Foley-Gate Restores My Faith in Republicanism

Latest Newspaper Column:

As one who just joined the Republican Party this year, I have to say that I was extremely disheartened at first by the events surrounding Florida Republican Congressman Mark Foley.

Foley, as you may know if you haven't been living in a cave, recently resigned after it was revealed that he had been sending suggestive, sexually explicit e-mails and text messages to male House pages, some as young as 16 years old.

It was disheartening for so many reasons. There's the sleaze angle, of course. Some of these messages are way creepy. But what really disappointed me was the way other Republicans acted at first.

Look, I joined the GOP for one reason and one reason only: because whatever you get caught doing, you can usually depend on the party to rise up as one and rally to your defense.

Whether your little peccadillo involves adultery (Rudy Giuliani), gambling (William Bennett), or even petty theft (Claude Allen), you used to be able to count on party leaders to claim (1) It's all a political ploy; (2) Hey, he said he was sorry, now leave him alone; (3) This is all really Bill Clinton's fault.

Now, just because Foley's sexually harassing teenagers, they started acting like he's radioactive or something. I started asking, have these people forgotten the unofficial motto of the party, namely IOKIYAR (It's OK If You're a Republican)?

As always, I want to make it clear that I have no intention of ever actually needing my fellow Republicans to watch my back. I'm not planning to describe my manly parts to any teenagers, male or female, and certainly not in any medium that can be easily copied and disseminated across the World Wide Web.

Nor have I any plans to gamble away millions, steal from Target, or commit indiscretions with female staffers.

It was just the idea that if I did, there'd be an entire American political party there to defend me that made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

It's not like Foley didn't make all the right moves after the scandal came to light. He resigned, said he was sorry and checked himself into rehab.

Now, this last bit may seem odd at first when you consider that Foley claims he wasn't drunk on the House floor when he was sending lewd text messages to teenage boys. But who really cares? When you screw up, you have to check into rehab. How else will people know you're really sorry?

So after Foley did the whole mea culpa dance, did the party do its duty and close ranks behind him? Heck no. There was a whole bunch of "investigation this" and "FBI that" and a lot of hand-wringing about who knew about this ahead of time.

One Republican congressman, Kentucky's Ron Lewis, even said, "If anyone in our leadership has done anything wrong, then I will be the first in line to condemn it."

Sounds more like that liberal mania for accountability than something a good Republican would say. This was not the party I joined a few months ago.

Fortunately, after a few days, some members of the party began to come to their senses and started putting the blame for this whole situation where it really belongs, by which I mean the media and the Democrats.

"You're feeding right into the Democrats," scolded Rep. John Shimkus, who heads the House organization that's tasked with looking out for House pages. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. This is an October surprise, and you guys have fallen hook, line and sinker for it."

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert voiced a similar sentiment: "We have a story to tell, and the Democrats, in my view, have put this thing forward to try to block us from telling the story. They're trying to put us on defense."

Now that's more like it! The real crime, after all, is not sexually harassing teenage boys, but reporting about it.

And in election season, while the Republicans are trying to "tell their story," too! What were these reporters thinking?

I mean, Kirk Fordham, chief of staff to the head of the National Republican Campaign Committee, has come forward and revealed that he'd told Hastert's office about Foley's e-mail habits three years ago. If the speaker's office can keep this sort of thing under their hats for three years, shouldn't a few reporters be able to keep their mouths shut to avoid influencing the election? How dare they make a big fuss over the leadership ignoring reports of sexual predation? Don't they care that we're at war with terrorists who want to cut our heads off?

So it's good to know that, while a few weak sisters in the GOP are losing their backbone, there are still a few people who'll stand up for the party's guiding principle, its polar star, if you will: IOKIYAR, even if "it" is propositioning teenage boys.

It restores my faith in the party. Not that I mean to do that, mind you. I'm just saying.

Walking the Walk

Dozens of Amish mourn schoolhouse killer:

Dozens of Amish neighbors came out Saturday to mourn the quiet milkman who killed five of their young girls and wounded five more in a brief, unfathomable rampage.

Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, was buried in his wife's family plot behind a small Methodist church, a few miles from the one-room schoolhouse he stormed Monday.

