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October 2006

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It’s like out of the Catholic Church’s playbook

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And because this is sensitive, I’m not talking about the Catholic faith, but the institution of the Catholic Church as a bureaucracy.

Repubicans are on a witch hunt for the Gays.

ou may know that Kirk Fordham was ousted today as Tom Reynolds’s chief of staff after allegations that he tried to cover for Mark Foley’s inappropriate behavior. (In fact Fordham insists he sounded the alarm.) Fordham, as I think the Plank was first to point out, is also a former chief of staff to Foley. Today ABC News notes, in passing, that Fordham is “openly gay.” (I had heard this several times myself but chose not to publish it until now.) Why is this significant? Because it’s becoming clear that some people on Capitol Hill are promoting a storyline that involves gay Republican staffers–apparently led by Fordham–covering up for Mark Foley. Gloria Borger hinted at this on CBS News last night, saying:

Trying to solve the probem by making it about gays misses the entire problem–there was a serious breakdown in oversight of the program. It could have been heterosexual Members hitting on women in the program. And in fact, in the past that did happen.

That list is going to make this very, very ugly and every staffer on it or who has a friend on it will be bitter and angry and they know a lot about what has been going on in this and other scandals. This can only end badly for Republican pursuing this strategy.

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It’s not about the Adults

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It’s not about you:

Shimkus acknowledges feeling bad about the situation, but he becomes angry when questioned whether he should have done more. ?I don?t know of a single thing I would have done differently,? he said. Shimkus seems more interested in raising the specter of Democratic dirty tricks than of second guessing his own actions. He repeated to the editorial board what appear to be Republican talking points, questioning why the salacious e-mails were leaked to ABC so close to the election.

I’m somewhat surprised by Shimkus’ response more than many others. He was a teacher. He should understand the problem here. It’s not about the political consequences here–though he’s creating huge ones. It’s that he screwed up and left kids vulnerable. I can be pretty forgiving for that if someone owns up to it. This scandal could have largely gone away on Friday with Hastert and Shimkus saying—we screwed up and feel horrible about it and we are going to try and fix it with all of our colleagues. It’s not about the Republicans or Shimkus, it’s about high school kids.

As we now know, it wasn’t Democrats, but even if it was, so what? They protected a guy who is a pedophile. Perhaps they didn’t get that he was a pedophile, but two high school teachers should have thought about that possibility immediately when the original issue came up. If a Democrat had sent the information out–good. Someone needed to do that to protect kids. Saying it’s a dirty trick suggests this isn’t a real issue. It is and every parent not involved in the scandal knows that. That’s why Shimkus’ colleagues on the Republican side are largely mad at Hastert. If it had been there kid….

Dirty tricks are dishonest. Pointing out a problem isn’t a dirty trick.

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The Basic Confusion Between Pro-Life Folks and the Pro-Life Movement

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Pro-life folks are neighbors who often have strong beliefs on abortion, but are usually concerned about how to prevent unwanted pregnancies and worry about taking care of babies born to disadvantaged parents.

The Pro-Life Movement is truly anti-choice in that they want to severely limit access to contraception.

If you want access to contraceptives where can one most easily get such access and high quality health counseling? Planned Parenthood.

Not Birthright.

What is unclear about this point to people like Wil Saletan?

Illinois Congressional Races

So Boehner and Reynolds are Liars

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I mean, there really is no winning way to answer the questions, but this is hysterical

Roskam said he believes Hastert when he says he does not remember hearing anything before last week about the Foley email exchange with a 16-year-old former page from Louisiana, in which Foley asked the boy to send a picture of himself. U.S. Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) discussed the email with Foley, who convinced him it was purely innocent and that he was simply expressing concern for a young man who had just weathered Hurricane Katrina.

It’s a little hard to tell what Roskam ‘believes’ as Denny, Boehner, Reynolds, and Shimkus all seem to have ever changing stories. However, the one clear thing—Hastert new about the first batch several months ago.

IOW, while Denny’s stories change, at different points in this process he has lied. Roskam just stuck his neck out for Denny’s honesty when one of the few clear things is that Hastert has been lying.

That’s talent folks.

