More Persecution Of White Christian America!!!

A couple of decades after conservatives first rode this backlash into Washington, it is all starting to sound rather quaint. The latest sorry way station on the road down from the moral mountain has been the storm thathas engulfed US politics thisweek.

Mark Foley, a Republican from Florida, resigned his seat in the House of Representatives after it emerged that he had been sending lurid emails and instant messages to congressional pages.

On Monday, this staunch defender of personal responsibility took the well-worn American route of the outed scoundrel and announced he was checking into an alcoholism rehab unit. On Tuesday, as the storm deepened, his lawyer announced that Mr Foley had been sexually abused as a child by a priest. By the weekend, it is expected that he will be urging the FBI to hunt for the real culprit in this tragedy - his mother.

It soon emerged that several Republicans had had their concerns about Mr Foley for a while. There were many stories about how he had been trying to get too "close" to pages. But when the subject was raised with the House of Representatives leadership a year or more ago, no one took firm action to get him to desist. Since this story became public last weekend, Republicans have been casting around for the negligent enablers among themselves.

House members who had had misgivings about Mr Foley blamed the leadership. John Boehner, the majority whip, manfully stepped up to the plate - and said it was all the fault of Dennis Hastert, the Republican Speaker of the House. Mr Hastert, in a brave display of personal responsibility, went cap in hand to the American people - and said the Democrats were to blame: they had deliberately held off on releasing the emails until they knew it would cause maximum political damage in next month's elections.
[ cf Republicans liberal with sex-case blame ]