Do you ever wish that Thomas Pynchon would stick to fiction instead of writing news stories?
Everyone has noticed that the Foley Follies are a close match for the pedophilia scandals in the Roman Catholic Church. (Speaker Hastert even looks as if he might be Cardinal Law’s long-lost twin.)
But now it turns out that Foley, in his youth, was molested by a Catholic priest. Or so his lawyer says.
Life, it has been said, is a comedy to those who think, and a tragedy to those who feel.
The latest revelation makes Foley’s story that much more pathetic. It also reminds us what horrible damage behavior like Foley’s can do to its victims. Anyone with a heart will see the Foley story primarily in terms of the suffering of those involved. (By contrast, the Hastert/Boehner/Reynolds/Shimkus/ Alexander cover-up, and the contortions of those defending the cover-up, are legitimate targets of ridicule.)
But anyone with a head will have to laugh at the sheer Pynchonesque patness of finding a direct causal connection between two scandals, both involving sanctimonious reactionary organizations covering up the sexual abuse of minors in order to avoid bad publicity.
Meanwhile the really interesting, more damning news for the GOP, that Rice must have just forgotten about telling the 9/11 Commission about the urgent meeting Tenet called to warn Bush about "bin laden's" imminent strike. Oh that meeting. That'll pass relatively unnoticed while his instant messages are the talk of the town.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100206X.shtml
I don't even know if I believe him. That's the worst part – it could be true. Think about what that means.
Maybe the RNC should be saving some of the $500,000 that Foley gave them – in order to spend on settlements with the victims.
I'm just not buying that dirty IMs and skeevy e-mails to 16 and 17 year-olds (who many states, including DC, mark as old enough to consent) is equal to molestation of a 13 year-old. Gross, yes. Inappropriate, yes. But horribly damaging, no.
Adult men hitting on boys in late adolescence and young men causes damage? Really? You might want to re-think that. Else someone might propose, you know, outlawing it.
That's not to slight the damage that sexual abuse can and often does to victims. To the contrary, it's to refuse to conflate unwanted sexual attention toward those who, while inappropriate objects of affection, are legally deemed capable of accepting or rejecting sexual advances.
It does appear, given the inordinate attention granted this scandal and the evident delight it has caused in Democratic quarters, that the scandal has demonstrated that there are almost no Democrats with a heart. So at least that little good has come out of it.