Washington D.C., according to a friend of mine who was a successful chef there, is a cesspool. Foley's behavior is not as uncommon as it should be. When you have over 546 powerful people (Congress, Pres, Vice Pres, SCOTUS) in a capital city, with thousands of staffers and low level beaureaucrats running the govt of the most powerful nation on the planet, do you not expect Romanesque behavior?
My friend, the chef, was in Washington D.C. in the early nineties. He told me he had witnessed things I wouldn't believe. He had me wrong. I could believe it all too well, knowing as I do how corrosive an influence power has on ethical concerns of what normally would be decent human beings. My friend witnessed many hooker parties, drunken cocaine parties, and every other drug being used and abused by staffers, beaureaucrats, and elected representatives. Pretty much anything you can imagine people doing, he saw them doing. The rumors about pedophiles in the government were circulating even then.
I have heard these rumors from other sources, as well, and we have the Marianas Island slave ring connected to the Republican Party as well. I believe Caligula would have had a great time in D.C.
I am not a moralist. I don't give a rat's ass what consenting adults do, be it drugs, sex parties, or any other jolly-getting behavior that doesn't involve minors or those who are in positions of weakness due to economic injustice. I think prostitution and drugs should be legal, and people should have the right to do with their bodies what they will. Doesn't mean I'd be interested in such things, as I am an old, sober, straight, married guy. But all this outrage?
Please!
Try to be a little more European, for fuck's sake (Snark, for those who don't get it).
By all means, we should use this scandal to smash the shit out of the Republicans, as they appear to be far more demented and bloodthirsty and (hate to say it, but...) EVIL than any of us could have imagined six years ago. But people who think Democrats will "clean up this town" morally, are naive. The party will roll on until the day comes, as it did in Rome, it can't roll on any longer.