Not Again, Charlie Brown
With new exposés almost every day from Bob Woodward’s book and the Foley fallout, things never looked so good for Howard Dean and Company this close to a critical election. So why can’t I shake this feeling that the Democrats are Charlie Brown and Karl Rove is Lucy holding the football? Somehow, at the very last minute, you just know that Lucy (Rove) is going to pull the ball away and Charlie Brown (the Dems) once again will wind up sprawled in the dust muttering “drat!”
As with the Abramoff scandal, I’m sure if investigators dig through enough smarmy Congressional e-mails to teenage pages they’ll eventually find one from a Democrat, but it’s unlikely they’ll find one who chaired the Caucus on Abused and Exploited Children as Foley did or one who has made “values” a crusade.
Ever since the Religious Right took control of the Republican party, it has won the White House, both houses of Congress and packed the courts with Bible-quoting judges who love guns and hate abortion. Meanwhile, a cottage industry of academics and political consultants has sprung up holding post-election seminars for Democrats on how to nurture their softer, “values” side and win elections.
The Republican base and its “values” voters are almost catatonic. Richard Viguerie, one of the founders of the modern conservative movement, tells anyone who will listen that a Democratic win in the midterm elections might be a good thing — that the Bush White House is corrupt and immoral. He says the Bushes “have busted the federal budget for generations to come.”
The fact that Republicans are the “values” party is why a sex scandal traumatizes them so. Democrats barely flinched in 1974 when Wilbur Mills, chairman of the powerful Ways and Means committee, hit the front pages cavorting in the Tidal Basin with stripper Fanne Foxe, “the Argentine Firecracker.” And when Wilbur went into rehab to cure his drinking, you never suspected this was a dodge to get him out of media sight (as is the suspicion about Foley). Everyone knew Wilbur was a drunk. Gary Hart had a 20-point lead in the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 when he was photographed with Donna Rice on his lap aboard the yacht Monkey Business sailing for the Bahamas. That ended his Presidential ambitions but he remains one of the party’s most respected political observers.
In my judgment, the Woodward book documenting how Rummy, Condi and Cheney ignored the pleas of our military commanders in the field, making an unnecessary war a disastrous one, should be far more damaging to the Bush White House than Foleygate.
But the e-mail flap has created such panic in Republican ranks that even Sen. John McCain, he of the “Straight Talk Express”, is speaking with forked tongue in his run for cover. McCain was scheduled to lead a rally in Buffalo for embattled Rep.Tom Reynolds who is knee-deep in Foley fallout. At the last minute, McCain cancelled. Craig Goldman, spokesman for Straight Talk America, McCain’s PAC, said the Senator had a “schedule conflict.” Reporter Doug Turner asked where McCain planned to be instead of Reynolds’ $250-a-plate dinner. Goldman responded: “We haven’t figured that out yet.”
Charlie Brown just might get a kick out of this yet.
As with the Abramoff scandal, I’m sure if investigators dig through enough smarmy Congressional e-mails to teenage pages they’ll eventually find one from a Democrat, but it’s unlikely they’ll find one who chaired the Caucus on Abused and Exploited Children as Foley did or one who has made “values” a crusade.
Ever since the Religious Right took control of the Republican party, it has won the White House, both houses of Congress and packed the courts with Bible-quoting judges who love guns and hate abortion. Meanwhile, a cottage industry of academics and political consultants has sprung up holding post-election seminars for Democrats on how to nurture their softer, “values” side and win elections.
The Republican base and its “values” voters are almost catatonic. Richard Viguerie, one of the founders of the modern conservative movement, tells anyone who will listen that a Democratic win in the midterm elections might be a good thing — that the Bush White House is corrupt and immoral. He says the Bushes “have busted the federal budget for generations to come.”
The fact that Republicans are the “values” party is why a sex scandal traumatizes them so. Democrats barely flinched in 1974 when Wilbur Mills, chairman of the powerful Ways and Means committee, hit the front pages cavorting in the Tidal Basin with stripper Fanne Foxe, “the Argentine Firecracker.” And when Wilbur went into rehab to cure his drinking, you never suspected this was a dodge to get him out of media sight (as is the suspicion about Foley). Everyone knew Wilbur was a drunk. Gary Hart had a 20-point lead in the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 when he was photographed with Donna Rice on his lap aboard the yacht Monkey Business sailing for the Bahamas. That ended his Presidential ambitions but he remains one of the party’s most respected political observers.
In my judgment, the Woodward book documenting how Rummy, Condi and Cheney ignored the pleas of our military commanders in the field, making an unnecessary war a disastrous one, should be far more damaging to the Bush White House than Foleygate.
But the e-mail flap has created such panic in Republican ranks that even Sen. John McCain, he of the “Straight Talk Express”, is speaking with forked tongue in his run for cover. McCain was scheduled to lead a rally in Buffalo for embattled Rep.Tom Reynolds who is knee-deep in Foley fallout. At the last minute, McCain cancelled. Craig Goldman, spokesman for Straight Talk America, McCain’s PAC, said the Senator had a “schedule conflict.” Reporter Doug Turner asked where McCain planned to be instead of Reynolds’ $250-a-plate dinner. Goldman responded: “We haven’t figured that out yet.”
Charlie Brown just might get a kick out of this yet.
posted by Victor Kamber | 11:00 AM
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