foley is our fault

As amusing as the internet messages of a conservative pedophile trolling for boy sex are, I’ve been trying to steer clear of the whole Foley thing. When it hit the news today that the disgraced former Congressman may have gone running into the arms of the Church of Scientology upon being found out, though, I knew I’d have to say something. I’d reached my personal tipping point. (I’d just about reached it yesterday when I found this clip of Foley on “America’s Most Wanted” talking about child predators, but I wasn’t really motivated to take action and start typing until Lord Xenu came into the picture. The prospect of a “the body thetans made me do it” defense makes me very happy.)

So, now the excuses are pouring out. First, there was the claim of alcoholism, and then the revelation that Foley may have himself been the victim of sexual abuse as a boy. One can only hope that he’d be prosecuted under the child protection laws he helped to pass, but I suspect that he’ll get off after making the tearful case that child porn — the stuff that he had to watch, given his duties on the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children — somehow turned him into a monster temporarily… Of course, in reality, we all know that he most likely gravitated toward that committee assignment as a way to legally access otherwise off-limits material, but it won’t matter. Reality doesn’t matter.

The thing that has most upset me about this whole thing (even more than the Republican cover-up) was how conservatives were trying to spin the story so that it involved the Democrats. Everything, no mater how distasteful, is an opportunity for them. First there was Brit Hume suggesting that this case of an older man making unwanted sexual advances toward a minor were somehow comparable to the consensual relationship that President Clinton had with Monica Lewinsky (an adult). Then, there was Newt Gingrich saying that if the Republican leadership had stepped in to stop Foley when they first heard of his predilection for young boys that the Democrats would have accused them of “gay bashing”… You know how much the Democrats and the ACLU love standing up for the rights of pedophiles.

update: The fact that the Republican Congressman’s dick gets hard when he thinks of young boys is apparently a liberal conspiracy!