Running Out of Talking Points
As the Mark Foley scandal continues to gather steam, the Republican spin machine is quickly running out of talking points. Let's do a quick review of the ones that have been trotted out so far.
1) They were just "overly-friendly" emails.
When it was reported that the House Republican leadership had been in possession of Foley's emails to a 16 year old former page for many months prior to the scandal breaking and had not done anything about it, the leadership naturally tried to downplay the significance of those emails. It didn't work very well, and for a pretty simple reason: it is apparent to anyone who reads the emails that they are anything but innocuous. Even reliable partisans like Bay Buchanan weren't willing to sign on to that talking point (Buchanan observed that the emails "had predator stamped all over them"). Plus, it's becoming increasingly clear that the emails were not the only relevant data point the House leadership knew about.
2) This is all the fault of the politically correct liberals.
This was the talking point advanced by the Wall Street Journal, Newt Gingrinch, and a number of religious right leaders. In a nutshell, the argument is that Hastert and the Republican leadership didn't properly investigate the matter because they didn't want to be accused of being a part of an anti-gay witchhunt. As I explained the other day, this talking point is as insulting as it is stupid. And fortunately, at least for now, most Republicans seem unwilling to go down that road.
3) This is all a Democratic dirty trick.
This particular talking point is a favorite among the truly paranoid. It's also somewhat comical. I mean, does anyone really believe that Foley was somehow tricked into engaging in this behavior by Democrats? Or that somehow the Democrats conspired to make the Republican leadership sit on their thumbs and fail to investigate this matter? Of course not. The allegation is, as best as I can determine, that somehow the timing of the release of the emails and IMs is being coordinated by Democratic dirty tricksters.
But think about how dumb that is. First, as a threshold matter, since when do people engaged in scandalous behavior have the right to complain about the timing of its disclosure? Referring to Hastert's attempt to blame the Democrats for bringing this issue up, George Will writes:
More importantly, though, there's absolutely no reason to think that the Democrats are behind these releases. The Hill is reporting that the whistleblower behind the dissemination of these emails to various news outlets was a GOP congressional staffer. And the IMs only came to light after ABC News printed the emails. Apparently new sources of information came forward in response to the original ABC story. There's no reason to think, therefore, that the Democratic party had anything to do with this, and speculation to the contrary just reflects GOP desperation.
The fact is, this scandal is a purely self-inflicted wound by the GOP. It's very likely that by the time you're reading this Denny Hastert will have announced his resignation (or at least his decision not to continue on as Speaker of the House next term). That's the kind of thing that happens when you've completely run out of talking points. Heads have to roll. And given that Boehner, Reynolds and a few other GOP leaders seem just as implicated in this mess as Hastert, his resignation may well trigger a domino effect that takes out a number of others too. We'll see.
1) They were just "overly-friendly" emails.
When it was reported that the House Republican leadership had been in possession of Foley's emails to a 16 year old former page for many months prior to the scandal breaking and had not done anything about it, the leadership naturally tried to downplay the significance of those emails. It didn't work very well, and for a pretty simple reason: it is apparent to anyone who reads the emails that they are anything but innocuous. Even reliable partisans like Bay Buchanan weren't willing to sign on to that talking point (Buchanan observed that the emails "had predator stamped all over them"). Plus, it's becoming increasingly clear that the emails were not the only relevant data point the House leadership knew about.
2) This is all the fault of the politically correct liberals.
This was the talking point advanced by the Wall Street Journal, Newt Gingrinch, and a number of religious right leaders. In a nutshell, the argument is that Hastert and the Republican leadership didn't properly investigate the matter because they didn't want to be accused of being a part of an anti-gay witchhunt. As I explained the other day, this talking point is as insulting as it is stupid. And fortunately, at least for now, most Republicans seem unwilling to go down that road.
3) This is all a Democratic dirty trick.
This particular talking point is a favorite among the truly paranoid. It's also somewhat comical. I mean, does anyone really believe that Foley was somehow tricked into engaging in this behavior by Democrats? Or that somehow the Democrats conspired to make the Republican leadership sit on their thumbs and fail to investigate this matter? Of course not. The allegation is, as best as I can determine, that somehow the timing of the release of the emails and IMs is being coordinated by Democratic dirty tricksters.
But think about how dumb that is. First, as a threshold matter, since when do people engaged in scandalous behavior have the right to complain about the timing of its disclosure? Referring to Hastert's attempt to blame the Democrats for bringing this issue up, George Will writes:
[Hastert] seems to be not just confessing a coverup but also complaining that the coverup was undone by bad manners. Were it not for Democrats' unsportsmanlike conduct in putting "this thing" forward, it would not be known and would not be disrupting Republicans' storytelling.
More importantly, though, there's absolutely no reason to think that the Democrats are behind these releases. The Hill is reporting that the whistleblower behind the dissemination of these emails to various news outlets was a GOP congressional staffer. And the IMs only came to light after ABC News printed the emails. Apparently new sources of information came forward in response to the original ABC story. There's no reason to think, therefore, that the Democratic party had anything to do with this, and speculation to the contrary just reflects GOP desperation.
The fact is, this scandal is a purely self-inflicted wound by the GOP. It's very likely that by the time you're reading this Denny Hastert will have announced his resignation (or at least his decision not to continue on as Speaker of the House next term). That's the kind of thing that happens when you've completely run out of talking points. Heads have to roll. And given that Boehner, Reynolds and a few other GOP leaders seem just as implicated in this mess as Hastert, his resignation may well trigger a domino effect that takes out a number of others too. We'll see.
5 Comments:
AL,
This may prove to be the one election where so many things went wrong for the majority party that the minority could take power without running on any cognizable agenda.
The GOP is in the perfect storm of scandal: Abramoff, Foley, Cunningham, DeLay, Ney, etc. Their legislative achievements for this term are crap viewed from any ideological perspective.
If the Dems can't win this election, they might as well go out of business. Even with all of the gerrymandering, this election should be a Dem slam dunk.
Denny is staying, which is fine with me. He's a big target-let him stay.
By far the most disgusting approach on this - and one that the Republicans themselves haven't yet pursued, because they know it'd be political suicide - is the one their trained attack dogs are using.
Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge, coming out and blaming the pages themselves. Can it get much worse?
Well, quietstorm, surrounding yourself with children for a press conference about a sex scandal was pretty bad - some would see it as worse.
I mean, do they just bask in the opportunity to talk dirty in front of kids or what? Do you think he really wanted to explain what all the chat about "woodies" meant in the presence of children?
That was a pretty blatant attempt to screw the interviewers over. It forced them to tone down their questioning - and seeing as he insisted the children stay there even after the interviewers suggested they possibly shouldn't be in the room given the topic of discussion, that was obviously his intention.
Using kids as human shields to whitewash your image is pretty damn low. Personally, I still find it more disgusting to blame the victims of Foley's predation.
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