Just when you think things can’t get any more disturbing in The Beltway, out comes Florida Republican representative Mark Foley.

For those of you who live in caves and don’t know who or what I am talking about, Representative Foley was the sitting chairman of the House Caucus on the Exploitation of Missing and Exploited Children. That sounds all well and good, right?

Well, There’s just one tiny little problem. It has been discovered that he had been exchanging inappropriate E-mails and instant messages with a 16-year-old male congressional page.

Oh, the repulsive irony.

This unleashes an ocean of problems and misconceptions.

To start off, let me come out and say that I’ve seen some of the communications between Foley and the page in question, and they are creepy, to say the least. I find this type of behavior reprehensible, and Mr. Foley should be punished severely. But, as I said, there are problems here.

Currently, the story is being horribly mishandled. It is being presented as a political impact story rather than the abuse of a child. This makes my skin crawl. The left-leaning media seems to be more interested in whether or not this debacle will be a catalyst to the Democrats taking back the House. No one seems to have any interest in finding justice for the abused young man. If you ask me, this shows me how out of touch the D.C. culture has really become.

Story has it that Foley was one of the most “friendly” of the legislators on Capitol Hill, and many the pages and junior staffers had befriended him because he was “nice to them” and he “made them feel important”. I think that’s great. DC is a big pond, and there is a lot to learn if you want to make it there. However, it would seem that Mr. Foley may have had a history of being too “friendly” if you know what I mean. Rumor has it that some of his “behavioral issues” were known about, but one can’t say for sure. Rumors in Washington are about as rare as fat people at an IHOP.

The Republican leadership denies knowing anything, and House Speaker Dennis Hastert is calling for a full scale investigation, because somebody *had* to know. Why would I say that? Oh my, look at the calendar! We’re five weeks out from the midterm election, and Mr. Foley’s seat was considered “safe”.

Well, isn’t that special. In no way am I condoning what Foley did, but it would seem that there are rats afoot, because this stuff didn’t just happen yesterday. I haven’t checked the left wing nutjob blogosphere yet, but I am sure that little nerd Kos is just wetting his pants. I’m sure he’s completely convinced himself and his legions of lemmings that this is all the Democrats need to take back the House, which will place them back in the seat of power they think they so richly deserve by birthright alone. He will rail on and on about how “evil” Republicans are, and how this incident “proves” it, but strangely, I’m willing to bet he will have no recollection of Gary Condit, and his aide Chandra Levy, whose decayed corpse was found in a park.

It’s hard to say what exactly will happen in Washington now, but I’m willing to bet that somehow Foley gets off. (Woah, excuse the bad choice of words.)

Since everybody seems to be so interested in the political side of it, let’s talk about that for a second. Keep your eyes open over the next few days. Democrats will turn this into the biggest political spin you’ve ever seen. Somehow, they will try to make a case that Mr. Foley is a perfect example of this “Culture of Corruption” bit that they have been pushing for months and months, all the wile ignoring their own black eyes such as William Jefferson of Louisiana.

Moreso, we have to remember who the Democrats are. They live for victims. The “victim” demographic makes up the entirety of their constituency. We have two victims now. The young page, and even Foley himself, who has vowed to enter rehab do to alcoholism. I personally do not subscribe to the notion that Foley is a victim, but if you follow the recent Democrat playbook, he would certainly qualify as one. Help the poor, misunderstood downtrodden, you know, because they certainly are too misunderstood and ignorant to help themselves. Now, if the Democrats really believe all the stuff they say they believe in, they’d be right there trying to “Help” and “understand” Mark Foley. They won’t though. They’ll throw Mark Foley right under the bus. True, Mark Foley *should* be thrown under the bus, and the Republicans are doing their part in that as well. But here’s the disconnect in the logic:

Democrats like to say that we should try to talk to and understand Osama bin Laden and his ilk. Granted, that is completely insane, but let’s assume just for the sake of argument that it is a viable option. So, if we follow that strain of logic, wouldn’t it also make sense to want to sit down and talk to and understand Mark Foley? Sure it would. But they won’t. Again, not that they should, but do you see my point here? I’m willing to bet that they would sooner defend an Islamafacist mass-murderer than they would a guy who sent a few dirty emails.

Of course, this is just theory, but if you look back over recent history, it looks like a damn good one.

