By Jackson Thoreau
In 1968, a 14-year-old Texas girl attended the HemisFair, an international festival in San Antonio. I remember attending that same festival with my family when I was nine and riding up to the top of the 750-foot Tower of the Americas, thinking how cool that was.
Meanwhile, during one of those days of the HemisFair, this then teen-aged girl bumped into none other than George W. Bush. He was a never-do-well 22-year-old who had just come out of Yale. There, he had branded fraternity pledges with lit cigarettes, gotten arrested for stealing a Christmas decoration from a store display, and bragged about being let off by police who stopped him for drunk driving by simply telling them his father's name.
Bush was a hard drinker, and some say he even did cocaine in those days. So this underaged woman met up with Bush, who still had a long history of drinking ahead -- he wouldn't be arrested for drunk driving until eight years later, the Yale let-off-the-hook incidents notwithstanding. Bush followed her around the fair and tried to get her to drink beer.
"I told him I was underaged, and he said if the cops came, we wouldn't get in trouble because of who he was," the woman said, repeating a familiar line of the rich and privileged Bush often uses to this day, a comment that gives her case more credibility since it sounds just like what Bush would say.
There was little doubt in this woman's mind that Bush wanted to get her drunk and take advantage of her -- even though he knew that she was only 14. "He apparently wanted me to get drunk," she said. "He knew I was underaged and finally left me alone."
In their campaign to defend former Republican Congressman Mark Foley and high-level Republicans such as House Speaker Dennis Hastert who refused to do anything about Foley's sexually-explicit messages to teen-age boys and invitations to meet in person, conservatives sure don't want to hear such stories about alleged Republican predators. Most of the stories come with arrests and convictions, not unnamed sources.
Republicans want everyone else to take responsibility for their actions, but when it comes to one of their own, their motto is: Blame Democrats or anyone else. Foley blamed alcohol and a priest for his predatory behavior. Hastert blamed "liberals" for his role in the Foley scandal cover-up. Fox News outright lied by labeling Foley as a Democrat. Blogger Matt Drudge blamed a victim. Others tried to divert attention, as usual, by citing the name of Gerry Studds, a former Democratic representative from Massachusetts who in 1983 was censured by the House for having sex with a 17-year-old male page.
That's right, Republican researchers had to reach WAY back to 1983 to find a Democratic politician who sexually preyed on underaged teens. That tells you something about how relatively few Democratic pedophiles there are compared with Republican ones. Republican Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld even authorized the rape of children in Iraqi prisons to humiliate their parents into providing information about the insurgency.
As usual, Republicans who bring up Studds have a selective memory. Also in 1983, former Rep. Daniel Crane, an Illinois Republican, admitted to having an affair with a 17-year-old female page. Conservatives like Rush Limbaugh bring up Studds but surely not Crane.
For every Studds that the conservative hypocrites bring up, I can bring up five or six Republicans arrested or convicted JUST THIS YEAR for sexually preying on underaged boys or girls.
There is Texas Republican advertising consultant Carey Lee Cramer, who was sentenced in June 2006 to six years in prison for molesting two 8-year-old girls, one of whom appeared in an anti-Al Gore television commercial. There is Republican County Chairman Armando Tebano of New York, who was arrested in June 2006 and charged with sexually molesting a 14-year-old girl. There is Tom Adams, the Republican mayor of an Illinois city, who was arrested earlier this year for distributing child pornography over the internet.
There is the Republican human resources director of the arch-conservative Washington Times, 53-year-old Randall Casseday, who was arrested in Sept. 2006 on charges of soliciting a teenager for sex on the Internet. He had allegedly arranged to meet what he believed was a 13-year-old girl he had been corresponding with online, but that person turned out to be a D.C. police official.
Go back a few years, and I can bring up numerous other Republican pedophiles. There is former Waterbury, Conn., Republican Mayor Philip Giordano, who was sentenced to 37 years in federal prison in 2003 for sexually abusing two girls, ages 8 and 10. There is Republican Constable Larry Dale Floyd, who won several elections in Denton County, Texas, before he was arrested in July 2005 and charged with sexual solicitation of a an 8-year-old girl. A grand jury indicted him on three counts of possession of child pornography.
