Sexual deviants are drawn to power and authoritarian systems. The more upper the upper class, the higher the position one has, the more the hierarchy is entrenched, the better it is for ‘perps’.
– Church, State, Boy Scouts or that type of thing, etc., some Corps, and yes, the military as well-, impunity is often practically guaranteed.
In the US, the danger comes not from being found out, as everyone knows what is going on, but the specter of control and blackmail.
This makes the ruling class in the US (some of them at least) completely subservient, they are no longer independent people who have a conscience, a pov, are a ‘representative’ of the people, but power mongers who are in it for only one thing. They know they can be ‘outed’ and must toe the line, whatever that is in the week (any garbagy pontificating…)
Accidents happen, such as, I guess, this Foley story: all those who trespass over a thin line (which is hard to figure) will be mildy condemned in public and rejected… In private, of course, it is considered a damn shame, exageration, hype, etc. But public life, and the millions of dollars it can bring, is then over.
That is the price to be paid for hypocrisy and the internal need for occasional scapegoats, or, at very least, the pretence of efficient policing, true purity, nobility, family values, etc. etc.
The hysteria about Billy and Monica was pure projection.

Posted by: Noirette | Sep 30 2006 19:10 utc | 15

Did anyone check on a Foley/Gannon connection yet?
You probably stepped in dog doodoo here b, some don’t take kindly to insinuations that homosexuals are pedophiles or vice versa.
dan, i didn’t read it that way. if there is a culture of entrapement, blackmil etc in the republican cult both of these characters could play very useful parts.
it is a likely possibility foley was initailly supported and promoted in the party because of his fetishes.
gannon could be a very useful tool in seducing potential political gays. i’d like to see a copy of mehlman and rove’s little black books.
insinuations that homosexuals are pedophiles or vice versa.
their connection is they were both closeted gays in rethug politics promoting anti homosexual agendas. both possibly involved in blackmail, w/ opposite ends.

Posted by: annie | Sep 30 2006 21:07 utc | 17

@Noirette – that’s not the danger – All Washington runs on blackmail. Took me awhile to understand significance of Skull & Bones…part of their initiation ritual into the Circle of Perpetual Power (& Connections to other powerful men who will make their career) is to reveal your entire sexual history so you can be controlled.
Powerful males know to only prey upon those who can either be paid off for silence, whose testimony won’t be worth much in court, or in extremis can be killed, like almost certainly Condit’s mistress, who threatened to destroy his marriage by telling his wife (He was very well connected w/those who could do it discretely, as member of “Intel. Comm”). Foley’s behavior was well-known. I suspect that this behavior is fairly pervasive in DC, so he got lazy & sloppy/thght. it was acceptable. (Why would Hastert take the risk of out Foley, given what Sibel Edmonds has said about him accepting suitcases of cash from Turkish Drug Guys.) The return of the desperately repressed is the return of the desperately ill, so this stuff is par for the course. The people who want to banish sexuality are those who are terrified of their own – as we can see, w/good reason.
As for this predator losing his seat to a “Dem”, it can’t happen. Rahm Emmanuel is busy turning the x-Dem. Party into the Repug Party – the schmuck he recruited to run on JackAss Party slot, is a DINO – actualy a Repug.
The guy who runs blogactive.com worked to expose this. (Interesting that there’s no word of johnnie Aravosis helping; given his narcissism, it’s doubtful that he wouldn’t claim credit if he did.) I suspect the kid was so upset he turned to guys like that for help, so it had to come out. Rather than being outed ‘cuz he offended the powerful.

Posted by: jj | Sep 30 2006 22:58 utc | 19

The name(s) Gannon/Guckert hasn’t entered into it as far as I can see, but Kos is implicating six heavyweight Republicans in what he’s decided to call “Predatorgate”. Golly. This could be as fatal to the GOP as Hookergate was… if anyone can still remember it after the next exciting story drops by.
It’s like some kind of weird hypnosis-induced amnesia. At this point, I’m convinced there must be former Enron employees who could no longer identify who Ken Lay was (is). Remember, this is the party that is going to bring decency and morality back to politics (and I’m torn between linking to stories of GOP sex scandals here or GOP money-laundering scandals to illustrate that point… eh, screw it) when they’re not busy increasing our national security with unprecedented levels of collateral damage.
Got to love an election cycle. Instead of trying to cover things up, the approach this year seems to be to overload our brains so we can’t focus on any specific piece of nastiness.

Posted by: Monolycus | Oct 1 2006 6:21 utc | 21

small coke, I agree. Seems whenever there’s a huge scandal, a small scandal is waiting in the wings to misdirect.
A sexual scandal has great shock value and gets major attention.
A further question is, how did they (ABC I assume) get hold of the record of Instant Message (IM) chats between the two.
Unless the young man deliberately saved them, or they were secretly recorded by someone monitoring Foley and/or/the young man’s Internet connection, they most likely were pulled from AOL’s (or MSN or whoever the IM provider is) Permanent Records.
And that is a little scary — maybe this is a shot across the bows to any public figure (or intern) who has ever engaged in “inappropriate” instant messaging or email chat. Different from blog posts which are inherently public.
Foley used to have an implicit belief in the privacy of his chats. As did many, many others. No more.
Another point: the content of the chats seems quite friendly and consensual. Yet the young man apparently complained to someone at some point. I’m still wondering about how terrible, disgusting etc. everyone says this is when it seems relatively innocuous.
But my points above still stand: this “scandal” clearly is distracting me!

Posted by: jonku | Oct 1 2006 19:00 utc | 23

Yes, at the least it qualifies as sexual harrrassment, where one party is in a position of authority over another one. Who knows, maybe the young man figured this would be a good way to climb the republican ladder, no pun intended.
This sort of relationship is common in the realm of law (and I suppose government) and the arts, but I guess we are all going to be shocked.
Uncle, thanks for pointing out the ABC/AOL link … has anyone looked into the details of the transcripts to discover who the IM provider is? The chain of evidence that results in the transcripts being published is very interesting.

Posted by: jonku | Oct 1 2006 19:48 utc | 25