Thursday, October 05, 2006

It all goes back to... CLINTON

"Foleygate" is snowballing, and people are starting to resign and engage in those fine old political traditions, the Pointing Of Fingers and the Naming Of Names. After Kirk Fordham, Foley's former chief of staff, resigned yesterday, he said he told speaker Dennis Hastert's office about Foley's page problem more than 3 years ago. Fordham said he had "more than one conversation with senior staff at the highest level of the House, asking them to intervene".

"Senior staff at the highest level of the House", that would be the house speaker, Dennis Hastert. In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Hastert still denies knowlege of The Problem. Three republican congressmen have helpfully indicated that Hastert knew, didn't know, not sure and all of the above. Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, says that "what Kirk Fordham said did not happen". Certs is a breath mint! Certs is a candy mint! In this case they can't both be right: someone's lying. Who? Well, who has the most to lose right now? Certainly not Fordham, since he's already out of a job and probably politically radioactive, thanks to his ex-boss.

Meanwhile, as republicans flail and grab and point their chubby little cloven hooves at each other, new information is emerging. That old horndog Foley has apparently been chasing page-boys for years. About a dozen former pages have been interviewed and the consensus is that many "felt uneasy about Foley's attention". One said that in 1995 the male pages were warned to "steer clear of Foley". Interestingly, this guy worked as a page for a republican, but has since become a democrat. Zing. That little factoid may turn up as part of a democrat conspiracy theory. And 1995, that's a long time ago. The evidence against Foley is already so overwhelming, why does the investigation have to go back that far?

1995. Who was in power in 1995? Oh yes. Clinton, the bane of every republican's existence, and the goat upon which they try to scape everything from 9/11 to ... Foleygate. That's right, after they finish discrediting the kids, they'll blame Clinton. That's where this is going, I'd bet the farm on it.