Is this the way we imagined taking them down? Nope. More inside.

[Beelzebud]

However now that we have been given this opening, it's time to do the right thing and EXPLOIT it!

Thomm Hartmann really got on my nerves yesterday going on about how this was a "distraction".

Distraction? Yeah. Distraction from the GOP getting out their votes!

We wanted to bring them down on 9/11, or Katrina, or any other of the MANY things they have done, but don't allow people to suggest that we should somehow ignore this, or that it's a distraction. It's not. This is the proverbial mushroom cloud on the GOP's dominance. They are now finished with the "values" voters.

It does not distract Democratic voters, or fence sitters. It's going to MOTIVATE our base, while it makes their base sit at home.

Don't look a gift-horse in the mouth. We have an opportunity here, so lets EXPLOIT THE HELL OUT OF IT. Afterall, if the shoe were on the other foot, they certainly would be.

I hope Hartmann will finally realize this. Sometimes you work with what you've got.

[OwnedByFerrets]

1. I agree 100%.

Sometimes you have to dumb it down enough for the sheeple to get it.

[kster]

2. K&R. nt

[MrCoffee]

3. Oh hell yes. K&R.

[Nictuku]

4. Beautiful Irony

It will be beautiful irony if it ends up being the Youth of America who bring down these criminals.

[gully]

5. He's right in a way, BUT I don't care how they crumble.

I just want them gone.

[Vexatious Ape]

6. Without a doubt.

If the tables were turned they, with a lot of help from the media, would drill this into the skull's of every American: Democrats support child molesters.

[cspanlovr]

7. There's more than one way to skin a rat.

[BlueEyedSon]

8. It's a distraction from the Detainee Bill & the murder of our Constitution

Which should be the reason people are fed up with the GOP

Much much worse than pederasty IMHO

[Beelzebud]

9. To you and I, yes. Not to the average American idiot.

Most people don't even know what Habeas Corpus is.

This hits home with people on a personal level.

Everyone understands this, without having to have it explained to them.

Sad commentary on the general knowledge of our public? Yep.

But it's the truth.

[stanwyck]

17. Precisely

People glaze over about the treatment of "enemy combatants", Abu Gharab, Shiites vs. Sunnis, the deficit, the economy...but sex?
Yes. It's sad that this is what resonates.

[followthemoney]

18. Hoover's FBI collected this type of information on those it was ...

ideologically opposed to. Adult reading material is not the Constitution or the Bill of Rights but sex mags. Adult are missing in our culture. Sex can catch the interest of the teeny minds of the developementally arrested.

If I told you you habeus a nice corpus, would you hold it against me?

[mrreowwr_kittty]

10. You are so right

And yet the average American is not paying attention. But they might pay attention to this. Sad but true. :(

[Beelzebud]

11. Exactly. This is about what works. It's sad, but people dont' care

about the real issues.

[BlueEyedSon]

13. As the saying goes: caught with a live boy or a dead Constitution

uh, i mean "girl"

[Beelzebud]

15. Trust me, I know where you're coming from.

I'm just being realistic.

No one I know that isn't a political junky talks about the constitutional crisis we are in.

The same poeple can't stop talking about the GOP child sex crimes.

It's having a major effect out there in zombie-land, and as sad as it is, it's more effective than telling them their rights are being taken from them.

Until they're directly denied thier own personal rights, they'll think it isn't happening.

[pauliedangerously]

22. It's not that they don't care about real issues...

They just lack the sophistication to discuss them. Anyone can assert an opinion about sex because everyone has a basic knowledge of it and there are plenty of monosyllabic slang terms associated with it to get around having to use Latin, although Monty Python did a really nice job of Latinizing modern sex slang in "Life of Brian."

[TahitiNut]

20. Agreed. But 'thinking' is more difficult than reacting to PRIMAL terrors.

There's not much difference in yelling "Pedophile! Pedophile! Pedophile!" and yelling "Terror! Terror! Terror!" ... both are targeted at the most basic primal impulses.

