One week into the Foley scandal, it's clear that the expanding scandal, and the country's reaction, says volumes about the state of politics in America today. The era of Republican dominance may be approaching a much-deserved end.
The Foley scandal has lasted a full week now, and clearly has more legs than the new Broadway revival of "A Chorus Line. For Congressional Republicans, it's been a wide-awake nightmare. A sexual scandal (a same-sex scandal, at that!) has claimed one member of Congress and has steadily seeped into the upper reaches of Congressional G.O.P. leadership itself. Military strategists like to talk of the "oil spot" theory of stablizing an occupied country -- establish areas of stability and then try to get it to spread, like an oil stain on your garage floor. In the same vein, this is an "oil stain" scandal -- one that keeps getting larger and larger, blotting out more and more careers as it spreads.
As we have seen over the past seven days, the Republicans have tried every tried and true trick in the book with dealing with scandals when it came to Rep. Foley. First, deny everything. Then, have one individual at the center step forward, and take the fall (and then, in this Age of Oprah, have him claim addictions and past traumas. Cynicism can be bottomless). When this fails to stop the scandal, it becomes every man for himself. Toss out different versions of the truth, while turning on each other like gangsters in a Martin Scorsese film. Blame the press,and the opposition (now that Hastert is doing this, he may as well be drafting his resignation speech). Meanwhile, use the opportunity to attack your opponents and appeal to your base. Ther'es always a new front in the cultural war. Have David Brooks, as clueless as they come, compare Foley's crimes to a fictional monologue in an Eve Ensler play. Have Newt Gingrich, smearer supreme, claim that the reason House Republicans did not move against Foley earlier was becase they did not want to appear to be "gay bashing. This is a double bank shot, smearing gays as defenders of child molesters while appealing to the anti-political correctness mood in the conservative base.
But the rulebook isn't working this time. One reason is because Republicans have largely created the new political environment in which the Foley scandal is occurring, one in which "values" trumps all. There is, of course, delicious irony in seeing conservative commentators, like in today's Wall Street Journal, bitterly complaining that the American public have been caught up in the Foley scandal this week, instead of paying attention to more important serious stories, like the mounting violence in Iraq and North Korea's announced plans to test a nuclear bomb. Of course, it was just two years ago that conservatives were loudly proclaiming that the main issue on America's mind when it went to the polls was not Iraq or terrorism but "values." Republicans and conservative commentators wrote the script for this year's campaign, little did they know it would turn out to be a Pirandello play, with the actors taking over the stage and turning agianst the playwright.
But the deeper reason the Foley scandal is having such resonance, and spelling deep trouble for the Republicans, is becuase the scandal is bringing home, in the way only sex scandals can in America, the abject failure of Republicans to perform the most elementary duty of governing: protecting the country. Republicans failed to protect us on 9-11, they failed to protect New Orleans, they failed to protect our soolders in Iraq, they failed to protect Social Security (but the democrats did not), they failed to protect our Constitution in their "war on terrorism," they are failing to protect our jobs, our standard of living, the American Dream itself. Now it turns out they can't even protect the most vulnerable staff members right on Capitol Hill.
It is not the "Foley Scandal." It is the Republican Scandal. And it will drive them back into minority party status, for a generation to come.