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Saturday, September 30, 2006  How Mark Foley Represents The Entire Republican Party Yesterday, Mark Foley the Republican Representative from Florida resigned from Congress. He had been caught sending dirty email messages to an underage Congressional page. One of the texts went like this: "What are ya wearing?" - Republican Congressional Representative Mark Foley "Tshirts and shorts." - Teenage boy "Love to slip them off of you." - Republican Congressional Representative Mark Foley Here's some things about Mark Foley. He had led Congressional efforts to protect children. He started a restaurant when he was only 20 years old. He was named a deputy whip by disgraced Republican Congressman Tom DeLay. He was a frequent guest on Bill O'Reilly. His name will still be on the ballot representing Republicans in the election this November. What's illuminating here is not that a pedophile held Congressional office. That's just sad and awful, especially for the children he took advantage of and exploited. What's illuminating is the Congressman's behavior. Sending text messages and emails? As if he could never be caught; as if he was invulnerable. And it's exactly the kind of arrogance and poor judgement that has come to dominate the Republican Party. Like Bob Ney and Duke Cunningham who brazenly accepted bribes and illegal campaign contributions. Same with Tom DeLay. Worse, like George Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, tirelessly insisting we're winning, things are getting better in Iraq, when anybody can see they're getting worse. As if the truth won't come out. It's a culture of corruption that believes it can never get caught. The Republican Party (which turns out to have known about Foley's indiscretions for months) has become the nexus for bad judgement, criminality, hubris, and lies. Mark Foley got caught not because he's a pedophile, but because he's a dumb pedophile. Cunningham and Ney are doing jail time not because they took bribes but because they were blatant, too sure of themselves. It's the same kind of thinking that has turned everything else in this administration so bad. Mark Foley is a sad, sick individual and I'm not capable of feeling sympathy for those that prey on the young so I won't pretend to. Frankly, I know too many people that have never recovered after becoming victims to people like Mr. Foley. But beyond all of that is his ignorance, the fact that he would leave a paper trail straight to his congressional office- he is also a symbol of everything wrong with a Republican Party that has rotted from within. - Stephen Elliott posted by Stephen Elliott 1:43 PM | link | |
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"Any true love story, if told with the urgency and animal intelligence of love, isn't for the fainthearted. On every page of this profound, distilled work of art, Stephen Elliott wrestles with the unknown and unspoken essences of love, and articulates that unknown so beautifully, with such clear-eyed fearlessness... Imagine a glass of pure water with one drop of blood hanging in its center, about to dissolve... Then drink it and be transformed." -Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City "There's an emotional courage to these stories, and a sense of urgency, that are thrilling to encounter. Elliott writes as if his life depended on each sentence. It is not overstating the case to say that he does for the BDSM community in this book what Denis Johnson did for lost druggies in Jesus' Son." - Steve Almond, The Believer Magazine Best of the year: Salon.com, San Francisco Chronicle Reviews: Salon.com, LA Weekly, The Believer Excerpts: My Stripper Year, Just Always Be Good Purchase from Amazon, Powells, Cleis, and your local bookstore 
"Happy Baby is surely the most intelligent and beautiful book ever written about juvenile detention centers, sadomasochism, and drugs." - Curtis Sittenfeld, The New York Times Book Review Best of the year: Village Voice, Salon.com, Chicago New City, The Journal News Awards: Finalist Young Lions Award, Silver Medal California Book Award Reviews: The New York Times, Salon.com, Village Voice Excerpts: Stalking Gracie Part 3 Purchase from Amazon, Powell's, and your local bookstore 
"Hunter S. Thompson, Norman Mailer, Richard Ben Cramer: the great, all-American genre of the political campaign in extenso (and in extremis) has had its Homers and Boswells. To that list we can now add Stephen Elliott. Hilarious, strange, electrifyingly written, and heart-pumpingly idealistic, Looking Forward to It wins every literary caucus and primary in a landslide." -Tom Bissell, author of Chasing the Sea Best of the year: Village Voice Reviews: New York Magazine, New York Times Excerpts: The Dennis Kucinich Polka, A John Edwards Almanac Purchase from Amazon, Powell's (cheap!), and your local bookstore 
"A Life Without Consequences was harrowing, hard as nails, brutal, and soaring. Stephen Elliott has to be watched, because he knows things almost no one else could." - Dave Eggers, author of A Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genius and What Is The What Excerpt: Adlai Stevenson House Reviews: Austin American Statesman Purchase from Amazon |
