As post-election GOP candidates lie battered and bruised around the normally picturesque White House grounds, their mud-caked faces and bloody clothing spoiling the vacation pictures of countless tourists, there can be no doubt Mark Foley’s Online Adventures must take a share of the blame. Now famous for his nauseating, sexually charged emails to underage male White House pages, Rep. Foley gave the Democrats (or Bush, depending on your point of view) a little extra help pushing Republicans out of power. Scandal-weary voters were further angered by evidence indicating high-level Republicans were aware of Foley’s fondness for teenage boys and saturated fats, yet did little to stop the him.
And now for an IRONIC TWIST! Right smack-dab in the middle of this media circus, guess who up and croaked? That’s right, everybody’s favorite oldskool boy-lover, Democrat Rep. Gerry Studds. Back in the early 1980s, when I was hard at work making cardboard castles and pie-pan swimming pools for my My Little Ponies, it came out that Studds got drunk and dirty with a 17-year-old male page after propositioning a couple of other underage studds. Around the same time, Republican Rep. Dan Crane did the same thing, except his boink-a-thon (I’m so classy!) occured with a 17-year-old female. Both were censured by the House at the same time. Dan Crane apologized and his disgusted constituents never voted him back into office. Gerry Studds never apologized and was given a standing ovation (literally) by his constituents, who voted him back into office for several subsequent terms.
The media has relentlessly gone after Foley, and rightly so; what he did was a gross abuse of power. Studds, on the other hand, is receiving accolades from top Democrats and various progressive groups across the country. His glowing obituaries composed by even-handed, truth-hungry journalists paint a picture of a courageous, embattled warrior who fought for gay rights and local fishermen. Headline: Gerry Studds Dies at 69; First Openly Gay Congressman. I suppose Gerry Studds Dies at 69; First Openly Gay Congressman To Openly Screw An Openly Underage Male Page doesn’t have the same ring to it. But Underage and Page kind of rhyme, so I think it’s catchy.