Day: October 13, 2006

Will the Foley Scandal Bring Down the GOP’s Candidate for Florida Governor?

Jon Ponder
It beats me why gay people want to belong to a political party that does not want them, that actively attempts to codify discrimination against them into the law and that cynically uses issues related to their civil rights to gin up votes among homophobes and bigots. It can only come from a deep self-loathing.

Like the California governor’s race, the race to replace Gov. Jeb Bush in Florida has not been making a lot of news outside the state. But in the wake of the outing of Florida GOP Rep. Mark Foley, there appears to be heightened interest in the sexual preference of the Republican candidate, Charles Crist:

Last week, [speculation about whether Crist is gay] broke through to the national media when, in an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s MSNBC talkshow, Pat Campbell, an Orlando-based conservative radio host, accused Democratic operatives of floating the gay rumor to help Crist’s opponent, Jim Davis, who is behind in the polls. “What are they playing right now? Charlie Crist is gay,” Campell complained. “This is the party that supposedly deplores the personal destruction, yet they’re experts in it.”

Max Linn, an independent candidate for the governorship, pushed the story along further Wednesday in another radio interview, claiming he knew Crist to be gay for a fact, and challenging him to admit it. “Charlie, come out, come out from wherever you are,” Linn jabbed.

While it’s undoubtedly a poor time for a Republican to be forcibly outed, it’s not clear how much a public admission of homosexuality, on its own, would hurt Crist’s prospects in a state with a large gay population. For one thing, Crist is relatively insulated from charges of hypocrisy: While he supports the state’s Defense of Marriage Act, he also has cautiously endorsed gay civil unions.

That may be why Crist’s antagonists are resorting to a potentially more damaging tactic: trying to make explicit the implicit link between him and Foley. According to Bob Norman, a columnist for the New Times of Broward-Palm Beach, and the first reporter to out Foley back in 2003, “As soon as the scandal broke there were rumors that Crist and Foley had been roommates in Tallahassee in the early ’90s when they were both state senators.”

Crist’s office didn’t return calls for comment, but a search of public records turned up no evidence of a shared address during that period or any other.

It beats me why gay people want to belong to a political party that does not want them, that actively attempts to codify discrimination against them into the law and that cynically uses issues related to their civil rights to gin up votes among homophobes and bigots. It can only come from a deep self-loathing.

Annual Army Association Convention Serves Up Some Real Insights

Buck Banks

Military intelligence — not your father’s oxymoron: How did I miss this convention? Sounds like a real good time was had by all, and if all the panels were as productive of outside-the-box thinking as the one on irregular warfare and counterinsurgency operations, then I could just kick myself. Here are some of the more insightful comments:

“I don’t see conventional challenges to be dominant for a long time,” said Conrad Crane, director of the U.S. Army Military History. “Our enemies are going to make us fight this kind of war until we get it right,” Crane said. “This is our future.”

‘Our enemies are going to make us fight this kind of war until we get it right.’

“This is revolutionary” — building democracies and helping them establish capitalist economies and open and public police forces and judicial systems, said Kalev Sepp, assistant professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School, in Monterey, Calif. “The mission is too broad to put on the shoulders of the military alone,” he said. “It has to be interagency.”

“We will not prevail with the force of arms alone,” Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, agreed.

“We are much closer to the beginning than the end of this long conflict,” he said, emphasizing the need for public support and financial backing to ensure the mission succeeds.

“Ultimately, victory requires a national strategic consensus, evident in both words and actions,” Schoomaker said. “While such a common strategic foundation, understood and accepted by the American people, existed during the Cold War, … it is not yet evident that such common understanding exists today.”

Embarrassed, Not Broke: Foley Gets to Keep His Federal Pension

Buck Banks

Congressional crime pays: It must be a comfort to know that once one is elected to Congress one would have to engage in treason or espionage against the United States of America to lose one’s pension. Run-of-the-mill bribery, blackmail, influence peddling, vehicular homicide or any of various sex crimes would not jeopardize one’s post-jail retirement income. Must be a comfort to ex-Rep. Mark Foley, who stands to receive a cool half-million simoleans in bennies if he waits 10 years to start drawing on his pension and lives to the actuarial average age of 78.

