The L.A. Times writes that Sen. George Allen “has a campaign manager who is gay.” Allen’s campaign manager is, of course, Dick Wadhams. They called Allen’s campaign about it, but they wouldn’t comment. Well. My goodness. (Via Richmond Democrat)
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Geez, am I reading Waldo.Jaquith.org or the National Enquirer?
Dude (or dudette) — he’s quoting one of the nation’s papers of record making a (surprising) statement of fact. What makes you call that tabloid-ish?
I found it significant that the writer for the LA Times used “a” rather than “the.” Because she doesn’t name Wadhams and because she uses a vague term I’m not sure if she’s talking about Wadhams or someone else.
Commentors at my blog have identified other possible staffers that the LA Times writer might have been referring to.
Waldo, sorry for the off-topic post, here.
CR UVa,
Your vapid comments have become ridiculous. You’re doing yourself and those you support a disservice by the lack of content in your recent replies. I know reasoned, rational discussion and punditry are like oil and water, since one concerns itself with making the right choice based on reason, and the other concerns itself with finding reason to support the choice already made, but perhaps we could all try a bit harder to at least address why we make such statements as “Geez, am I reading Waldo.Jaquith.org or the National Enquirer?” and why, for example, this is not newsworthy.
And I’m sorry to beat up on you, CR UVa, as it’s a problem with many people posting here. I just feel that Waldo deserves more respect than he’s been getting recently, whether or not you agree with him, and the signal to noise ratio in the comments has been getting worse and worse. I hope that once the election is over, this gets better.
This isn’t the sort of blog entry that I’d run if the source was anything less than the L.A. Times or if Republicans in Washington (like Sen. Allen) were not currently embroiled in a widely-covered debate over whether to purge their ranks of all gay staffers. Given that the source is quite respectable and the topic is part of the national discussion, it passed muster.
So if the Foley debacle gets the credit lets say by the MSM for a turnover in the house, and the Pubs do in fact start discriminating on sexual orientatation, that will also start a lot of screaming from the Left… who knew all about this eighteen months ago, but sat on it just to drop a bomb before the election.
Now of course they didn’t make this public as soon as they knew it not for the benefit of the underage individuals involved, (witness Studds case), but only for political advantage.
What does this say for the Democratic party? What does it say about how they really care about an individuals right to privacy, and sexual orientation? Shouldn’t they have privately gone to Foley and the House Leadership with this, since no laws were actually broken. Investigate privately to see if in fact an improper relationship occurred, then take action?
This is further reason why I can not support a candidate like Jim Webb, although I do agree with him on some issues. Helping the National Democratic Party come to power is not a good thing. They talk about an individuals rights but when it comes time for them to gain political advantage they attack like a pack of dogs.
Why don’t sensible people like you Waldo come over to the Pub Party? What are the issues?
Spanky,
Show me proof or even hard evidence that “the Left… knew all about [the Foley scandal] eighteen months ago, but sat on it just to drop a bomb before the election.” As a member of the big-bad left, apparently, I missed that memo. This, like Fox News’ “mistaken” “Mark Foley D-FL” line, is all just a big smokescreen to distract people from the fact that the Republicans talk big on moral issues, but then let their own abuse their power for sexual gains, so long as it’s in private, in order to retain power.
As far as what it says about the Democratic party, well, I don’t see the Democratic party is involved here at all.
If I was in posession of information that the Republican party wants to keep hidden, i’d make it public ASAP. I’ve honestly got no idea what the Republican party is capable of, but I know this: they’ve systemically removed almost every legal protection I have against them, including the right to due process or any sort of oversight of domestic spying, so with the idea of rather being safe than sorry, I’d probably get rid of the thing as fast as I could.
Oh, and to address supporting the Democratic Party nationally, any fiscal concervative should know that government spending always increases when a single party is in power, and often decreases when the executive and the legislative branch are at odds.
