A Quick Note That Rapidly Got Out of Hand

I realized today that I forgot to mention the new season of Veronica Mars in my last post. The first episode on Tuesday was, in a word, excellent. I really enjoyed it, as I almost always do. I was initially disappointed that it didn't pick up immediately from where last season left off, but I got over this rather quickly. Tantalizing references to what's happened in the interval are all we've gotten so far, which is fine, it IS a mystery show after all. Still, it is a little strange how little was cleared up and how much less was resolved in this episode. The main story of the episode gets taken care of, but all the threads left over from last season are still dangling, which is fine I guess. But some weren't even mentioned! For instance, why was there absolutely no mention of Weevil? Oh well, as I said, I still loved the episode and if this thread-dangling is an indication of increasing ambition on the show's part (they're actually introducing new potential threads before they've even touched most of the danglers) then it could be a very good thing. I just wanted to go on record about the show and suggest that anyone that may read this and yet doesn't watch Veronica Mars (possibly a non-existent category) needs to start watching. Starting now.

Time for today's Foleygate Update. Well, not a whole lot that's new. The gist of the laughable Republican response is starting to come clear. As usual, it's a mixture of obfuscation, finger-pointing and outright lies. In the obfuscation department we have the right-wing bloggers who are on a mission and have exhumed every story involving a Democratic congressman and sex with a minor for the past 30 years. There's only about 4. I'm going to come straight out and admit that I haven't actually researched their claims, relying on their general complete unreliability. However, according to the bloggers themselves, 2 or 3 of these guys they mention (including Barney Frank, who's still in Congress) were re-elected repeatedly following these stories. The bloggers are trying to draw a distinction between how Democrats treat "their" pedophiles and the way the Republicans have all turned on Foley with admirable hyena-like instincts. However, I find it hard to believe that the Democratic Party's response to these stories was that statutory rape is okay and that the voters agreed with them... over and over again. I find it more likely that these stories are either only stories or else that the shades were a lot greyer than in the case of a 52 year old Congressman explicitly propostioning 16 year old pages that worked in the House.

As far as finger-pointing goes, well that's a Republican specialty. There's the usual every man for himself intra-leadership squirmfest, with every man's hand firmly pointed at his brother. So, the big loser in the blame game looks to be Hastert. As speaker, he's the man at the top, the head rat so to speak, and these other rats all have variations on the "I tried to warn him, but he wouldn't listen" refrain. How noble that makes these other guys look I'll leave to the voters of their districts, but there's no question that it's not helping Hastert. Of course, even with all the fratricide, they still have time to try and blame the Democrats for their own mess. I've heard 4 or 5 seperate jackals say something along the lines of it being important to find out who else may have known about these messages but kept quiet so that they could blow the whistle closer to the election. Which begs the question from whichever reporter they're talking to "Do you think it's possible that this story came from Democratic operatives who may have withheld information for political reasons?" and the weasel looks grave and says that they don't know, but it's possible and will have to be looked into.

Now, naturally, there's no evidence of any kind that this is even remotely possible. The only people that have even brought it up as a possibility are all Republican office-holders with some pretty big asses to cover. So that one can actually go down under finger pointing AND obfuscation. Since the only reason to even say something like that (without evidence of any kind) is to get the words "the democrats withheld information for political purposes" on TV as often as possible.

And Sean Hannity points the finger at Bill Clinton. We'll just skip that one. I think Sean Hannity secretly blames Bill Clinton for everything that's ever gone wrong in his life. I think he blames Clinton for the new Star Wars Trilogy, the Seahawks losing the Super Bowl and Hurricane Katrina. So, sure, Sean, whatever, Clinton gave Foley the idea that he could have sex with the pages and get away with it. What an asshole.

As far as the lies go, take your pick. That story about the democrats knowing about it and using it as an election issue would be flat-out lie if they had the guts to present it as something other than hypothetical. Hastert is pretty clearly lying about not remembering people telling him about this. Since more people come forward every day to say they told him about it. Plus, if you were the leader of a very narrow majority and you started hearing from people that one of the members you so desperately need to hang onto your majority is a possible child predator... well I guarantee you remember those conversations. You wake up during the night in a cold sweat after nightmares about those conversations. And everybody saying they support Haster
and don't think he should resign are pretty clearly lying as well.

You see, Hastert's already dead, he just doesn't know it yet. You don't come back from something like this. He might get re-elected, I don't even know if anyone's running against him, but he won't be Speaker next year. So, what all these people pledging to stand by him mean is that they'll stand by him until after the election. All they really want is to avoid having a second member of their leadership resign in disgrace in the same election cycle, this one practically the day before the election. But I think that's what will end up happening. They'll spend a week or so trying to run damage control, which will only make everyone madder. They're trying to spin the fact that they knew they had a child molester on their hands and they didn't do anything? That won't play well at all. Especially since at least one report says that one of these guys had to convince Foley to run again this year, AFTER they knew about these e-mails. So, yeah, my guess is within a week or two, three on the outside, there won't be any choice but for Hastert to step down as Speaker. However, even if holds on until November and the Republicans keep their majority, two big ifs, I think everyone realizes they're going to go in another direction with the Speakership next year.
Agghhhh. I'm done for now.

Captain Beefheart, over and out