COCKBURN, THE NATION, FOLEY

Alex Cockburn, 10/23/06 brings out the
lighter side of political sex scandals in
above dated column. He mentions the
premier dalliance of all time where the
righteous Repubs of the congress had
Pres. Clinton impeached for having con-
senting sex with an adult and trying to
cover it up. The Ken Starr, zoftic Monica
& Bill to-do had half the country on the
edge of their couches awaiting the next
revelations. Special Counselor Starr's
extravagant graphics and his fascination
with the closet activities of Billy and the
cherub had many wondering what Starr
was all about. One joyful effect of this
brush of history was it made lifelong
ogres of Chertoff, Coulter and others.

Alex tells about Jocelyn Elders, the
country's first female top doc who was
fired for giving a thoughtful, but
bureaucratic answer to a question
about masterbation. She neither con-
doned or condemned it. The holier-
than-thou crowd went ape with the
old reprobate, Henry (Jekyll) Hyde
at the top of the tree. Clinton, the
great poll reader, fired her forth-with.
Doctor Elders is a smart, thinking
black lady. Bill assured hypocrisy
would be the order of the day con-
cerning sex in his administration.
After that his enemies just bided
their time.

In an aside a favorite playing around
fact came to light around impeach-
ment time. Hyde, revered pietist
and family person, sired an out of
wedlock child in his 42nd year.
When confronted he admitted it &
said it was a "youthful indescretion".
Again he was 42, married, children.
The sanctimonious old phoney re-
fused to discuss it after the admiss-
ion and the vaunted "liberal" press
gave the ultra conservative a pass on
the story. Hyde easily won re-election
and played his hallow card and cap-
tained the vote to impeach Clinton.
Moral: Don't cover it up, chances are
it will go away. Sorta, kinda what Foley
is doing now.

The Foley sit-com was known to every
one in D.C. that can see or hear. Foley
took the fall, but the brainless Repubs
started blaming each other for not
putting the brakes on Mark earlier.
Finally they called the whitewasher
brigade to cool things out with an
investigation. But you can bet the Dems
will have this in the wings waiting for
its cue. Cockburn comes with a knee
slapper when he labels Foley's abuse
by a priest, alcoholism and mental
illness a trifecta. He turns mindful,
however, about labeling Foley a hyp-
ocrite for inserting strong language
into the Child Protection Safety Act.

Alex's article was fun about games,
but his last two sentences brings one
back to reality that a government in
trouble will resort to world dangers to
hold power. The Repubs are in free
fall and this failed bonehead admin-
istration with their failed neo-con
advisors are capable of anything.