Priorities

It's probably best that I don't have a large readership because I'm sure this will be one of my least popular posts.

It seems like the entire left side of the blogoshere can not put up another post fast enough about the unsavoury scandal involving Republican congressman Mark Foley and his very lewd text messaging to teenage white house pages. In two plus years of blogging, I can't recall such a volume of posting consistently throughout all the big hitters on the left.

Of course it is a slow news week (Digby a day or two ago):

...if we lived in a nation that wasn't completely dysfunctional, this scandal [the Foley scandal] wouldn't be at the top of the list of scandals that have been revealed just in the last week:

    * A new book by the official court scribe describes an administration so inept, unorganized and incoherent that if most people were aware of the details, the president's fear campaign would blow back hard against him. If the terrorists really are coming to kill us in our beds any day now, then we are in deep shit with these guys in charge.
    * We have more news this week-end that Karl Rove and the white house were actively and personally involved in all the Jack Abramoff congressional corruption scandals which feature ripping off taxpayers of many millions of dollars.
    * It turns out that Bush fired Colin Powell.
    * The intelligence community agree that the invasion of Iraq super-charged the extremist jihadist moviement and is fuelling terrorism far more quickly and broadly than we would have had to deal with otherwise.
    * We have officially sanctioned torture and the repeal of habeas corpus --- at the least competent president in history's discretion.

I know the holier than thou so called purist left will be aghast when I say I find the whole thing very much overblown and a real distraction. Let me make myself clear; what Foley has done is wildly inappropriate in that he has used authority as a congressman to constantly hit on teenagers. And his text messaging is - to say the least - disturbing. But it is certainly not clear he did anything illegal if there was no one involved under the age of 16 - the legal age of consent in Washington, DC. I really don't see how Foley can be called a pedophile when all parties in question are above the legal age of consent. Does that make any sense to anyone?

And I'm sorry, but I can't help but feel that there is some homophobia in play here. The reactions of how disgusting the whole thing is makes me think that it is because the teenagers in question were males. Would all of the males who are saying this, for instance, say the behaviour was disgusting if it were, say, about someone who looks like these two? (apparently 16 years old)

Of course this isn't the case for the majority, male or female,  but almost certainly for some, perhaps even Foley himself as he speaks about how ashamed he is of his behaviour. Contrast this with the following:

In 1983, the House Ethics Committee revealed that two House members had been sexually involved with pages: liberal Massachusetts Democrat Gerry Studds and conservative Illinois Republican Daniel Crane. Crane was involved with a female, Studds a male; both pages were over the legal age of consent. Both Studds and Crane were censured by the House, but their responses -- and their political fates -- were very different.

Crane was repentant; tearfully apologized to his wife and family, asked for forgiveness.

As the rules require, he stood in the well of the House to receive his censure and faced his colleagues.

By contrast, Studds was unrepentant. He said the relationship was legal and consensual, talked about the difficulties of being a gay man in America, and when the House censured him, he turned his back on his colleagues, as if to reject their censure.

The next year, Crane, who had been an outspoken advocate of "family values," was soundly defeated by voters in his conservative district. Studds was re-elected handily, and served in the House for more than a dozen years, until his retirement.

Yes, once again the ugly head of Republican hypocrisy surfaces - when does it not? And yes, the covering up by the Republican leadership is, in a sense, emblematic of the entire party but, my god, what have done recently that isn't. There is the lying to go to war, the continued denial of Rice and others that they ignored the threats of terrorist attacks pre-9/11 and the pathetic attempts to blame Clinton for Bush's failure. (Rice's spokesperson now admits that Rice met with CIA director George Tenet who explicitly warned her about impending terrorist attacks two months prior to 9/11 - Initially - surprise surprise - Rice couldn't recall such a meeting)  There are the numerous lobbying scandals and the attempts to lie and cover those up. And the Orwellian debate on torture (tough tactics anyone?) and utter misrepresentation of the threat Iran poses in its run-up to another war (nuclear this time?). The list can go on and on.