As for why sensible people don’t come to the GOP, well, a populist politics of fear (terrorism) and hate (homosexuals and atheists) would be one big thing for me. The fact that a good portion of the Republican base wants to turn the United States into a theocracy is another (and even from a purely pragmatic view of history, which theocracies exactly do we want to emulate?) Being the dominant party for too long and having thus grown very corrupt is yet a third. Total fiscal irrisposibility, for a fourth. And finally, the fact that regardless of whether you like George W Bush, the GOP is tearing down checks and balances and civil liberties, and while you might trust the current sitting president, are you sure that every president with these powers will use them wisely?
Spankmeister,
Two points here. The House Leadership was contacted by members of their own party, which apparently did nothing. And as for no laws being broken, that’s a question for the FBI and any local authorities, according to where Mr Foley was while he was sexually predating underage males.
Enabling sexual predation is a crime in some places, and that fact and the fact that the Republicans did nothing while Mr. Foley continued, should give Messrs. Hastert, Boehner, Reynold, Shimkus, Cantor, et al pause for their own futures, not only in leadership, but in the Congress itself.
And since when did most Republicans give a crap about
Last time I looked, they were serving their vote-producing masters in fundamentalist religions by authoring initiatives to take rights away from people, both on a local and national level.
You need to seriously look at your own intellectual dishonesty in your remarks. They come very close to being delusional and only for partisan purposes.
You seem like a reasonable guy. Why don’t you come on over to the Democrats and give us a try? We even like guns and NASCAR now.
Here is one reference, involving CREW, a soros funded group, and apparently they have knew about the emails 18 months ago, they were asked repeatedly in the interview did you know about the emails?
CREW answer, I did not see the emails until shortly ago.. I did not SEE, the memos…
http://sibbyonline.blogs.com/sibbyonline/2006/10/foley_exposed_b.html
snoop around a little on it, I am on a short break at work, you’ll find it, and email CREW to get on their memo list :-)
CREW didn’t “sit on them.” They found the emails alarming and turned them over to the FBI months ago. The FBI did nothing.
“sibbyonline.blogs.com” is not a news source. The post cites WorldNetDaily, which is also not considered a real news source by anyone other than the rabid right wing. Do you have any actual sources for any of your allegations, other than “some guy posted it on a blog over there, and it’s in print so it must be true?”
The L.A. Times ran a correction. Wadhams? Not so much gay.
Mark:
Well actually this is my take on the Marriage Amendment
http://www.spankthatdonkey.com/spankthatdonkey2/2006/7/7/marriage-amendment-go-forth-be-fruitful-long-version.html
Now, I speak for my self and not the Republican Party. If witch hunts were the norm, I would think it would not be an issue in the Allen Team. Gays are attacking Gays, not Pubs attacking Gays… I can only imagine the Pubs who did say “get rid of them”, are now saying “I told you so”.
Where does Allen get an once of credit? It goes to my point of mean spiritedness at the very least of Dems…and Gays… vs. anyone who dares disagree with them. (brown shirts)
I like this “You seem like a reasonable guy. Why don’t you come on over to the Democrats and give us a try? We even like guns and NASCAR now”.
Now? How many times can you kick a dog before it finally never trusts you again? It is like John McCain trying to get my vote, (ain’t gonna happen)
who’s next? Oh, yes the CREW issue. You’re gonna have a coniption but I heard it on Rush Limbaugh first, and let’s be frank… You think the timing of all this is just a co-incidence? Talk about intellectual dishonesty….
Oh, and of course the FBI will wrap up their findings “after” the election….
Spanky,
I can’t address everything you’ve written right now, as I have to get to bed, but A) comparing “gays” and democrats to nazis is laughable to me, but perhaps I’m misguided. Please enlighten me as to how the “Dems… and Gays” are similar to the nazi brown shirts. As far as I know, it’s not the Democrats who have suspended the writ of habeas corpus, have expanded the power of the executive branch, authorized torture in secret prisons, or authorized unlimited domestic surveilence with absolutely no oversight.
