Congressional Slime

Someday, when I'm a better person, I'll be able to forgive the likes of Mark Foley, the recently departed Congresscritter who got caught with his hand in the Congressional cookie jar.

Nothing steams me more than hypocrites like him. I grew up drowning in a sea of hypocrisy and I learned to detest it.

And I especially despise Mr. Foley's type. He's the school bully who makes a career out of beating up "fags and homos" because that's all he can ever think about... fags and homos. And it upsets him to be constantly thinking about fags and homos. And all the disgusting, loathesome, fabulous things that fags and homos do to each other. Mmmmmmm. Yum... er, I mean YUK!

I realize that nearly all human beings engage in various kinds of "diversionary" tactics in order to keep the heat off themselves, such as the drunk who marries another drunk, thinking that their new spouse is a bigger drunk, so nobody'll notice how much of a drunk the original drunk is. It's a form of denial and self-protection. "My drinking problem??? What about HER drinking problem???!!!!"

But Mr. Foley is a classic example of the [fill_in_the_blank] bashing, self-loathing, closeted [fill_in_the_blank]. It's the self-loathing which gets channeled into lashing out at others in order to create a diversion that bothers me.

And I'll bet you, dollars to doughnuts, that he's also a classic example of the "Jim McGreevey Syndrome". This is what happens when a politician has nowhere else to hide. Having run out of options, they resign and run like hell. In Mr. Foley's case he resigned and checked into a rehab. It's only a matter of time before he pleads insanity of some sort, lays low for awhile, comes out, proclaims himself a "better person" for the experience and writes a tell-all book so he can cash in, big-time, on the whole seamy episode.

Mark my words. He'll publish before the end of 2007.

It's all part of the "big show" of American political life. Lots of fervent pretense. Lots of heartfelt public anguish. Lots of prime-time drama and lots of "collateral damage" (psychologically abused teenagers) along the way.

Betcha none of the pages who bore the brunt of Foley's unwanted advances, fearful of making powerful enemies in an institution they one day hope to join, writes a "blow and tell" about it. Nah, if they know what's good for them, they'll keep their mouths shut. And I'll go further and bet that the Republican leadership, mindful of the potential damage, cuts a few deals with the aforementioned kids, to provide them with "future consideration" in various forms, in exhange for them keeping their big, fat traps shut.

Even so, they'll wind up spending years lying on some shrink's couch talking about it. Or maybe they'll go postal and shoot up a Burger King or something.

And a few of them will wind up in Congress. Or elsewhere. Cashing in on their piece of the action by calling in the Republican IOU's.

But no matter what, I believe that you may count on the fact that, eventually, Mr. Foley will come up smelling like a Republican Rose. Like it was drowned in horseshit.