The Foley Follies Fallout

This Mark Foley story will play out on its own, and there are other stories important to the future. But there are at least mildly fascinating sideshows in progress. Lawrence O'Donnell has a column about closeted gay Republicans in Congress that is at least a small window into that part of the situation, whether or not he's right. (He says that this is going to come out before the election, and religous right Republicans are going to be devastated.)

O'Donnell also has gone on record saying that there is a staff level story, pitting Kirk Fordham (the aide who said he warned the Hastert chief of staff about Foley three years ago) against Scott Palmer (the Hastert chief who denies Fordham told him.) O'Donnell writes: Hastert's political life depends entirely on Scott Palmer's credibility. I can't find anyone in Washington who knows Palmer who thinks his credibility can survive this test.

Hastert's refusal to resign, which is typical for the Bush administration, is another instance of something that has worked before but may not now. An internal GOP poll reported by Fox News is alleged to say that Hastert staying could cost an additional loss of 30 Republican seats in Congress, on top of the 20 they already expected to lose.

Meanwhile, in his typical nuanced bluster, Hastert has blamed the Democrats for revealing the scandal, for which there is no evidence, and plenty to the contrary. He attempted to push the "liberal media" button on ABC for breaking the story. Last week of course, ABC was being widely censured by the liberal media for a movie by an avowed right wing ideologue that attempted to blame Bill Clinton for 9-11.

There may come a point, and this may be it, when making such pathetic accusations retroactively discredits every previous time they have been used, finally rendering them useless. Wouldn't that be nice?

The "liberal media" tag is about as accurate these days as the Communist conspiracy, and the irony is that big media continues to move towards the right when the rest of the country seems to be moving the other way. No matter how many right wing bloggers are discredited as plagarists and liars, major magazines and newspapers are still featuring new ones. At least until Foley, right wingers dominated cable and network talk fests, and even with Foley, they still do in some quarters, as is alleged here and here is happening with the new Katie Couric CBS Evening News.

Only in a political atmosphere so poisoned by rabid right rhetoric could Walter Cronkite's CBS Evening News be retrospectively considered a raving liberal broadcast. It can only be hoped that a Democratic Congress, if that were to happen, could help the inevitably slow move back to real rather than cynically rhetorical "fair and balanced" news.

Finally, in a story that broke a few days ago but because of all the noise surrounding this, got little coverage, the venerable Richard Viguerie, high priest of religious right activists, has turned decisively against the Republican party, suggesting his supporters abandon the party and concentrate on their issues. Viguerie was the direct mail innovator who became a mentor to many young ultraconservatives, becoming one of the key people behind the scenes in this movement from the 90s to now.

And now, googling him simply to get the correct spelling of his name, I see that Ariana Huffington has reached the same conclusion I have: that this could signal an Abandon Ship moment.