Let's talk about Sex, Foley

Let's talk about sex, baby
Let's talk about you and me
Let's talk about all the good things and the bad things
That may be
Let's talk about sex

- Salt-n-Pepa

You know, if I didn't know better I would start to think that the Democrats had learned some lessons from the pastings that Karl Rove and the Republican Slime Machine have been giving us for the last six years. In the last two weeks, two news cycles have been consumed with attacks aimed right at the conjoined, misshapen hearts of the Republican's supposed "strengths": National Security and Moral Values.

First, Clinton laid out some devastating comparisons of his al-Queda fighting record compared to the Bush Administration's on Chris Wallace's show. Comparisons that were coincidentally backed up with the next weeks publication of Bob Woodward's new book, which stated that Condi Rice "brushed off" George Tenant's July 10th warnings of an imminent attack in the United States. Granted, to those of us who've been paying attention the last six years, this isn't new news to us. It's what Richard Clarke was saying in 2004, before he was drowned out by the Mighty Wurlizter. It is, however, a welcome piling on of testimony, dates, times and proof that Rice, Bush and Cheney were asleep at the wheel that summer (or worse).

I'm already planning on making that July 10th brush off a major talking point when I'm combatting the notion that the Republicans have kept us safer.

Then came the Foley page scandal: it's pure, unadulterated sickness of the acts themselves and the coldly calculated coverup when the House Republican leadership learned about it one (three? five? eleven?) years ago.

I know that as liberals and Democrats, we have an innate tendency to take the high road on matters of a sexual and personal nature.

We'd prefer for the American public to become outraged about the negation of Habeas Corpus, the legalization of torture, the record budget deficit, the slashed student loan funding, the dishonest way in which we were led to a losing, disastrous war, the incompetent waging of that war, and the cynical, vomitous invocation of 9/11 and terrorists to justify all of those acts.

But the broader American public is not going to become outraged about those things. They are going to be outraged by where someone puts their pee-pee. To them that's what constitutes a "scandal." It's a simple, reductive, narrow conception of what's truly disgusting. But it's theirs.

These are, after all, people that think Nascar is a sport and Mountain Dew is a tasty beverage.

So let's go with it.

I want to dig out every sordid, disgusting detail about Mark Foley and his page fetish anyone can come up with. If I had to read about Clinton and Monica's cigar games and blue dress stains, I expect the same sort of massive, invasive, retch-inducing detail about Mark Foley jerking off in his office right before a house vote. I want to know if he came in a kleenex or if he's got a page's athletic jock in his desk drawer he jizzes on, then sniffs.

He claims that he's never fucked any of the pages. Well, let's just see about that. I want this guy's personal life examined until I know WHO he's fucked, how old they were, and if they whimpered or squealed when they took it up the pooper. This is not a time for us to get squeamish about appearing homophobic or anti-gay. We're not. But the people we want to shake up are and we want to rub their noses in what their supposed "Morality" party does on their dime.

Just like the Republicans linked the words "Democrat" and "intern" and "blowjob" so tightly that Al Gore felt compelled to get closer to Joe Leiberman and further from Bill Clinton in preparation for the political fight of his life, I want for the words "Republican" "16-year-old boy" and "masturbate" to become inextricably linked together in the public's mind.

I want to force Republicans to openly defend and minimize the gay lifestyle on Mark Foley's behalf, just like I had to defend and minimize adultery on Clinton's behalf. Which irked me to no end, as I was hoping to put off defending adultery until I got married and began committing it myself.

Besides raising the gorge of the Values Crowd and forcing them defend what they hate the most, these ongoing, explicit sexual revelations are the sorts of details that will keep putting this story on the front pages over and over and over again during the coming weeks no matter what Rove tries to orchestrate to push it off.

If there's one thing I know about the American people it's this--- if forced to pay attention to a story about where the rich and powerful shoot their loads and anything short of a full scale terrorist attack on U.S. soil, we're going to follow the jism.

So, Dems, like W in Iraq, let's stay the course on this one... right into Mark Foley's humid, rancid, sticky underwear... until it brings us the victory we need to put this country back on the right track again.