Posted on 10/17/2006 12:34:22 PM PDT by presidio9
'On the nose" is a Hollywood expression. It refers to a scene or a piece of dialogue that is too obvious or too good to be true. Hollywood would have said the whole Mark Foley sex scandal is on the nose. Let's start with the fact that this confessed gay stalker of teenage congressional pages was co-chairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus. All over Hollywood, fingers would go to the tip of the nose: Can't we make it Armed Services? No, we cannot. To change anything at all about the Foley matter would be to trifle with its vacuity, its reliance on bigotry and ignorance, its Beaver Cleaver qualities (congressional pages, for crying out loud!) and, not the least, the fact that so far this is the ultimate Washington sex scandal: There is no sex.
Maybe some page will be discovered to have had sex with Foley, but so far this has not happened. This total lack of a physical victim may explain why certain GOP congressional bulls did not bolt from the joint, pulling every alarm on the way out. Foley was creepy and appallingly inappropriate, but so far that seems to be it.
The lamentable lack of a victim hardly gets noticed as politicians coil their ropes, measuring Foley or some other poor chap for a proper lynching. Dennis Hastert should have known. George Bush should have known. Karl Rove should have known. How come this did not come up on one of those unconstitutional wiretaps? Did anyone in the House leadership think of waterboarding Foley? The man was gay, after all.
That, too, is on the nose. That this happened to the GOP is too, too much. It is no longer the party of Lincoln, but of gay-bashing. Its base is among those who embrace ignorance of homosexuality and, while they are at it, ignorance of sexual matters in general.
It was the GOP that cozied up to churches and preachers who likened homosexuals to the vilest people of all times and called on them to cease their wicked ways. To this sort of demagoguery, the leaders of the GOP have not just merely looked away, they have encouraged it.
So it is not possible now to call the whole thing off. It is not possible even to suggest that all those kids are not 8-year-olds, but American teenagers, probably none of them sexually naive. In all likelihood, nothing Foley messaged the poor dears was entirely new to them, and it's even possible to argue that, no matter what, psychological trauma is not likely to follow.
The abuse of trust is no laughing matter and the corruption of children is in a class by itself. But a sex scandal-cum-political panic involving just one person lacks a certain something. That it has attained such critical mass, that it threatens the speaker of the House and the GOP majority says little about the repellent Foley and more about how the GOP has hoisted itself on its own petard. It's on the nose all right, but sometimes so is life itself.
"That it has attained such critical mass, that it threatens the speaker of the House and the GOP majority says little about the repellent Foley and more about how the GOP has hoisted itself on its own petard."
At first I thought it said pet turd.
A sex scandal without sex. Unreal.
Richard Cohen must be gay.
Guess this guy has no problem with a homosexual male taking care of his Boy Scout son.
Question #1: When have the Republican ever been guilty of "gay-bashing?"
Question #2: If the Mark Foley thing is such a big deal, why didn't Gary Condit ruin the Democrat Party for a decade?
And then proposing when he turns 18.
As gay as a leather pinata.
No, I think it says that the MSM knows that sex scandals repel conservatives so this is a good issue to harp on and blow out of all proportion to depress the Repub vote.
Clinton's Sec. of Defense. Republican my arse.
This reads like he typed it with one hand.
#1. All the time. Everyone knows we abhor same sex marriage.
#2. All 'Conduit' did was sex and murder. No gayness involved.
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Well once again the usual screamer of Hate Speech on the Left demonstrate they completely have NO clue at all what Conservatives think
So I will not go out and vote? I don't think so!!!!
The most amusing thing about liberal columnists is that they are generally so confused and hung up about sex that they think its the ultimate insult to accuse us of being confused and hung up about sex. Which is why there can be a liberal sex scandal once a week for a year, but every time there is a conservative sex scandal they pitch a tent.
ping
this is for all those who have been condonig perversion
"It followed me home, Mom. Can I keep it? Can I? I'll feed it and polish it." Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver
"Gee, I don't know Beav. A pet turd named `Cohen'? Ask your father." June in pearls & high-heels
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