I have refrained from commenting on the Foley Congressional Page scandal because the whole thing seems so sordid and unpleasant, not to mention devoid of significant content. Th fact that Congressmen have difficulty controlling their appetites, or that many older men have sexual interest in younger people, is not news. There is a very good round-up at Pajamas Media on the story if it is of interest.
What I find more significant in the story is what it reveals about the increasing partisan divide in our politics.
There is always a tendency to give "our side" the benefit of the doubt. This was clearly at play. The Republican leadership knew that Foley was sending inappropriate e-mails to young Pages at least a year ago. Even the most benign reading of the e-mail exchanges would have suggested reason for concern. The power differential between a Congressman and an adolescent is so significant that any relationship would of necessity be distorted by unconscious transference derivatives. This is what is so troubling about situations like this. It was the subtext to Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky and fuels our discomfort with various other older, powerful man/young woman relationships. This is the rationale behind the Feminist's assertion that relationships between Professors and students are always inappropriate; it is the rationale behind the strict prohibition on relationships between Therapists and patients.
Men who pursue younger men or women are often thought of as sexual predators, though the line is blurry when the younger adolescent is past the age of consent (as the Foley case seems to be.)
In any event, the various party's hypocrisy and moral confusion is striking and instructive.
The Left, which supports homosexual rights to such an extent that the age of consent was lowered in Washington, DC to 16 expressly to avoid criminalizing sexual relations between older men and younger boys, cannot figure out if what Foley did was evil or simply that his hypocrisy offers a nearly perfect opportunity to demonize Republicans. The Republicans, who should have been nauseated when Foley's e-mails were first revealed, found a way to minimize his behavior because he is one of theirs.
The upshot seems to be that if a politician abuses his rank and privilege to take advantage of a younger constituent, no one cares unless it is a politician of the opposite party and the situation can be turned into a scandal which helps the party.
Bill Clinton was impeached because he lied about an affair which the Left should have condemned as inappropriate and abusive; instead they "stood by their man". The Conservatives, paragons of morality as they proclaim to themselves to be, used Clinton's sexual peccadilloes as a pretext to attack a President who perhaps should have been lambasted for many other reasons, but whose sexual behavior hardly amounted to "high crimes and misdemeanors." (Yes, I know he was impeached for perjuring himself, but the fact is that it was seen as a sexual offense, not a legal one.) The Democrats now turn around and attack a Republican Congressman for doing what they find no fault with when done by their own, because it is an easy to understand scandal that attracts people's attention.
Meanwhile, the War in Iraq drifts along, Iran continues to enrich Uranium, North Korea threatens to set off a nuclear bomb, the Muslim world takes offense with greater and greater frequency to lesser and lesser insults, al Qaeda threatens a nuclear attack, and we fight among ourselves about which party is more sordid and corrupt.
There is a paradox at work here. When societies are under significant stress, there is a tendency for regression. The primitive defense of "splitting", dividing the world into "all good" and "all bad" becomes prevalent. Both Left and Right agree that we are living in highly dangerous times, and both tend toward increased splitting, yet the Right sees the enemy as militant Islam while the Left sees the enemy as the Bush administration. Furthermore, neither side is talking to the other. At the same time, it is manifestly true that the Left and Right in America share much more with each other than either shares with Militant Islam.
The primary point of departure is that the Left does not believe we can lose to Islamic fascism because our technology and society are so much more advanced than the primitive 7th century ideology of the enemy. However, what they fail to understand is that in any war, the side with the greater Will has a tremendous advantage. (Patterico has been posting a series which goes directly to this point; the most recent post is here.) In a different context, a great American warned us, in advice that is as timely as ever, that if we don't "hang together... we shall most assuredly hang separately."
I hope that after November 7, we can start to pay heed to this advice.
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