Foley Thoughts In Context

4 October, 2006. 532 words.

Somehow, a Congressman’s instant messages are getting just as much attention as a madman shooting five Amish schoolgirls in the head, execution-style.

So Foley got caught in an embarrassing situation and he rightly resigned, just like thousands of other people do every day. That would be the end of the story, if it weren’t for the sensationalist media’s voracious appetite for a titillating story involving sex, and the partisan mob’s voracious appetite for any excuse to demand resignations from the other party.

Mrs. Krehbiel is furious over this, and rightfully so, because Foley’s stupidity has single-handedly erased any gains made in the battle to remove gay pedophilia stereotypes. And boy oh boy is the media eager to help with those erasures (not even mentioning all the “family” organizations).

Mrs. Krehbiel is also furious because she correctly predicted that Foley’s stupidity would be used by the more regressive types here in Virginia to gather votes for the Marriage Uber Alles Amendment: The blog From On High [On Crack] is just one such example, whose idiotic rantings were refuted by Craig’s Musings.

Foley’s “excuse” that he was molested by priests as a kid is an outrageous act of personal cowardice, which far overshadows any of his other misdeeds, in my opinion. The best thing he could do for everyone at this point is to just shut the hell up and disappear.

I’m hearing a lot of mock outrage and disgust from everyone about the content of those instant messages (which are available exclusively on Abcnews.com, for a limited time only! Act now, while supplies last! Coming soon to DVD!). I imagine these are the same people who went up in arms about Janet Jackson’s nipple a few years ago. These people apparently don’t get out much, especially on the Internet. (I remember a lot of weird stuff just from Quake IRC chats.) Anyway, it’s not like this is the first guy ever to type naughty comments in instant messages (and yes, I purposefully used the word “naughty” instead of “disgusting”). Can you imagine what kind of text goes back and forth between regular 16-year-old boys in their after-school chats?

I guess people were too shocked to read past the first page of the chat logs, but the kid was not exactly an unwilling participant (it went on for some twelve pages, after all). In my mind, that puts Foley in the same category with the recent string of teacher-student molestations (actually, from what we know so far, Foley didn’t even get as far as a lot of those teachers). In other words, it doesn’t make him a pedophile. (That distinction only matters in this case because of the aforementioned gay pedophilia stereotype.)

To summarize: I’m glad Foley resigned, I don’t really care if anyone else resigns (I have no “public trust” in any of these Congressmen anyway), I don’t particularly care about his newly revealed sexual orientation or his private life or his background, I don’t particularly see the need for a posse to throw him in jail, and now I’m ready for the next sensational news cycle.

Thomas Krehbiel writes The Krehbiel Strikes Back, a moderate commentary on news, media, politics, and culture.

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