When he turns 62, Foley, who turned 52 last month, will start getting a pension of $32,000 a year, according to the National Taxpayers Union.

If he can’t wait until 2016, he could begin collecting a “deferred reduced retirement” plan in 2010, when he turns 56. But he would then be able to collect only about $22,400 a year, depending on cost of living adjustments.

Foley also participated in the Federal Thrift Savings Plan, a program he frequently touted as an alternative to Social Security because it works like a private 401(k) plan. If Foley contributed 5 percent of each paycheck to the plan, the government — using taxpayer money — would have matched his 5 percent.

That means Foley — who earned $165,200 as a lawmaker this year — could have easily accrued more than $150,000 in assets since taking office in 1994, Sepp said.

Earlier this year, in his financial disclosure report, Foley reported assets ranging between $237,000 and $1.2 million. Those reports indicated that the former congressman from Fort Pierce invested between $1,000 and $15,000 in companies such as BellSouth, Coca Cola and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.

Oh, and don’t forget — Foley can use his re-election campaign funds to pay for his legal bills.

Republican Congressman Pleads Guilty to Bribery – But Remains in Office

Jon Ponder

Republicans have been trying to shift blame in the Foley scandal by pointing to former Rep. Gerry Studds, a Democrat who had an affair with a congressional page, but who did not resign after he was censured by the Democratic-controlled House — and in fact went on to be reelected five times after the affair was disclosed.

Today, Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio, a Republican, pleaded guilty to bribery and other charges, and although he has resigned, he has not given up his seat and will remain in office until January. O! The hypocrisy:

Congressman Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) pleaded guilty today to corruption charges arising from the influence-peddling investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, becoming the first elected official caught up in a scandal that may damage his party’s chances in next month’s midterm elections.

Ney emerged from a month in alcohol rehabilitation to appear in federal court in Washington, where he admitted he performed official acts in Congress for lobbyists in exchange for campaign contributions, expensive meals, luxury travel and skybox sports tickets.

Abramoff, the once-powerful lobbyist at the center of a wide-ranging public corruption investigation, was sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison on March 29, after pleading guilty to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials in a deal that required him to provide evidence about members of Congress.

Ney also admitted to taking thousands of dollars in gambling chips from an international businessman who sought his help with the U.S. State Department.

House Republican leaders immediately vowed to expel Ney in a post-election session if he has not resigned by then

Was It Good for You Too? Foley Said Bush Gave Him the Shaft

Trish

Bradenton [Fla.] Herald:

Then-U.S. Rep. Mark Foley complained in an e-mail to Gov. Jeb Bush in 2004 that he was being ignored by President Bush on his trips to Florida after several hurricanes.

“I know it is nothing you have done,” Jeb assured Foley.

…Foley complained that U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam accompanied President Bush on a visit into Putnam’s central Florida congressional district and noted that state Rep. Joe Negron was on another trip.

“I can’t quite figure what I have done, but this is a continuing pattern of slights,” Foley complained in a Sept. 29, 2004, e-mail to the governor, obtained by The Palm Beach Post in a public records request.

“Sorry to trouble you . . . and I wouldn’t if this wasn’t so frequent,” Foley wrote. “Have I done something to offend the White House? I am always getting the shaft.”

The governor responded less than three hours later that he thought it was because the president was spending a lot of time in debate preparation in his 2004 re-election campaign.

“I know it is nothing you have done,” he assured Foley.

NBC Gives GOP Governor a Free Reelection Ad on Top-Rated ‘The Tonight Show’ – Refuses to Give Dems Equal Time

Jon Ponder

“There’s no reason [the governor] couldn’t have been booked after the election rather than before.”
— Los Angeles Times

First it was ABC/Disney trashing Democratic officials including former Pres. Bill Clinton and Sec. of State Madeline Albright in The Path to 9/11. Now NBC has jumped on the GOP bandwagon by giving Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a free five-minute national advertisement for his reelection campaign on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

It is clear that NBC, which is owned by defense contractor General Electric, never planned to give equal time to Schwarzenegger’s Democratic opponent, State Treasurer Phil Angelides — and continues to have no plans to do so in the future.

