Foley Scandal Shows True Nature of the GOP
Former Florida Rep. Mark Foley’s perverted instant messages sent to underage pages are disgraceful and disgusting. It is a shame that people who occupy such important offices show such little restraint with regards to their perverted desires. While Foley’s actions are far more disappointing than Bill Clinton’s, it is one more account of people that we trust to represent us–letting us down through sexual indulgence.
However, there is much more to the Foley case than at first glance. I would argue that the actions of Republican leadership surrounding the Foley situation illuminate the real and true nature of the corrupted and rotten GOP.
Now I could go into a long list of all the former and current House aides who have come out charging that Speaker Hastert and other GOP congressman knew about Foley’s “feelings” toward congressional pages years ago but I won’t. So many new accusations come out every hour that I can’t keep up. However, I can keep up with the fact that Hastert is flat out trying to lie his way out of the mess he put himself in by being in dereliction of duty. Fact is that power is all that matters to the GOP, nothing else.
The most obvious illumination of this case is the nature of the GOP’s exploitation of evangelicals. I have studied for years now the ties between the Christian Right and the GOP and what I came to realize some months ago is that this relationship is a farce; just like the entire structure of GOP governance. The Christian Right has gotten relatively little for being the grassroots of the GOP for a decade. They have been hugely loyal in pumping out votes for the GOP and even with total control of Congress and the Executive, the GOP just throws them table scraps here and there. Now I think the Christian Right is massively distorting my beloved religion and I am glad to see them get nothing. Nevertheless though, these freedom hating theocrats have been exploited, pure and simple. This Foley case proves that the GOP could care less as long as the evangelical votes roll in.
Hastert’s cover-up shows once again that all the “moral values” talk is just talk and that the GOP is nothing but a party for pampered, corporate rich boys. There are, of course, all the various acts of corruption, incompetence, and rich-boy pandering that should have destroyed the GOP’s ugly electoral coalition long ago but we all know that the Christian Right falls in line every time because of their twisted blasphemous ways. This time it may be different.
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