Fluffing Saint Mikey

Leave it to the editorial board of the Bucks County Courier Times, when attacking House Speaker Dennis Hastert over his inaction on the Mark Foley scandal, to work in these statements:

Thus we agree with Fitzpatrick that any Republican leader who knew – or should have known – about Foley’s emails should not serve in leadership. We’ll go the congressman one better: They shouldn’t serve in Congress at all!

My goodness, what a display of high dudgeon by Mikey’s acolytes. I can picture 1930’s-era character actor Charles Bickford harrumphing into a telephone when asked to describe his upstart protégé young Charles Foster Kane!

(Ok, I know it’s a dated movie reference…cut me some slack here, OK?)

This being an election year, there will be those who accuse Fitzpatrick of political exploitation. We don’t buy it.

I would like to know what person in their right mind would criticize Fitzpatrick for speaking out on this issue (I guess “Pat” Murphy and the Democrats by association, then, if not actual fact). As I said yesterday, more than anything else, this is a human tragedy that transcends politics, though a political price will be paid for this at the very least, which is as it should be.

The congressman’s nationally debated bill targeting online sexual predators was prompted by his own daughter’s involvement with the controversial My Space social networking Web site popular with teens. A father of six, Fitzpatrick’s measure was the product of a parent’s horror and concern and his duty as a lawmaker to do something about it.

Only the editorial board of the Bucks County Courier Times could conceive of milking the human stain of Mark Foley’s actions to Mike (“A Father Of Six”) Fitzpatrick’s political benefit by working in a plug for Mikey’s ridiculous My Space legislation.

First of all, the My Space site, based on what we know at this point, has nothing whatsoever to do with Foley’s sick, twisted communications with under-age congressional pages. Foley communicated with the pages through “IM”’s and Email (I realize the Courier Times, with its spectacular technical innovation of web pages that disappear and reappear in a single session by trying to navigate the viewing pane with the page scrollbar, wouldn’t pick up on this sort of thing).

Fitzpatrick’s fraud legislation has to do with shielding schools and libraries from liability in the event that any online contact takes place between a student and a potential predator during the hours that these places are open. The more important reason for the legislation (and thus barely reported anywhere) is that, by stating that the bill attempts to regulate “social networking” sites, it opens the door for trying to restrict access to blogs and other online forms of communication for purposes of political fundraising and organization.

I’ll tell you what, though; I’d like to see the Courier Times and other newspapers treat the Foley story along with others that have recently developed (the revelation that, yes boys and girls, George Tenet really did inform Our Gal Condi that bin Laden actually was still a real-life, honest-to-goodness threat, the continued dreadful prosecution of the Iraq War, Bill “Don’t Let The Door Hit You As You Retire” Frist’s inane comment about letting the Taliban govern Afghanistan, Dubya’s continued one-pony-without-any-more-tricks routine of telling everyone that the Democrats want this country to be attacked again when, according to the NIE, the Iraq war has hastened that possibility more than any possible act by a Democratic politician) and put them all into a brand new narrative.

The old tried-and-true ones (the Democrats are “soft on terror,” the Democrats are “divided”…somewhat true, but grossly overplayed…the Democrats don’t care about religion or “values voters,” the Democrats this, the Democrats that, etc.) are soooo old and tired now. I propose this new narrative based on everything I’ve noted here: the Republicans are nothing but a bunch of corporate toadies and sycophants who have no instinct or inclination towards governance now or ever who have presided over the most tragic reign of gross incompetence that this country has ever seen!!

And by capitulating to his handlers at every opportunity, Mikey is as huge a part of that as anyone.

Of course, you’ll never hear that from the esteemed editorial board of the Courier Times.

So that’s why you’re hearing it from me.