty”), was taken into custody by Florida police
on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with an underage girl and one count of delivering the drug LSD.

* Republican legislative aide Howard L. Brooks was charged with molesting a 12-year-old boy and possession of child pornography.

* Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his 12-year-old babysitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media.

* Republican preacher Stephen White, who demanded a return to traditional values, was sentenced to jail after offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.

* Republican talk-show host Jon Matthews pleaded guilty to exposing his genitals to an 11-year-old girl.

* Republican anti-gay activist Earl “Butch” Kimmerling was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting an 8-year-old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.

* Republican Party leader Paul Ingram pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison.

* Republican election board official Kevin Coan was sentenced to two years probation for soliciting sex over the Internet from a 14-year-old girl.

* Republican politician Andrew Buhr was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13-year-old boy.

* Republican legislator Keith Westmoreland was arrested on seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to girls under the age of 16 (i.e., exposing himself to children).

* Republican anti-abortion activist John Allen Burt was found guilty of molesting a 15-year-old girl.

* Republican County Councilman Keola Childs pleaded guilty to molesting a boy.

* Republican activist John Butler was charged with criminal sexual assault on a teenage girl.

* Republican candidate Richard Gardner admitted to molesting his two daughters.

* Republican Councilman and former Marine Jack W. Gardner was convicted of molesting a 13-year-old girl.

* Republican County Commissioner Merrill Robert Barter pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and assault on a teenage boy.

* Republican City Councilman Fred C. Smeltzer, Jr. pleaded no contest to raping a 15 year-old girl and served 6 months in prison.

* Republican activist Parker J. Bena pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer
and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000.

* Republican parole board officer and former Colorado state representative, Larry Jack Schwarz, was fired after child pornography was found in his possession.

* Republican strategist and Citadel Military College graduate Robin Vanderwall was convicted in Virginia on five counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the Internet.

* Republican city councilman Mark Harris, who is described as a “good military man” and “church goer,” was convicted of repeatedly having sex with an 11-year-old girl and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

* Republican businessman Jon Grunseth withdrew his candidacy for Minnesota governor after allegations surfaced that he went swimming in the nude with four underage girls, including his daughter.

* Republican campaign worker, police officer and self-proclaimed reverend Steve Aiken was convicted of having sex with two underage girls.

* Republican director of the “Young Republican Federation” Nicholas Elizondo molested his 6-year-old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison.

* Republican president of the New York City Housing Development Corp. Russell Harding pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer.

* Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, Richard A. Dasen Sr., was found guilty of raping a 15-year-old girl. Dasen, 62, who is married with grown children and several grandchildren, has allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women.

I was wondering how you financed your car.

xd :runs:

What, him financing your car?? xd

*hides behind Grypes*

xd

I think the humour in it is the fact the guy who wrote it went through all the effort to dig up dirt on just the repubslicans like that. xd

And yeah, that was worth ribbing blue though since she left herself open like that xd

I am a lazy a** and have no idea what either group stands for, here OR there xd

Now if only blue had pics to go along with these zingers wink

wow, I figured out of all the people here Grypes you'd know what political parties all stood for and what not.

*cough* Liberals are very close to republicans on the government spectrum.

rofl I'm so glad I never was a federal page, only stayed at the library where the "normal" ***** used to go. gonk Man, I REALLY need to do my journal and say some of the s**t I've seen at work.

Oh, and democrats have their own stories, like heavy drinking, curssing and the OTHER stuff, but I always hated republicans who fux up society.

liberals and libertarians are different things.

And i do beleive Bill Maher said it best when he said somethin like: "We have two primary political parties in this country that are the euqivilant of identicle cousins both played by Patty Duke"

and if you don't get that reference there was an old show (old even for me... like my parents watched this show) called the Patty Duke show and she played identicle cousins.

Sing along time:
"Cause they're cousins.
Identicle cousins in every way.
They walk alike
They talk alike.
What a whacky pair."