There is former Republican Monroe County, Pa., judge Mark Pazuhanich, who pleaded no contest in 2004 to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation. There is Robert "Bobby" Stumbo, a former Republican Party chairman in Kentucky, who was arrested in 2005 and charged with sexual abuse involving a 5-year-old boy.
The Republican chairman of the Oregon Christian Coalition, Lou Beres, admitted in a police report that was released during a lawsuit filed in March 2006 that he molested a 13-year-old female relative. Beres, who once ran for a seat on the Republican National Committee, also acknowledged sexually touching a teen-aged friend of his daughter's.
Former Republican Constable Larry Dale Floyd, who won several election in Denton County, Texas, was arrested in July 2005 and charged with sexual solicitation of a an 8-year-old girl. A grand jury indicted him on three counts of possession of child pornography. Former Republican Monroe County, Pa., judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest in 2004 to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation. Robert "Bobby" Stumbo, a former Republican Party chairman in Kentucky, was arrested in 2005 and charged with sexual abuse involving a 5-year-old boy.
A Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups in Montana, Richard A. Dasen Sr., was arrested in 2004 and later found guilty of raping a 15-year old girl. Dasen allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women. California Republican petition drive company owner Tom Randall pleaded guilty in 2002 to molesting two girls under the age of 14, one of them the daughter of an associate in the petition business. He served six months in jail and another three months on a work crew.
Republican former New Jersey city councilman John Collins pleaded guilty in 2005 to sexually molesting two teen-age girls. New Hampshire Republicans repeatedly hired convicted child molester Mark Seidensticker to work on the campaigns. The Republican Mayor of a New York city, John Gosek, was arrested in 2005 on charges of soliciting sex from two 15-year old girls. A former Republican County Commissioner in Ohio, David Swartz, pleaded guilty in 2004 to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
The former speaker of Puerto Rico's House of Representatives, Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo, was arrested in 2002 and sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping his daughter. Former Kansas Republican zoning supervisor and Lutheran church leader Dennis L. Rader pleaded guilty to performing a sexual act on an 11-year old girl he murdered. Iowa Republican pastor Mike Hintz, whom George W. Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign, was arrested in 2004 for having sex with a female juvenile.
Randy Ankeney was a rising star in Colorado Republican circles who held a $63,000 position in the Governor's Office of Economic Development until he was arrested in 2001 and accused of trying to have sex with a 13-year-old girl he met through the Internet. Another 17-year-old girl said Ankeney sexually assaulted her while working on a political campaign. In 2002, he pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault of a child and was sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2003.
Parker J. Bena, a Virginia Republican activist who proudly cast one of his state's electoral vote for Bush in 2000, was indicted for possessing child pornography in 2001. Bena was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000. Long-time Virginia Republican fund-raiser Richard Delgaudio was more fortunate. He only received two years probation in 2003 after pleading guilty to taking sexually-related photos of a 16-year-old girl in a motel room.
Republican Marty Glickman of Florida, one of those rabid dog conservative talk radio commentators who rail on about the lack of morals, was arrested in 2001 and charged with giving drugs like LSD and money to underaged girls in exchange for sex. Kevin T. Coan, a Republican who formerly directed the St. Louis Election Board, was charged in 2001 with trying to solicit sex from a 14-year-old girl in cyberspace.
None of this is new. The late Republican Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with an underaged black girl in the 1920s, a union that resulted in a child. Republican activist Lawrence E. King, Jr. and Republican lobbyist Craig J. Spence organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.
Other prominent Republican pedophiles include former Congressmen Donald "Buz" Lukens and Robert Bauman, and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell.
The list of conservative sexual predators goes on and on and on here.
Spread the list far and wide - this is an issue that resonates with the average TV-watching American.
Jackson Thoreau is a Washington, D.C.-area journalist/writer. His latest book, "Born to Cheat: How Bush, Cheney, Rove & Co. Broke the Rules, From the Sandlot to the White House," is due out in late 2006. He can be contacted at jacksonthor@gmail.com.