Foleygate Update

Things are happening in a fast and furious way this week in Washington and today was no exception with the announcement that a congressional aide has been fired. Shortly after that happened the aide, Kirk Fordham, released a statement (typically blaming the Democrats for his problems) which was quickly followed by another one saying that he told 'senior staff at the highest level of the House of Representatives [about Foley] asking them to intervene' 3 years ago. So whose fault is it, Fordham? Yours? Hastert's? Or the Democrats? Or maybe it's all of the above and the media and the liberals' too? Too bad the Republicans couldn't tag this issue with an anti-Islam angle as well. Then they'd have all of their usual suspects bases covered.

The spin is just too much to keep up with.

Meanwhile, David Corn reports that there is now a list 'of top-level Republican congressional aides who are [allegedly] gay' being spread around Capitol Hill.

On CBS News on Tuesday, correspondent Gloria Borger reported that there's anger among House Republicans at what an unidentified House GOPer called a "network of gay staffers and gay members who protect each other and did the Speaker a disservice." The implication is that these gay Republicans somehow helped page-pursuing Mark Foley before his ugly (and possibly illegal) conduct was exposed. The List--drawn up by gay politicos--is a partial accounting of who on Capitol Hill might be in that network.

As Corn points out, Foley's sexual orientation as a (now admitted) gay man has nothing to do with the fact that his behaviour towards congressional pages was inappropriate.

What is this? International Gay-Bashing Day? Both sides of the border seem mired in scandals today involving intolerant attitudes towards gay people.

In the meantime, while everybody's caught up in watching that meltdown, a US court has allowed Bushco to keep eavesdropping on whoever it wants to. But that's just not as juicy as Foleygate, so I doubt many people will notice.

(So, why did I write this update, you ask? Well, it looks like the Foley scandal is what is going to bring this Republican government down and as much as I had hoped it would be the Iraq war, torture or corruption that would do so, I can't ignore the fact that something is finally crushing those hypocrites and that the whole situation is a such an unbelievably huge mess.)