The Power of Foley

While many have written of the smell of new revolution in the air. The Foley-Hastert scandal shows an older revolution eating its children - that is, the "Gingrich revolution".

What makes the scandal powerful is that it is really three scandals - the first is the sex predator scandal of Foley and pages, the second is the cover up scandal which includes Hastert and the FBI, the third is also a sex and cover up scandal, but it is the one which is the glue that holds the entire roving meltdown together. It about Gay Republicans. Specifically Gay Republicans. That's Gay Republicans....

The three scandals do a delicate dance, and each one keeps the others alive, each one strengthens the others, and each one is one that embarasses some people, while it arouses others into fury. If the scandal were any one of the the three, it would have been rushed off the pages, pun intended, ages ago. Imagine if Foley had simply resigned last year when confronted with evidence of wrong doing. On the other hand, replace female with male pages, and this becomes a non-scandal, because the Republican masses, rather than exploding with rage, would be swelling up with pride. "Sure, our boy gets it. See Republicanism is better than Viagra."....

The third leg spews up from the dark subterranean realities of the right wing, and it is the driving force both for the voracious appetite for revelation, and the relentless response. This leg goes to the sexual politics of the reactionary movement, the sexual politics of the intelligentsia, and how they play out in the world of public politics.

[via TPMCafe's Coffeehouse, HT: Jesus Politics]