Angelides, the California Democratic Party and its allies are outraged:

Leno has so far declined to extend an invitation to Democrat Phil Angelides. A spokesman for Angelides, the state’s Treasurer, said that move violates federal rules that generally require broadcast outlets to give opposing candidates equal time.

“The governor has spent $35 million in launching negative attack ads against Phil Angelides, and now NBC is just giving him further free time on national network TV to campaign,” the spokesman, Brian Brokaw, told Reuters.

Rallying to Angelides’ cause in Washington, U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra, a California Democrat, lodged a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission, saying that an exclusive appearance by the governor on Leno’s show would “constitute a clear violation of the equal time rule.”

A Los Angeles Times editorial this morning says the governor’s appearance may not have broken fairness laws but it was nonetheless fundamentally unfair, especially because the governor took a political swipe at his opponent:

llegal or not, Schwarzenegger’s appearance was clearly inappropriate. Leno at one point asked his friend the governor about the attack ads from Angelides that have sought to tie Schwarzenegger to President Bush, who is deeply unpopular in California. “To link me to George Bush is like linking me to an Oscar,” Schwarzenegger replied.

And:

Booking guests on shows like Leno’s is all about timing; celebrities appear when they want to promote their newest movie or album, not necessarily when Leno’s schedulers want them. The problem is, Schwarzenegger still acts like a movie star rather than a public official, and NBC still treats him that way.

There’s no reason he couldn’t have been booked after the election rather than before. But just as he made the TV circuit when he wanted to promote his latest “Terminator” movie, now he’s doing it to promote himself as governor. Yet different rules apply.

This is really outrageous — and if anger over NBC’s move continues to agitate — and energize — Democrats and independents in California, it just might backfire on the governor and his cronies at NBC like Jay Leno.

Foley Scandal Could Stymie GOP’s Gay-Bashing Agenda

Jon Ponder

On Oct. 5, we reported about the list of closeted gay Republicans that is being circulated in political media circles. It is likely that the names will be made public before the election this year. This could do permanent damage to the Republican anti-gay agenda, which has been one of its most reliable tools for getting out the votes of the Christian right:

Foley, his former chief of staff Kirk Fordham, former House Clerk and Hastert appointee Jeff Trandahl (at the center of the Foley page scandal) and Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona are openly gay. There are rumors about Rep. David Dreier (R-CA), RNC Chair Ken Mehlman and others as well.

The importance of FoleyGate is that it shines a spotlight on the simple reality that the party with the loudest anti-gay voices is also the party that’s filled with gays on every level, from staff member to Congressman to, as rumored, chairman of the party itself.

For over a dozen years now Republicans have presented themselves to America as the party of ethics, morality and family values. They’ve spent incalculable time, money and political currency trying to pass discriminatory legislation–on both the federal and state levels–against gays. They’ve told us that straight is right and gay is wrong. That straight is Republican, and gay is a by-product of the loosey-goosey amoral Democratic Party. Those days are over.

The Foley scandal has proven to America that gay life is just as much a part of Republican life as it is in liberal circles. The only difference is that among conservatives it’s more closeted and repressed. And that fact gave Republicans a false justification to spew their hypocritical venom towards gays and make them the scapegoats for everything wrong with the fabric of American society. Their overall message? That being gay is a liberal problem, not a conservative one. Well, guess again. Foley, his former chief of staff Kirk Fordham, former House Clerk and Hastert appointee Jeff Trandahl (at the center of the Foley page scandal) and Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona are openly gay. There are rumors about Rep. David Dreier (R-CA), RNC Chair Ken Mehlman and others as well. The true long-term significance of FoleyGate is that it proves to Mr. and Mrs. Joe America that the elephant is just as gay as his donkey colleague.