I don't know for sure, but he's probably right. I'm really disgusted by the eagerness with which the mainstream outlets are pushing this story.
I switched to NPR this morning and they were doing interviews of republican voters across the country to ask if they were still going to vote republican if some republicans had helped to cover up the story about these e-mails. The inanity of the question was matched only by the surprise of the correspondent at how strong people's convictions were. For some reason they didn't want to switch party affiliation simply because of some overblown scandal.
On one level, the surprise is merited since the campaign to make it a big deal seems to reek of the same kind of gay-baiting that the right is supposed to have used in the last election. If the argument is that all you have to do is touch a nerve of homophobia in the masses, they will vote for whoever you tell them to, it should work either way. They obviously don't understand the multitude of reactionary fronts a party has to work on to be ensured the voters of Kansas. Or, as most on this list will agree, the goal of simply making the other party seem amoral only works if you have something to fill the void. I think many here have also noted that it is indicative of the intellectual tenor of the times that the only defense against reactionary elements is a form of deconstruction or negative dialectics. In this case, I guess, it is basically trying to give the base what they want without having to be the real messenger. So it isn't negative dialectics, just cynical politics.
The strength of the ideological argument of the right wing moralists was on full display when I saw this Perkins guy on CNN (originally via Crooks and Liars):
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/03/perkins-ethics-foley/
I'm sure it isn't a surprise and has probably already been mentioned, but the argument is that Foley shouldn't really be surprising: if we let homosexuals run around in congress (or anywhere for that matter) when we have all this "tolerance and diversity," we shouldn't really expect them to be able to restrain themselves. (A line of argument that reminded me of this clip from the Daily Show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXEqcQSTMfU )
all of which should lead to a fairly clear principle for anyone interested in gaining or challenging power in the US: never start a gay-baiting, moral values duel with the Christian Right. They have so much more experience and are much more willing to advocate the elimination of the suspect population rather than just making stupid jokes or opportunistic scandal probes at their expense. (Of course I don't mean to actually equate homosexuality with pedophilia. I'm just talking about the discourse as it seems to be functioning in this case.
The actual events seem to me to have as little to do with homosexuality as they do with actual pedophilia or the actual scandals of the Republican leadership.)
And, again, all of this is happening in the week when we really should be mourning the official death of the bill of rights and the loss of the "war on terror" in Iraq in Afghanistan (the last would only be praiseworthy if anyone in power was ready to admit it.)
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