Had enough?

Don't look too close, and you save yourself from disappointment.

Who is it, may I ask?

Oh, he of "Jihadist-Fascist" fame.

Not bad. He was only in Tom Delay's pocket to the tune of $20 Grand, following his lead 93% of the time. The thousand bucks he got from Bob Ney was chicken feed, as was the $5,000 he took from Duke Cunningham. I'm sure he got a lot more from George "Macaca" Allen last week.

Did he ever promise to give any of that cash back? I didn't think so.

All in all, pretty weak stuff as compared to real corrupt congressmen. Typical of most of the GOP. Nothing to see here.

If he promises to be really, really good, I won't give you too much shit for voting for your buddy. Personal relationships DO count in my book, and since I see you like him, and I respect you, he gets some benefit of the doubt.

Tell him to watch his language next time you see him. That and do something to clean up his party, "top to bottom" like he says it needs. I'm not sure he needs a chief of staff worth $100,000 a year, either. That's a lot for that kind of job.

He does have something absolutely right, both as a candidate and lawmaker. The local economy's impact from our stupid trade policy trumps all this talk of security, and Washington simply is ignoring what's happened to the job market in the region. I don't know what he plans to do about it, but at least he doesn't have his head up his ass about the fact we're hurting.

It's good for the area and smart politics to distance himself from Bush's policies. (Although I see he did meet Bush at the Detroit airport recently). This anecdote is disturbing, if true. Do you know what church he goes to or anyone who might go

I suppose you don't have much choice. His challenger is way to progressive for you. But understand that this guy is the embodiment of a White House rubber stamp. No significant legislation of his own, and has endorsed absolutely everything the party leadership puts up the flag-pole.

A vote for him is yet another vote for Bush/Cheney. You still get the apologist monicer for supporting him.

Democrats have their own sexual skeletons in their closet. Anyone else remember Gerry Studds (D-MA), who had an affair with a teenage male page? It was 1983, and he kept getting reelected until he retired in 1996.

Oddly enough, the differences between Studds and Franks are:

* Studds actually had sex with the boy.
* Franks is a Republican.

This is not to say that I think Franks should get a slap on the wrist. I think he should have been publically kicked out as soon as first documentation of his behavior was available.

But I suspect this being an election year, the Democrats will try and use the revelation against the Republicans, further demonstrating that they're just as bad, and just as hypocritical.

Oddly enough, the differences between Studds and Franks are:

* Studds actually had sex with the boy.
* Franks is a Republican.

I'm assuming you mean Foley. I don't care who got away with what. Fuck Foley. I have little tolerance for abuse of children and if someone got away with it when I was in the 9th grade, that's terrible.

I'm not gonna suggest that Foley get anything less because some Democrat did more than 20 years ago.

Come on Derek, get with the program.

Rose, you just denounced the GOP leadership in your post. As assistant whip, Thaddeus is a part of that leadership, and it would seem beholden to them.

If he continues to support Hastert and Boener instead of calling for new leadership -- and even running against them himself, does that change the equasion?

I'm assuming you mean Foley.

Oops. Sorry. I did mean Foley. I had originally written a comment about Barney Frank (D-MA), which was non-sequitur and confused the issue. I deleted poorly.

And the point is not about letting Foley get away with it because Studds did 20 years earlier. It's about Democratic hypocrisy.

The call will go out that Foley should be severely punished and that Hastert didn't do his job. THose darned Republicans are so corrupt. And yet, who was it who let Studds keep his Senate seat for 13 years?

It doesn't just go away because the offender is no longer in elected office.

Come on Derek, get with the program.

Which program? The one that forgets political hypocrisy just because it's not the current topic?

That's how Studds kept getting reelected when he should have been incarcerated.

Rose, you just denounced the GOP leadership in your post. As assistant whip, Thaddeus is a part of that leadership, and it would seem beholden to them.

I denounced anyone that knew this scum was a predator. No way in Hell, McCotter was one of them. I don't just denounce for fun like you guys do. The dude actually has to do something I consider wrong.

Derek, are you a GOP sock-puppet operative, or just reciting the party line? I'll just guess you've been reading too much Powerline. You can'legitimately talk about Studds without talking about Dan Crane, or you too are just spinning tales out of school. Both have the infamous distinction as being the first Congressmen censured for their sexual conduct -- simultaneously. Gingrich wanted both out of the House for affiars with 17 yr old pages. Studds' victim happened to be a boy. Crane seduced a girl.

Is it because Studds is gay, like Franks and Foley, and it's that special kind of perversion you're upset about? Or was forgetting about Crane merely a slip. I'm guessing that since there's such a wide variety of GOP malfeasance with the current crop, hammering on that theif Jefferson isn't enough and you guys need a little bit more to say "they all do it" and keep a straight face.

As for him getting reelected five more times after he admitted the affair, standing next to the page in question who by then was 27, you'd have to take that up with the people of his district.

By the way, Studds was one of the first in line to marry his long-time partner, a week after it became legal in Massachusetts. (some links, just cuz we all like links)

Now, not to put too fine an edge on it. It's next to impossible to get a conviction in this sort of thing unless the victim pushes it. With Studds, by the time everything became public 10 years after the fact the statute of limitation (6 years in most jurisdictions) had long since passed on what could only be termed gross sexual imposition because, even though the page was beyond the age of consent, 16, he was so much older than the kid.

Not so in Foley's case, he's within the S of L. Moreover, when you want to talk about Hypocricy (with a capital "H"), Foley himself wrote the federal statute that made his predator acts over the internet a crime. A federal crime. The fact that he was head of the internet sexual predator committee is what blows me away.

Don't try to defend this Derek, or cough up some moral equivalecy argument. It doesn't fly. This guy's hypocricy is one for the record books.

I love this quote:

"It's vile," Mark Foley, R-Jupiter, told the St. Petersburg Times. "It's more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction."

He was talking about Clinton/Lewinsky back in '98.

Hey, I was just trying to figure you out, and drawing possible conclusions from what I read, which is all any of us can do on line. I haven't read too much if anything you wrote before, so my getting it wrong is no surprise, least of all to me.

I understand a little bit more, and I accept the point that the parties themselves supported theyse guys when they didn't pose a liability.

And again, forgive the pedantic lawyer in me, but you can't be a pedophile by either a medical or legal sense of the word when the victim is of the age of consent, which as I said before is 16 in most jurisdictions. The medical definition presumes a pre-pubescent victim. This guy specifically wrote a federal criminal statute that made it illegal to use the internet to predatorize (?? seduce??) anyone under 18, regardless of the age of consent in the jurisdiction where the act occured.

[Please don't make me look up the DC age of consent statute. You get the point.]

I'll accept calling Foley or even Crane and Studds "predators" but not pedophiles.

And for god sakes, please don't let anyone reading this even try to imply that I'm in anyway defending any of them. That is a fight I'm not interested in.

Okay, I think that answered my hypothetical, sort of. If Thad defends Hastert, that wouldn't change anything. He'd actually have to be part of the coverup then.

Defending someone is different than being complicit, as you well know. If it weren't, lawyers would be more scummy than people even think them to be. ;-)

Oh hell, if one of my daughters was involved, there'd be blood on the floor. And they wouldn't find the body if it were my son -- and he's 25.

Well, I prefer getting f*cked.

"Rose is never one for half measures."

Considering the way he acts, I'd bet that's all she'd get from "Dick".