Illinois Congressional Races

There are Easier Ways to Say You Want to Lose

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McSweeney backs Hastert.

David McSweeney, the Republican candidate in Illinois’ other hot congressional race, is also standing by Hastert.

McSweeney, an investment banker from Barrington Hills, said he also believes that Hastert didn’t know about the messages — either the strange Katrina email or the explicit instant messages that came out later.

“I believe the speaker is a man of integrity,” said McSweeney, who has also been high on Hastert’s priority list in recent months. “I’ve known him for a number of years. If that’s what he says, I believe him.”

The problem with this? Boehner and Reynolds have pretty much contradicted Hastert on several occasions now.

I believe we’ll see lots of Solitaire being played by the campaign staff for McSweeney for the next five weeks.

The Adults are Back In Charge

So Tom Friedman Wants Democrats to Govern from the Center

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His column is rather bizarre in inisting the Dems get a 1 vote margin to send Republicans a message, but force Democrats to govern from the Center.

This administration has governed from the hard, hard right since day one and completely ignored policy instead focusing on politcs. For six years a horribly irresponsible course has been followed by Republicans, but they shouldn’t lose too bad.

Democrats tried too often to compromise with this administration and it got them screwed. No, it got the country screwed. Suggesting now that Democrats should try and work with one of the most ideologically driven, corrupt and incompetent Administrations ever just boggles the mind. What needs to happen isn’t compromise, but actual real live accountability with the Legislative Branch actually operating as an independent branch of the United States Government.

And it’s bad political science. Compromise doesn’t occur easily when the majority is small, it occurs when one side has a large advantage. We aren’t a parliamentary democracy that can have a unity government. It’s a zero sum game and small majorities mean constant battle over hot button issues and avoidance of issues that require hard choices. It’s not a hard incentive system to understand if one reads the literature from 30 years ago.

I’m center left. I like being around the center on policy, but the remaining two years of the Bush administration isn’t going to produce any policy that solves long term problems. The Administration doesn’t believe in doing so and it’s clearly stated it. The best one can hope for is an independent branch of the government that does it’s job as the dominant branch and at least minimizes any further damage.

Illinois Congressional Races

ICFST in full warfare

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From the Illinois Review:

am shaking my head today. Maybe I’m loyal to a fault. But come on, who hasn’t been in position where you couldn’t win like Denny Hastert is today?

I’m shocked at the number of conservative Republicans who are so eager to dump their friends when they get into trouble. It’s rather troubling, actually. . . How do these people stay married to the same spouses for years and years? Haven’t they ever seen a undeserving friend through a storm in his or her life? Isn’t anyone ever deserving of weathering difficulties?

You can’t prove guilt unless you have the evidence in hand. Hastert — who has a million things on his mind at any one time — was presented a while back with some of the email message evidence, but not all. With what he had in hand, he made a call to reprimand and “speak to” Foley through the head of the page board, downstate Illinois’ own Congressman John Shimkus.

NW Burbs and Greg Blankenship write two especially good response to this so read the comments. Cats. Dogs. Living Together.

There’s another angle that makes the above bizarre to me. It’s not about loyalty to a politician, it should be about loyalty to teenagers who already grow up in an oversexed culture. How are social conservatives (and many are) not incredibly offended by this? A High School Coach of 14 years knows what the hell is going on when he reads even the initial set of less offensive e-mails and Denny covered it up. I can say that even in dealing with adult students, but students where there is an age and power difference even if less so, I have never brought up how hot another student is or asked for pictures. Being friendly isn’t being icky. And being icky is a sign of a problem.

We give Congress a special responsibility with this program–a historic program. It’s not to just go gee whiz willickers, he sent some naughty e-mails so we’ll talk to him. It’s the fucking asshole is making suggestive remarks to kids–get him the hell out of the situation now and then check and see if it goes any further and make sure the kids are protected. If it doesn’t go further, all contact with kids is cut off through the job and if it does go further–go after him with the law.

No one gets hurt if Foley had just been a little creepy and kept away from pages while an investigation went on. There’s no downside. There is a tremendous upside to investigating and keeping Foley away from kids that is pretty obvious today

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