Completely off topic:
“Skybush” sounds like something Der Trihs would make up for an anti-religion rant about what supposedly talked to Moses. 
Well, there is some truth to that, even if that’s probably not what it was supposed to be…
Good OP Bricker , by the way.
I get to do just that as John Shimkus is my congressman. I’m a center-right type and have supported John in the past. It kind of miffed me that he blew off his term limit pledge and ran for re-election, but I was willing to let it slide. But in the wake of his response when he found out about the page e-mails, for him not to push hard for a full investigation and not bring in the democrat that was part of the page oversight team, is not only extremely bad judgement, but somewhat cowardly as in “let’s not rock the boat”.
John, you were a teacher. This is one of the reasons you were part of the page oversight. You of all people should have been aware of danger signals that emanated from a scuz ball like Foley. You will in all likelihood get re-elected, but you’ll do without my vote.
Gosh, sorry about the link. I worked for me. Must be an anti-hotlinking thing on Snopes.
Thank you, Steve MB.
I never said “all” or “every,” which is the only point you seem to be objecting to. You wanna address what I actually said, rather than insert straw-words for the sole purpose of having something to disagree with?
No, it’s like saying that if a guy robbed a bank today, maybe he was lying yesterday when he said he wasn’t a bank robber.
It’s kind of the opposite of the Boy who Cried Wolf. It’s the husband who says he’s got to work late every Wednesday night, and one Wednesday night you see him going into a hotel with some floozy–do you still believe he was working late on all the other Wednesdays?
Daniel
Don’t feel too bad. If the Democrats controlled all branches of government and were facing the possibility of losing control of one of the branches, I bet they would stoop pretty low too (I don’t have any cites but I’m just guessing). The problem is that you were a true believer and true believers always get disappointed even if they deny it.
Right now, the Republicans are taking a lot of flak because of Iraq and some of Bush’s other policies. Once Iraq is taken care of and we have a two party government (and hopefully a fiscally responsible government), I think a lot of people are going to realize that they weren’t as liberal as they thought they were. I can almost track the date of the first liberal feelings stirring within me (I’d always been fiscally conservative and socially moderate) to the date when this administration started misleading us, they will probably subside the same way.
I sometimes wonder if the long time liberals realize that they will lose a lot of allies when Bush leaves office.
This incident should not, of course, suggest–as Bricker seems to think we’re suggesting–that all Republicans are liars. It should, however, eliminate “But a Republican cannot be a liar” as a valid defense.
Obviously, these are two extremes, neither of which can be true. I’m just wondering if, what with this and other recent examples of embarrassing Retardlicanism, the needle on Bricker’s “Never a liar ==> Always a liar”-ometer has moved over a notch or two; if not into the red zone, at least maybe into a straight vertical position of having an open mind for each such incident.
I suspect they’ll gain a lot of allies around the time they stand up for something. I’m not their ally; I’m just the enemy of their enemy.
Daniel
Excluded middle.
The only difference between this batch of inflated bullshit and all the rest of the nonsense they’ve been using to cloak their true intentions is that this time the rotten chewy center is so obvious that the bullshit is obvious for what it is.
Get a grip. John Mace had it right. Give any party absolute power, and they will become drunk and corrupt and will abandon whatever principles they might have had.
You have an opportunity, here, Bricker, to recognize this bunch of unconvicted criminals for who they really are. When asked you the other day if, at long last, you had any decency, I was not attacking or demonizing you so much as making a desperate appeal to your humanity. A cuttingly serrated appeal, yes, but an appeal nevertheless.
You are not a soulless monster. Your love of Buffy and musical theater is evidence enough of that. 
But you have hitched your political wagon to a gang of ideological opportunists who have nobody’s best interests in mind but their own. And the sooner you recognize that, and realize that the ballooning scandal before us is merely symptomatic of a moral putrefaction that has destroyed the soul of your political leadership, the sooner the cleansing can begin.
