It's getting hard to keep up with all the miscreants named Foley. First there was Fran "Faux" Foley, erstwhile Vikings executive with the upholstered resume and the anger management issues. Now we have Mark Foley, erstwhile congressman with a predeliction for abusing power through unsubtle electronic come-ons. What do we learn from this latest episode?
- The Republican leadership in the House is not exactly on top of its game. If Foley's behavior was fairly common knowledge, which apparently it was, he should have been bounced out many years ago. Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, but those who would be seen as virtuous need to walk the talk.
- The Democrats are pretty silly pretending to be concerned about this, considering how they closed ranks behind Gerry Studds (who actually did what Foley wrote about), Bill Clinton and Barney Frank, among others. It's awfully difficult to take any Democrat preaching morality at face value at this late date.
- This campaign is already plenty dirty. And I would bet that we'll see a lot more of this sort of thing. Both sides are desperate and desperate people generally act accordingly.
- Some day, when this campaign dies down and we've moved on other things, we ought to spend some time thinking about why so much of our politics is driven by the use and misuse of male genitalia. I don't want to go all Andrea Dworkin here, but I think it's really an issue, but not necessarily in the way most people think about it. But that's another post.
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