Mark Foley Sex Scandal - Overkill?

Mark Foley has managed to re-focus America on sex. After all we use sex to sell everything from new cars to toilet paper; because it works! People pay attention when that three letter word is used or referred to. This story is even more important because it involves a prominent member of society (a politician) who has taken advantage of his position to seduce or at the very least, proposition, those who are supposed to be under his protection. What makes it even more salacious is the fact that the victims are young teenage boys and he is a middle-aged man. No matter what else Mark Foley has done in the past, for his State, his Country or his Party, he will be forever immortalized as the Congressman who liked little boys. This will be his legacy.

Mark Foley has resigned his seat in the House and has committed himself to a rehab center for alcohol abuse (which supposedly is the root cause for all this misbehavior). This effectively protects him from all those questions that the press would so dearly love to ask him. It also leaves a lot of embarrassed politicians to answer some very difficult questions as to what they knew, and when.

There will be a multitude of investigations started:

• Did he (Mark Foley) break any laws?


• Was there a Congressional cover-up?


• Were proper procedures followed?


• Should others be prosecuted?


• How can this behavior be prevented?

There will be reports filed and actions taken, all of which will be duly noted and documented by the press. The experts will get involved to explain the proceedings and the consequences. The public will follow every twist and turn of every investigation. There will be hell to pay for some people. In the end the story will fade and people will return to their routine lives......waiting for the next scandal to break.

While we were diverted by this titillating story of sex and intrigue what happened?

• President Bush has more power than any other President before him.


• The ex-head of a major US Corporation faces four felony indictments


• The FBI is being sued over snooping techniques


• 13 more US troops have died in four days of fighting


• North Korea plans a nuclear test


• Better nutrition planned for schools


• Bush eliminates "Science Advisor" office

I am not trying to belittle the importance of the Foley Scandal but there are many things happening around us all the time, some of little significance, some which have the potential to change our lives and the world we live in. Is it not yet time to get on with the NEWS?

Comments

[Heather Williams]

Perfect, exactly!!

Let's stop and ask if this really ranks in the same category as something like what happened at Abu Ghraib, or is it more along the lines of a Monika Lewinsky? Yes, Foley is a perverted man who likes young men. Yes, he did very improper things and it sounds like a number of people within the Republican ranks had at least some idea of what he was up to and should have blown the whistle a long time ago.

Looking at the facts (if you can even know for sure what's true and what isn't in this debacle) it does appear that wrong-doings occurred. Sure. But considering the fact that so many other horrific events happen every day in the US, how can the general populace focus so much on this one thing? Both political parties don't really represent the average middle-income family's interests any more, do they? Why do so many people care so much about what these idiots are up to?

I'd be putting so many other things so much higher on my list of 'things to be pissed off about' - such as child maltreatment and hunger, the lack of public health care, the state of the educational facilities. I think both parties know that if they dupe the public into focusing on something like Mark Foley's sexual proclivities and the scandal of a cover up, they won't have to answer the tough questions about why so many other serious issues aren't being addressed.

[shadmia]

Heather,
First of all thanks for taking the time to comment. I firmly believe that politics and the upcoming Nov. elections play a major role in making this such an issue. The Democrats would like the public to believe that since Foley was Republican he represents the decadence of the Republican party and they hope that hilighting him and the "coverup" will gain them votes in the election. Even though, in my mind, the logic is faulty....it just might work!