Fuck Foley
October 04, 2006

Fuck Foley.

Really.

Fuck him for fostering the latest in an endless series of salacious distractions that dominate the headlines, pushing real, important news to the back pages and below the folds and the "one more quick thing" slots before the start of Prime Time Distractions. Fuck him for being a sad, lonely twat of a man, with a penchant for using his prestige -- as if a Congressman really has any -- to make passes at 16 and 17 year-old Pages. Fuck him for making a second tier, run-of-the-Hill scandal an All News, All the Time, Fair-and-Balanced story it's morphed into.

Look, the Don't Ask-Don't-Tell approach of the Republicans and the Democrats to his Hillside peccadilloes is shameful and heads should role, but is it really unexpected? Given what we've seen from the Administration, their Allies on the Hill, and the ineffectual opposition of Democrats, a party to which I lay claim, is it any wonder that the Pages knew more about Foley, and took more appropriate action over his passes, than those entrusted with the care of the Nation?

Foley made unwanted passes at and even, according to some IMs, screwed around with 16 and 17 year-old young men. Not boys. Not children. Subjects for grandstanding Politicos and Culture Warriors to make their bones about their illusory innocence no doubt, but young people still above the Age of Consent in most of the U.S., Canada and Western Europe, still. We give them guns, cars, EMT jobs and Life-In-Prison on occasion. Conflating them with children denigrates these real victims of rape and abuse, kids I'm far too familiar with after years in Child Protective Services.

Foley wasn't a predator. He didn't groom anyone. All the entreaties in the world won't get at 17 year-old to clean their room if they don't want to. Have sex with a 52-year old against their will? Not going to happen outside of some major, blackmailish leverage, which doesn't seem to be in evidence. Predators are bastards, sick fucks that even civilized people fight back the urges to maim. Foley is just sad.

But is he a criminal? Sure. He violated sexual harassment laws, Federal solicitation laws, and probably a conspiracy rule or two. I doubt he was molested, though hey, might be possible -- and as for alcohol, well, he sounded pretty sober when he was writing those come-ons. But a threat to the Republic? Please.

As the media noise continues to swell, the chattering classes hem an haw with their pet punditry projects, and the Usual Suspects trot out the tired old canards of pedophilia, uncontrollable Gay sexuality, and the perversity of modern culture, last week torture -- and you can twist language all you want but the 21st-Century version of witch-dunking is still torture -- was codified into American Law. Habeas Corpus protections for non-citizens were suspended, the Geneva Conventions became a "quaint" idea, further information came to light about the worsening situation in Iraq, and military warnings about the coming loss of Afghanistan to a resurgent Taliban landed on desks near and far.

You'll have to pardon me if I think Foley's love for KFC just doesn't compare.

Posted by Jody at October 4, 2006 11:05 AM

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