Hurricane Foley. They saw it coming.

Osama bin Foley. He's an imminent threat to our children.

:eyes:

[DaveT]

12. This IS important

As the NYTimes piece currently excerpted on the DU front page argues, the problem for the Republic is that the GOP has set up a machine in the House of Representatives that serves no public purpose other than to perpetuate itself. When one of their own does something wrong, its response is to cover it up rather than do anything about it.

The Times doesn't explain why, but this kind of insider loyalty is necessary for the ongoing shake-down operation -- there's no telling what a guy will say on his way down the river. So they try to keep everybody on the reservation.

The sex aspect makes it headline grabbing, but that's not our fault. The bottom line is that the GOP has turned itself into a 21st century version of Tamany Hall. The stupid wars, the tax-cuts, the massive government contract fraud -- it all goes back to the machine that was built by Gingrich and Delay.

This scandal is politically salient because they can't puff up a propaganda smokescreen to protect Foley's conduct the way they can defend their wars, their tax-cuts and their give-aways to their corporate campaign contributors.

This lays bare their standard method of opeation. And it is a very legitimate poltical initiatve to ask the voters if they want to keep this self-perpetuating machine in power.

[MrCoffee]

16. It's also legitimate to point out that Foley is a sexual predator.

Dirty dirty man, preying on innocent boys awed by his influence and stature.

What makes you think that we should downplay the headline grabbing sex aspect? Forget the Repub political machine, they have a plaster cast fetish!

[DaveT]

25. I don't want to downplay the sexual predator angle

it is a legitimate topic of interest to voters.

It is less significant to ME than the dismantling of this machine, which is responsible for mass death, torture and seriously undermining the Constitution and the rule of law.

But the sexual predation is significant, too.

[lonestarnot]

14. Gift horse! It's tail needs braiding, and I think I curry his mane!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. Well, it's the way I imagined taking them down.

I guess no one else could have predicted republican child molestors.

[tblue37]

21. Think of all those affluent, well-connected

Republican loyalists, many of whom served in elections as precinct captains or fundraisers--or get out the vote foot soldiers. They have been rewarded for their loyalty in many ways, and one of the ways is that their kids get to be pages and build their resumes while making high-level connections in Washington to further their future careers.

The kids Foley messed with--and that the Republican leadership failed to protect--are by definition the children of such Republican loyalists. And I guarantee those Republican loyalists do not quibble about legal age of consent when they think of their children being groomed and possibly molested by a 52-year-old man with enormous power over them who specifically presents himself (and is represented by Republican leaders) as their protector and friend.

Even worse, the Republican leadership essentially pimped for him, not only allowing him to continue to have access to the pages after they were aware of his behavior (for at least five years!), but encouraging the pages to spend a lot of time with him, even treating dinner with him as a reward for high-performers. That dinner at Morton's was a "date"--at least in Foley's mind.

No matter how Republican they are, most such loyalists are probably freaking out right now if they sent their kids, male or female, to the Hill to serve as pages. Those who haven't sent their kids there might well have been planning to or trying to arrange to.

And now, on top of everything else, the victims of Foley's unwanted advances (and perhaps worse than mere advances) have been "outed" and are being smeared and receiving threats, including death threats, from FRepublicans, the people who are supposedly on their side.

[Stinky The Clown]

23. You, Mr. Beelsebud, are ......

....... 1000% right!

K&R

[glitch]

24. Thom Hartmann is almost alway right. But not always. I agree with you on

this. This is something even the harried semi-political soccer mom can get instantly.

Who the hell wants to vote for people who cover up and enable sexual predators on minors? You can't brag in church about that.

The republicons are being attacked right now on their so-called strengths: family values and protecting us from terrorists. I am finally thinking that we've got a strategy and it's in play, right now.
I am so relieved I risk a migraine!

edit to add: we're even paying attention to election fraud! Holey crap, where's the advil?

[mom cat]

26. They got Al Capone on tax evasion, but they got him!