Illinois, Credibility, and Touching Little Boys

Just when you think you have the Republicans in a hole, they go and dig themselves deeper. By now most have probably heard about the criminal behavior of Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) in soliciting teenage page boys in the House of Representatives over the internet. Unfortunately, most didn't hear out about it until well after the House Republican leadership did (as early as five years ago), and that is going to be the real issue that comes out of this.

And, lucky us here in Chicago, when we're talking about despicable misconduct by Republican leadership, it all comes back to Illinois! That's right, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was well aware of the problem going way back, as was some guy named Shimkus, who I guess is from downstate somewhere in Illinois. On a side note, many people have heard of Howard Dean's "50 State Strategy", and I would observe that this is why you run a candidate in every district. At the beginning of this cycle, few expected Foley's seat in Florida (let alone the seat of the sitting speaker!) to be a close contest, but by gum it's a lucky thing we have someone in those races now: Laesch in Illinois and Tim Mahoney in Florida. The Illinois connection continues, since local boy Rahm Emanuel is the foremost opponent of this strategy as a whole.

The irony is that the age of consent in Washington, DC is actually 16, so technically a Congressman having sex with a 16-year-old page wouldn't have been illegal. But those fun-hating Republicans, champions of the buzzkill, defenders of the moral order, had to go and pass a bill specifically targeting the solicitation of minors under 18 over the internet - oh wait, it wasn't just Republicans, it was Mark Foley's bill! So despite the legal acrobatics of the case, Foley has still joined some pretty elite company (8-year-olds, Dude.). It's interesting, however that few of the moralizing right wing groups we have come to know and love have come out with any harsh language condemning Rep. Foley or the Republican leadership to date.

So the question for right now, as far as I can identify it, is how discredited are Republicans really becoming? They've always told us that they are strong on national security/defense and moral values, so now that they have f***ed up Iraq, the hunt for Bin Laden, and moral values, who believes them any more? I would guess nobody, but then again one of my faults has always been an unshakable lack of faith in the sagacity of anything Republicans say.