One can't help but wonder. After Republican politicians and their talk-radio apologists serve up the spin, deflections and talking points -- after they "frame the terms of the debate" with simplistic, poll-derived slogans -- do they huddle privately, slap each other on the back and congratulate themselves on their wizard-like ability to turn dung into diamonds? It's difficult to imagine they actually believe some of the things they zealously sell to the credulous folks that make up the party's base.
Instead of owning up to the dreary circumstances of the Congressman Foley-16-year-old pages sex scandal, some of these guardians of the nation's morals instead blamed the teen-age victims, the "16-year-old beasts," as Matt Drudge characterized them. Rush Limbaugh speculated the pages might have conspired with the "liberal media" to hurt Republicans on the eve of the election.
Rank and file Republican "leaders" took turns at the microphone to invoke -- in remarkably similar phrases" the "everybody else is doing it" defense. They pointed to Democrats' scandals of years past. The Democrats, some of them noted, are after all the Party that tolerates homos...apparently equating homosexuality with predatory sexual impulses. Never mind that Democrats don't put themselves forward as the moral police, as Republicans typically do.
George W. Bush is distinguishing himself as the worst president in America's history. The damage he's done to America's image in the world will take decades under enlightened administrations to fix. Bush's do-nothing, rubberstamp congress likewise is worthless by any thoughtful historic standard. If the citizens of this country don't act this November to restore checks and balances to government, they will deserve the fascist theocracy the Bush People have been working so hard to create.
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