His wife, Marie, and their three small children looked on as Roberts was buried beside the pink, heart-shaped grave of the infant daughter whose death nine years ago apparently haunted him, said Bruce Porter, a fire department chaplain from Colorado who attended the service.

About half of perhaps 75 mourners on hand were Amish.

I am probably the least religious person you'll ever meet, but this moved me.

I Can't Believe I've Never Heard of This Before

I've heard of people inhaling their drinks, but this is ridiculous:

State officials in the land of Old Grand-Dad, Jim Beam and Wild Turkey are pushing to ban a device that vaporizes liquor and allows people to inhale the intoxicating fumes for a quick high without the burn of hard liquor.

Teresa Barton, head of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy, said banning alcohol vaporizers is a matter of public safety, not preserving the state's sipping whiskey industry. She said such devices could become 'a real deadly trap' because they have 'no purpose other than to get you drunk.'

So far, 17 states have banned them, including California, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and several others are considering doing so, said Sherry Green, executive director of the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws. Tennessee, the home of Jack Daniels, already prohibits the vaporizers.

'When you inhale alcohol right into the lung tissue, that gets drawn right into the blood supply immediately, so it's a very rapid onset of the intoxicating effect, and so has obviously very high abuse potential,' said Robert Walker, an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky Center on Drug and Alcohol Research.

Walker said alcohol vaporizers bypass altogether the tactile pleasures of drinking wine with a fine meal or a cold beer with a pizza: 'You're going strictly to the intoxicating effect of alcohol.'"

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

Latest Newspaper Column

You remember a few weeks ago, I was describing the hilarious journey of Florida Republican senatorial candidate Wacky Kathy Harris.

Harris seems to be on a quest to run the absolute worst campaign ever, which has included statements like "if you don't elect Christians, they'll legislate sin." For some reason, Jewish people in Florida (and there a few of those, I hear) didn't think that was a real cool thing to say.

Now, however, it's not just Wacky Kathy making with the outrageous statements. Republicans in general seem to have fallen prey to a veritable epidemic of foot-in-mouth disease.

The most famous gaffer is, of course, Virginia senatorial candidate George Allen. Allen's running against James Webb, former secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan.

A Webb campaign staffer, an American citizen of East Indian descent, was videotaping Allen at a campaign stop, perhaps waiting for Allen to say something stupid. Allen was happy to oblige. He referred to the dark-skinned staffer as "Macaca or whatever your name is" and sneered "welcome to America and the real world of Virginia."

Now, I would have thought that telling a native-born citizen "welcome to America" because of his skin tone would be the offensive part, but that shows how little I know. People began concentrating on what the heck "Macaca" meant. Some pointed out that it was a derogatory term used for dark-skinned people in North Africa, where Allen grew up. Others said it means "monkey." Allen apologized, but insisted he hadn't meant anything by it and it was just a nonsense name. You know, like "Sambo."

Macaca-gate was just beginning to die down when Allen put his foot in it again. A local news reporter brought up the fact that Allen's grandfather was Jewish and asked, somewhat snidely, "when Jewish identity ended."

Now, this was undeniably a stupid question. And Allen, by golly, gave a stupid answer. He started off OK, pointing out how irrelevant the question was and talking about religious freedom. If only he'd shut up there.But then he lit into the reporter for, in his words, "casting aspersions on people for their religious beliefs."

Uh, wait a minute, people said. Mentioning Jewish ancestors is "casting aspersions"? Was Allen saying Jewish heritage really was something to be ashamed of? The debate over that continues to rage, and it's costing Allen in the polls.

Then there's Montana Sen. Conrad Burns, a crusty old bird who's being challenged in a tight race by Democrat Jon Tester. The first signs of the Burns meltdown appeared when he cornered a group of Virginia firefighters who'd flown 2,000 miles to help fight a forest fire in Montana.

"You're doing a piss-poor job," Burns sputtered at them, showing what might be called a Pre-911 attitude towards first responders. (He later apologized.)

Then things got a little bizarre. On several occasions, Burns started talking about Hugo, a "nice little Guatemalan man" who worked for him, about how he'd asked Hugo for his green card, and how Hugo had refused. Burns later said he'd been joking, obviously forgetting that Republicans are not currently known for their sense of humor about immigrants these days.