As for your comment about CREW and the timing of the Foley scandal, it’s not intellectually dishonest to ask for evidence, and your contention that it is makes me wonder if you know the meaning of intellectual dishonesty. To put it in terms that perhaps make more sense, this is about the level of reasoning that those people who think that the US staged the 9/11 attacks use. Just like 9/11 turned out to be beneficial for Bush and the Republicans (and certainly, while I’m not saying they’re glad it happened, it has been), this Foley scandal has been beneficial for the Democratic party (again, not that they’re happy it happened). In both cases, honest people demand more proof, and in both cases, it has yet to surface.
Time for bed. I look forward to a response, if one is coming.
Ben C., I just know that Waldo can do better than this. This blog can be one of the best quite often, even when I disagree with it, but it can also fall right down there with Raising Kaine. He gives a quick one-liner about what usually amounts to a rumor or a cheap shot at conservatives.
Greg Greene, I am not speaking of the source exactly. It is a suggestion that Waldo’s “breaking news” is more along the lines of something you would expect a couple of hens to be speaking of.
What I wrote here was neither a rumor nor a cheap shot. I wrote about a fact reported (erroneously, as it turns out) by a paper of record. It’s only a “cheap shot” if you think that being gay is cheap, or that mentioning it is a “shot.” I don’t see anything wrong with being gay, so I regard the statement as neither.
I don’t know who you’re quoting there, CR, but I didn’t describe this as “breaking news,” and neither did anybody else here.
OK, brown shirts a little over the top, because the Dems and Gays have yet to physically beat Gays in Allen Campaign Team.
However, poltically, it is intellectually honest to say that Dems and Gays who are politically active are allies, and they have gone “whole hog”, after Gays working for Conservatives…
Well, how about this, A gay working and earning a living, and prefers to keep their sexual orientation a secret, one day finds they have been “outed” by someone… Gay or Not..
Wonder if they feel they have taken a mental A$$ whipping, or even feel physical repercussions?
You my friend are in total denial if you think there is no political motivation behind the timing of this incident. I have intellectual honesty… and just like the Scooter Libby case…. All allegations, and allegations, and Cheney and the Administration is all liars and did this and that….
all of a sudden, uh, what evidence, what scandal… uhhh, ok, onto the next subject. What do you think this FBI investigation is going to turn up?
It’s like the feminsists who turned their back on Paula Jones, and now turn a blind eye to actual in writing, sexist statements by their new Boy Webb (I.E. Clinton was the former) just to get him elected…
I am intellectually dishonest? Please… I do believe time will bear out my position in this post, or I wouldn’t be tying it.
CR UVa,
Thank you for your response. That was what I was hoping for, because it opened up a discussion of the apropriateness of this article, rather than simply decrying it.
Spanky,
I agree that some liberals, both queer and straight, are going after closeted queer people in the Republican party, but it’s certainly not all of us. While I personally find the hypocracy of fighting against equal rights for homosexuals, while yourself secretly engaging in homosexual sex to be despicible, I’m hardly convinced that outing these people is doing any good. I can’t support what’s being done, but neither am I crying any tears for when these people get their comeupance.
Perhaps if you want to hold office and legislate against an entire group of people, you shouldn’t have casual sex with those same people and hope they’ll all keep your secret for you. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, I’m just saying it’s dumb to blame the Democratic Party as a whole.
Oh, and as a feminist myself, I can say that I don’t turn a blind eye to Webb’s statements, but it’s not like Allen is any better (http://mediamatters.org/items/200609150006), and on almost all other issues, Webb is head and shoulders above Allen. That’s not intellectual dishonesty: it’s pragmatism.
Ben C:
Is it possible for a male to be a “feminist” :-)
I mean that is like my cracker self claiming that I am well “An American of African Heritage” !
Remember when Ms. Kerry declard her self an “African American” ! (B/C she was actually born in Africa) That was a good one :-)
Of course! Feminism (commonly defined as “belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes”) is a mindset, while “African American” is a genetic heritage.