But nothing tops a sex scandal in the United States.

I met a guy in Cuba, a Canadian close to 60, who was seeing a 19 year old Cuban. I believe they had started a relationship when the teenage boy was 16 or 17. I didn't really approve - it was kind of creepy - but he was hardly a pedophile. In fact he was a really nice guy.

This is an issue that the legal authorities should deal with. Foley rightfully resigned his post. But did anyone notice that North Korea is about to conduct a nuclear test or that the ongoing genocide in Darfur is actually threatening to get worse? From the Guardian on the North Korea tests:

North Korea Says Nuclear Test Is Set
North Korea announced plans today to test a nuclear weapon in a move aimed at ratcheting up tension in east Asia and forcing the US to halt financial sanctions.

The declaration - which comes less than three months after Pyongyang test-fired an intercontinental missile that would put Alaska and Hawaii within range of its warheads - was immediately condemned by the US, Japan and Britain.

And from the New Yorker on Darfur:

...the world’s gravest humanitarian disaster, lately deteriorating, and likely to get much worse in the coming weeks—perfectly reveals the international politics of the moment, showing all the principal actors as they are, rather than as they would like to appear. The pictures aren’t flattering. Since 2004, the Bush Administration has declared the death of several hundred thousand people in Darfur to be a case of genocide, but it has devoted only fitful rhetorical outrage and even more fitful attention to the subject. It has declined to offer any American contribution to a United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur, even though President Bush scolded the opening session of the General Assembly last month, saying that the U.N.’s “credibility” is on the line. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, meanwhile, met with representatives of governments at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, in New York, and, according to the Washington Post, “renewed her call for Sudan to halt a military offensive in Darfur and yield to international pressure to allow more than 20,000 U.N. peacekeepers to protect civilians there.” The Bush Administration still seems to imagine that the world will jump when America tells it to. But at the U.N. the world wasn’t jumping. If anything, it was laughing.

And I am not even mentioning the ongoing hell that used to known as Iraq, nor the recent reports citing how we may be in fact much closer to the point of no return in terms of global warming than we had thought.

While there was plenty of outrage regarding the fact that torture is being made legal in the United States and the opposition party is 25% pro-torture, I am not seeing a lot posts about that now (yesterday's news eh?). And many are so upset that the U.S. has become a rogue republic that they actually tell those who feel perhaps supporting the Democrats isn't the best option to shut the fuck up ... forever. Really, I see far too much partisan politics at work in this whole thing than there should be. (btw I think the Editors can be at times seriously brilliant but since the Foley scandal broke I haven't seen him post this much in months)

I guess all that genocide, and nuclear testing and torture are just boring.

Comments

[F.L.]

I understand your frustration, but I think there is something at work other than indifference to the bigger more serious issues. All of the larger issues require a solution and power to implement the solution, none of which we, the ones who want change, have at the moment. I think many are quiet in the face of this sense of how powerless we are to stop the crimes we are witnessing.

But with this situation, this bit of rampant stupidity, no power, no solution is called for, and I think people are gleeful in the face of such incredible stupidity and delighted to see arrogance undone. So, assuming I am right, it allows for a release of anger about all the larger issues to be transferred to this one situation.

Most of what I have read is written with a great deal of for joy for joy, one of these bastards is going down and almost all of the comments delight in the fact that the republican leadership are attacking each other. So my premise for you to ponder is, pent up anger is being released on a single target by people who feel somewhat helpless faced with the greater nightmare we are in rather than people cant be bothered with other, greater issues.

[brian]

I suppose I can understand why the reaction such as it is, especially the 'thank god one of these bastards is going down' part. And perhaps if your theory is correct, then success here will inspire others to pursue the greater issues more forcefully.

I do, though, wonder how many actually want to be bothered with grander issues. I think too many treat politics like a football game ... anything that helps "our side" to win.