What the Fuck?

I ♥ Your Kids

What the fuck is going on?

This sorry motherfucker above is Representative Mark Foley (R-Dateline NBC). The motherfucker got busted for sending sexually explicit IM's to fucking teenage boys. Now you know that's some fucked up nonsense, for true.

But the story doesn't stop there. Oh, no.

The boys were congressional pages. Young kids, away from home, in DC, and ostensibly working for this sorry-ass fool. He wined and dined them, gave them rides in his goddamn convertible BMW, and probably had sex with a few (we'll find out that shit in the days to come). On top of all of that, this sonofabitch was on the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children.

Takes one to know one, I guess.

So he gets busted for IMing boys. Good. Toss the motherfucker in jail after Chris Hansen gets all up in his shit, and Oprah comes by and doles out a cockpunching for good measure.

But the Republican party just can't let that happen.

While this no-good bastard has resigned from the House, the GOP machine has attempted a number of different strategies for damage control. Tony Snow, the President's Press Secretary, originally downplayed the substance of the messages, calling them "some naughty e-mails."

Here's some of the transcripts: Judge for yourselves (warning-will make you puke in your mouth, unless you're a middle-aged child predator, in which case go to hell) whether or not these are simply "naughty." I know that I'd beat the shit out of anyone for talking to a kid like that.

Also, the crazed zealots of the Noise Machine have come out, and, unsurprisingly, they blame a) Democrats, and b) the victims.

Here's Fatboy Limbaugh, laying this at the feet of the Democrats:

LIMBAUGH: I'm just thinking out loud here. What if somebody got to the page and said, you know, we want you to set Foley up. We need to do a little titillating thing here. Keep it and save it and so forth. How would you get a kid to do that? Yeah, who knows? You threaten him or pay him. There's any number of ways given the kind of people that we're dealing with and talking about here.

Now, folks, I don't want to be misunderstood here. I'm not trying to mount any kind of a defense. That's a bad word. I'm not trying to get into a defense of what Mark Foley did. Please don't misunderstand. I'm just telling you that the -- the -- the orgy and the orgasm that has been taking place in the media since Friday and with the Democrats is -- it's all coordinated, and it's all -- it's all oriented toward the election. There's no concern about the kid -- no concern about the children.

There is -- there is -- there's not even any real problem with what Foley did, as we've discussed. In their hearts and minds and their crotches, they don't have any problem with what Foley did. They've defended it over the -- over the years.

Now that's fucked up. In a big way. He should stick to popping the OxyContin.

But it can't compare to what Matt Drudge had to say:

DRUDGE: And if anything, these kids are less innocent, these 16- and 17-year-old beasts. And I've seen what they're doing on YouTube, and I've seen what they're doing all over the Internet. Oh yeah. And you just have to tune into any part of their pop culture. You're not going to tell me these are innocent babies. Have you read the transcripts that ABC posted going into the weekend of these instant messages, back and forth? The kids are egging the congressman on! The kids are trying to get this out of him. We haven't got the whole story on this.

[...]

DRUDGE: You could say, "Well, Drudge, it's abuse of power. This is a congressman abusing these impressionable, young 17-year-old beasts. Talking about their sex lives with a grown man, on the Internet." Because you have to remember, those of us who have seen some of the transcripts of these nasty instant messages. This was two ways, ladies and gentlemen. These kids were playing Foley for everything he was worth. Oh yeah. Oh, I haven't -- you know, they were talking about how many times they've masturbated, and oh, they didn't do it with their girlfriends this weekend. All this -- all these things and these innocent children. And this poor congressman sitting there typing about, "Oh, am I going to get any?" You know?

God damn. These people aren't even slightly concerned that there might be a hell. Sixteen- and seventeen-year-old "beasts"? Sweet mother of mercy, somebody fucking get this guy some amateur orthodontic work, if you know what I mean.

For those of you who have been keeping up with the Republican party for a while now, it might not surprise you to know that they've been totally incompetent about the Foley affair. For, you see, they knew about him. They knew about him, and they did nothing (kind of an MO for these people lately, no?).

Matthew Loraditch, a page in 2001-2002 and the president of the Page Alumni Association, said a Republican congressional staffer warned him and other pages to not "get too wrapped up in [Foley] being too nice to you and all that kind of stuff." He told the Washington Post that Foley had sent "creepy" messages to three of his fellow pages, but that they were hesitant to report him because they wanted careers in politics and feared retribution — "members of Congress, they've got the power," Loraditch said. Not all pages were warned, however. ABC News contacted several pages who said they were given no such warnings about Foley.

It's fucking unbelievable, isn't it? Then, from the NY Times, there's this:

Top House Republicans knew for months about e-mail traffic between Representative Mark Foley and a former teenage page, but kept the matter secret and allowed Mr. Foley to remain head of a Congressional caucus on children’s issues, Republican lawmakers said Saturday.

The exchanges began with what Republicans now describe as an “overfriendly” e-mail message from Mr. Foley to the unidentified teenager.

But news reports about the exchanges led to the disclosure of e-mail correspondence with other former pages in which the discussions became more and more sexually explicit. Shortly after he was confronted by ABC News on Friday about the subject, Mr. Foley, who represented a south Florida district, resigned from the House.

The revelations set off a political upheaval, with Democrats and some Republicans calling for a full investigation of Mr. Foley’s conduct and whether House leaders did enough to look into it. Members of the Republican leadership sought Saturday to detail how they had handled the case in an effort to defuse the situation, even as it was emerging as an issue in Congressional races.

Among those who became aware earlier this year of the fall 2005 communications between Mr. Foley and the 16-year-old page, who worked for Representative Rodney Alexander, Republican of Louisiana, were Representative John A. Boehner, the majority leader, and Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Mr. Reynolds said in a statement Saturday that he had also personally raised the issue with Speaker J. Dennis Hastert.

Weeping Jesus on the cross. Could these people be less capable? A year. A fucking year they knew about this, and they did shit about it. What, did they think no one would ever find out? Were they taking tips from fucking Bernard Law on how to totally fuck up a child molestation scandal?

Anyway, I'll have more soon about how incompetent the executive branch has been about this and other issues (looking at you, Condi).

Now I've gotta go drink this out of my mind. Gah.