Posted by
Amicus on Thursday, October 19, 2006 12:50:39 AM
The flap over former Representative Foley is losing steam as we get back to focusing on more important issues at hand like a nuclear North Korea.
Looking back at it, there are two lenses through which to view Foley's actions.
1. The Moral Absolute Lens: What Foley did was inappropriate, abusive of a position of authority, and morally wrong. For this, he has rightly lost his position. IF indeed Republican leadership was aware of his lewd communications with pages for a period of time before he was removed, they should have acted sooner. Still, the right thing has been done and little will be gained by arguing over whether it was done quickly enough to satisfy the Democrats in an election cycle.
2. The Political Circus Lens: Democrats are trying to make political hay over Foley and his text-message trysts with 16-19 year-old pages & former pages. Where do I start?. In broad terms, the Democratic Party is the one most likely to support eschewing Abstinence-only sex-ed in favor of a curriculum that encourages Junior High and High Schoolers' use of contraceptives. This curriculum in our public schools for children as young as twelve. Children who any self-respecting liberal will tell you are going to make their own choices, so you better teach them to "be safe" about it.
So while the Democrats by-and-large support teaching twelve year olds how to use condoms before they "make their own choices", they paint Foley as a "predator" for lewd text-messages to 16 year-olds? Aren't these boys - by the Democrats' standards - old enough that they are making their own choices, and old enough to have been properly "educated" in the Planned Parenthood-sponsored curriculum? Does it seem strange that liberals can hold, simultaneously, the belief that twelve year-olds are capable of making their own choices about sex, and that Foley's pages are "victims". Come on guys, pick one view & stick with it consistently, regardless of circumstance. Right is right, right?
Don't get me wrong, Foley's behavior is creepy in the extreme & I'm glad he's out of office. I just have a hard time swallowing the manufactured Democratic outrage about it. Didn't a certain Democratic President "not have sexual relations with that woman", a 22 year-old intern. And wasn't that a "private matter" between "me and my God"? But now, the same American public that shouldn't have had any issue with the President's tryst with a 22 year-old intern should be outraged over Foley?
Let me ask Democrats with children this question: Would it matter whether your child, serving as a page/intern to an elected official, was 16 or 22 when they were approached sexually by their boss? Both instances are predatory, improper, unethical and immoral. Both instances merit the elected official's removal from office...unless they're a Democrat, then it's private.