Six helpful hints for how to manage the Foley scandal.

[Swede]

All in the Family: For all its talk of a united base, the Republican Party is an awkward marriage of convenience between two competing camps—economic conservatives and social-issue ones. George Bush promises the moon to both sides, but while business conservatives always get their tax cuts, social conservatives rarely see their wish list (an end to abortion and same-sex marriage) come true.

So, in the battle of conservative degenerates, it's only fair that a social-issue hypocrite like Rep. Mark Foley—rather than a business hypocrite like Jack Abramoff, or a values-for-hire crossbreed like Ralph Reed—would be the one to bring down the Republican House. Voters may have a hard time deciding which is most damning about this scandal—the crime, the cover-up, or the creepiness. But the Foley case proves what social conservatives have been telling economic conservatives all along: There are other sins than greed.

By the time middle America hears the sick-sick-sick details, the Foley scandal promises to be a body blow to Congress' already battered reputation. Only 25 percent approved of the job Congress was doing before the story broke. A do-nothing Congress will seem like the good old days once voters hear that "get a ruler and measure it for me" was Foley's idea of oversight.


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http://www.slate.com/id/2150827