I believe in balance. I believe in dividing power. I believe that an adversarial system is absolutely essential for keeping both sides honest. And therefore I believe that while conservatives are wrong about the majority of the issues before us, it is necessary for them to strenuously argue their positions in order to strengthen the views of us progressives. We must have principled believers and debaters from across the spectrum to maintain clarity of leadership.
My sociopolitical beliefs may have virtually no overlap with yours, but I need you to be that way because I believe that’s the most effective way to challenge myself into honesty. And I need you to have political representation to do the same to my own chosen surrogates.
Right now, your political representation is made up of total bastards. They serve neither you nor the country. They have taken advantage of your naive adherence to ideological principles and are looting and destroying the country on multiple fronts.
One sleazy Congressman is, in the grand context of American history, rather small beer.
But it has served to peel back the veneer of respectability and reveal the power-addicted madness that led leadership to coddle and conceal his sleaze.
It’s there for all to see. All you have to do is look.
Wake up.
Hey, what’s a mistake or two between friends?
Use the first link and then when you get the bad link prompt, hit refresh and it might work (did for me).
Actually, we’ve got a pretty recent example - 1994. The Dems were accused of some minor corruption that year, but it was pretty small potatoes, IIRC.
Is that wonderwoman in the middle with the sparkly boobs?
Cheap trick, photoshopping the sunrise into that woman’s cleavage!
And who is the “Reid” the caption is referring to?
But the reporters who broke this story have discredited this conspiracy theory:
ABC investigative journalist Brian Ross:
Ross dismissed suggestions by some Republicans that the news was disseminated as part of a smear campaign against Mr. Foley.
“I hate to give up sources, but to the extent that I know the political parties of any of the people who helped us, it would be the same party,” Mr. Ross said, referring to Republicans.
ABC producer Maddy Sauer:
They were passed to a colleague of mine from a source, not someone from a Democratic campaign, a source on the Hill. And when we talked to Foley’s office about those emails, they seemed to know all about them. “It’s no big deal. He is overly friendly. He’s overly engaging. If he’s guilty of anything, that’s all he’s guilty of. He’s very close with the pages. He has worked with the page program for some time.”
So we published that story, and then almost immediately we began receiving emails from former pages, some going back as far as five years, who said this is the tip of the iceberg.
Cervaise: RE Post #91. I am in awe! A fine sentiment beautifully expressed.
Why wouldn’t there be?
Different people have different levels of integrity. It is certainly quite possible that, purely by chance, the politicians of one party happen to be more corrupt, on average, at any given time, than the politicians of another party.
Furthermore, there might be various reasons why one party would be more corrupt:
(1) Corruption might attract corruption. If you’re a corrupt young politician, which party should you join?
(2) Political philosophy might align with corruption. It might be the case that certain beliefs about the world, while perhaps value-neutral in and of themselves, tend to appeal to corrupt people, or tend to appeal to people who have personality traits that tend to lead to corruption.
(3) Power might attract corruption. What’s the point of being a corrupt politician who doesn’t have much power?
(4) Mindset of particular top leaders might attract corruption. The management style of certain individual leaders, even non-corrupt ones, might lead them to be susceptible to hiring and overlooking the flaws of corrupt individuals.
Now, I’m not saying that any of the above is necessarily true about any particular party. Really, I’m not. Not even in a Nixonian sense. What I am saying is that there’s no reason to believe that both parties are precisely, or even approximately, equally corrupt. Certainly there is a non-zero and non-infinite amount of corruption in both parties. But there’s no magical principle of distributive slime which states that the Average Corruption Level (ACL) of a Republican is +/- 5% that of a Democrat.
Jeez, Butch…(…AKA Nurse Carmen…) you can’t give out ThinkProgress as a cite site without a Shields Up! warning for our Tighty Righty Dopers! Thier tiny little heads will…what was that popping noise? Ohhh, shit! Clean up on aisle three…