As Josh Marshall has pointed out, the GOP argument that the Foley scandal is somehow all a political setup or dirty trick of some kind doesn’t make much sense:
Is this really a winning argument or is it, as it seems to me, a sign that the House GOP leadership is currently exploring the outer reaches of the galaxy of desperation?
I mean, is it a diabolical plot to reveal that one of members of the House leadership (Foley was a deputy whip) spent the last decade hitting on teenage pages and passed the time between votes having cybersex with them?
Is he like a plant? A pervy Manchurian candidate hived into the 1994 Republican Revolution by the Dems?
Foley’s downfall was no October surprise. But now that it is crowding the headlines and threatening to deep-six Republican hopes to hold onto Congress, I’ve set my timer. I’m just not going to be too surprised if some time in the next few days we wake up to read one of the following:
- Terror alert level raised (only to be lowered after the polls close)
- Justice Department nabs group of plotters in Florida/upstate New York/North Dakota (later we learn that they’re just doofuses who fell for an FBI sting)
- Osama bin Laden captured at last!
In other words, October still has a long way to go, and the party in power has the October surprise controls, so — look out. As it is, we’ve already got Hastert arguing that if he loses his job over this, it’s a win for the terrorists. Anything is possible in the dying days of a corrupt regime (alas, we’re only talking about the GOP Congressional regime — the Bush administration is likely to be thrashing in lame duck-ness for two more years no matter what).
[tags]bush, october surprise, mark foley[/tags]
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