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for Federation for American Immigration Reform, sniffed, "If you have the very people who are responsible for making the laws mocking them, it's a pretty good indication of why we have 12 million people breaking the law."

During a fundraiser with first lady Laura Bush, Burns said the United States is up against a faceless enemy of terrorists who "drive taxicabs in the daytime and kill at night." Bet Conrad's going to have a little trouble finding a taxi next time he lands at Dulles.

(Actually, cab drivers can be a little scary. I had one in Philadelphia that I'm convinced was trying to kill me, and that was just the way he drove).

But the real prize for stupid, oh-my-God-he-didn't-say-that-did-he statements has to go to Illinois House candidate Peter Roskam. In a recent debate, Roskam, the designated heir apparent to the egregious Henry Hyde, charged that his Democratic opponent, Tammy Duckworth, wanted to "cut and run" from Iraq.

So what, you say? Isn't that a standard Republican response to anyone who dares ask questions about why we're still bogged down in Iraq, when are we leaving, and how?

Well, maybe. But in this case, the comment was in stunningly bad taste. See, Tammy Duckworth won't be doing much running from anything. She can't. She lost both legs fighting in Iraq when an RPG hit the helicopter she was flying.

Now, do I think that Roskam meant to poke fun at Duckworth's injuries? Naaah. If he'd really meant to denigrate the service of a wounded veteran, he'd follow the Republican playbook by passing out purple Band-Aids and getting Ann Coulter to claim that Duckworth was really just on the way to drink beer when she was shot down.

No, Roskam was just mindlessly spouting off standard Republican catchphrases without really thinking about what he was saying. You know, sort of like the Bush administration.

Those crazy Republicans. What will they say next? Stay tuned.

I'm Calling You Out, John Connolly

Bouchercon Post the First:

Okay, so I didn't win the Shamus. I'd only be mad, though, if I'd lost to a crappy book or one by an author I can't stand personally. This was not the case. Louise Ure's Forcing Amaryllis, which did win the Shamus for Best First Novel, is really good, and Louise herself is very cool, so it doesn't hurt to lose. Much.

The blow was cushioned by the fact that I was sitting with the First Offenders crowd, three lovely and charming ladies and Jeff Shelby, who all kept the hilarity level up, even as their favorite, Offender Lori Armstrong, went down in flames right along with me. There's a picture over at FO with me, Lori and fellow nominee Harry Hunsicker that pretty well sums it up.

Oh, and as for the title of this post: I was on a panel (ably moderated by Kevin Burton Smith) entitled "I Could Kick Your Ass...Or My Character Could." Admittedly, as titles go, it's not, say, Marjorie Morningstar. But it was a pretty good conversation between panelists and audience, if I do say so myself. We did get wind, however, that some sawed off Irish runt name of Connolly had been talking smack about the panel beforehand, claimimg that "you know they're a bunch of total wimps," or some such. Pretty brave talk from someone who didn't , you know, actually show up. Had he done so, he might have enjoyed a little chat with me, Brett Battles, John McFetridge, or even with Michael A. Black, one of our panelists who's a former cop and a kickboxer as well.

But it's okay. I'm a Southerner, and we have famously long memories. Our paths will, no doubt, cross again. And when we do, mark my words, Connolly. It's on.

Oh yeah, muthafucka, it's on.

3...2...1...LAUNCH!

Well, okay, not right this second...but I'm leaving first thing in the morning for Bouchercon in Madison, so this is my blastoff post. I've decided to forgo taking the laptop because I'm thinking the amount of time I'll have to use it doesn't justify the hassle involved in schlepping the damn thing from North Carolina to Wisconsin. Ergo, blogging will be nonexistent till I get back on Sunday nght and probably for a day or so after. Those of you reading this who are going to B'con and haven't already left...see you in the bar, or at my panel (I Could Kick Your Ass..Or My Character Could, moderated by Kevin Burton Smith and featuring Brett Battles, Michael A. Black, John McFetridge, and your Humble Narrator. 10:30 Saturday.)

Those of you who aren't going...you're all worthless and weak. Drop and give me 20.

Oh, and it's an honor just to be nominated, etc.