Attack season is upon us, boys and girls, and this whole “Foley incident” will be played out more as a political tool than a crime. (Which, unfortunately it wasn’t…the age of consent in D.C. is 16, so that just makes it disgusting.) What you can bet on is, though that Demorcrats are going to hang their hat on it for five weeks.

This makes me giddy, because it won’t work.

I’m going to meander about a bit now, so stay with me.

You see, the Republican base *knows* we have some bad apples in Washington, such as McCain, Graham, and others, so Foley comes as no surprise to us. Every party has those who mislead in it. It’s unavoidable. It’s human nature. Many party loyalists on either side, just grin and bear it. We vote for a certain candidate inn hopes that he will govern within the parameters of the platform he ran on. That’s just the way it works. Vote, and cross those fingers. On a personal note, I have told people time and time again, “Just because I am a Republican, that doesn’t mean I like the ones I have in D.C.” I am speaking the honest truth when I say that, but for some reason, some people refuse to believe me. I can’t stop a politician from duping me any more than any of you can so stop whining at me, okay?

Some conservatives like to say that Republicans don’t play the “games” as well as the Democrats do. I don’t think this is always the case. Republicans don’t “smear” quite with the same ferocity Democrats do, and fact, The GOP is so bad at smearing, I don’t think they could make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without a cookbook.

Don’t believe me? Watch your average Sunday news show interview. As an example, The media love to grill Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. The media treat them like dirt. What do Rummy and Cheney do? They sit and answer each question with thoughtful poise.

Now, grill Bill Clinton. What happens?

He loses his mind.

That resonates with the American people. It carries a lot of weight. The Republicans score big on presentation and professionalism alone. This goes back to my assertion that facts will beat out emotional appeal every time.

When it’s all said and done, and the American voter is alone in the confines of the booth, they’ll forget all of the appeals and they will remember the professionalism on that front, and they will also remember that we haven’t been hit by a terrorist attack in five years. For all the GOP’s faults, they deserve credit for that. While all the Democrats emotional appeals about equality and state health care sound nice, most people will side with those who seem to want to keep them safer at the end of the day. This isn’t to say that the Republicans have numerous faults on this front. They do. But they still have put a much more solid foot forward on it than the Democrats.

If anything, The GOP *seems* more committed, or at least they know how to make themselves appear so, and sometimes at the end of the day, that’s all that matters. It’s enough to put the suburban soccer mom who is about to pull that voting lever at ease.

Even if they can’t pull it off, Republicans offer ideas. Democrats don’t. That goes a long way. Also, I know there are a lot of third party advocates out there, too. I admire your tenacity, I do, but if you honestly think a third party will make a difference in the way the country is run you are fooling yourself. I listen to Glenn Beck a lot, and he seems to think so, But for as astute as Glenn can be sometimes, he’s oversimplifying this *way* too much. He seems to be bent on the notion that a third party will fix the problem. It won’t, because Glenn is forgetting the most important thing:

Political parties are made up of humans, and most all humans can be corrupted and/or swayed. It doesn’t matter if you have two parties or ten. In fact, we have too big of a government as it is. I think more “diversity” would bog it down even more. A third party isn’t a “magic fix”. People should stop kidding themselves and acting like it is, or would be.

If there are some of you out there who are honestly unsure of yourselves and are thinking of vou are considering voting Democrat, please consider the following:

If the GOP loses the House, Nancy Pelosi will become Speaker. Not only will she move to immediately de-fund the war and bring the troops home, which would cause the terrorism threat to escalate dramatically and completely undo the good we have done in the Middle East. She then will tie up the House with impeachment proceedings, which will prevent the passage of any meaningful legislation, throwing an already bogged Washington into an affirmed gridlock.

It is the Democrats intention to impeach Bush and Cheney. (They hate Cheney even more). If they somehow succeed in this, Nancy Pelosi then becomes…The President of the United States. Nancy Pelosi is the same woman who recently said we should deal with terrorists and the detainment thereof with the “Golden Rule” mentality.

That’s right. “Do unto others…”

That’s frightening. Can we afford that? I don’t think so.

Most Americans are smart enough to know this. (The ones who vote anyway) and that’s why it won’t matter what Foley did, come Election Day.

Now, I know you’re sitting there saying to yourself, “Hey! You’re talking about Republicans Vs. Democrats! This was supposed to be about an abused teenager!”

That’s exactly my point.

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