The Dish

Thanks for your emails. It seems clear that the teens themselves recorded and saved the IM exchanges between Foley and the pages. Why? There’s a variety of possible answers. Because they were a) freaked out; b) wanted a record if anything later emerged that might impugn them; c) wanted to share the grossness among themselves and warn others; or even d) as leverage over a Congressman with influence or power. There’s no evidence so far as I can tell of any nefarious or politically motivated third party here (the pages themselves appear to be Republicans). And once the first story hit, Brian Ross was overwhelmed with unsolicited evidence of far-reaching online lechery between a congressman and teen pages. We’re in strange territory here, however. It’s not pedophilia; we have no evidence of actual sex; the victims are of legal age; the IMs and emails cover a spectrum of creepy to extremely inappropriate lechery. We have legal age teens interacting sexually online with a congressman – even to the point of what seems like ejaculation – and subsequently recording these exchanges for posterity. Who knows how many other such records exist? Or whether this is restricted to only one congressman?

"The National Anthem works better as a joke song," – Nick Gillespie.

Uh-oh. He’s right about Borat, though. May God defend him. And may George W. Bush drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq!

I have one question about the alleged 52 instant message exchanges that ABC News has in its hands. Who saves and records IM exchanges for posterity? I mean: I know how emails are saved and forwarded; it happens automatically. But I was unaware that IM interactions have some permanent record that can be retrieved after the fact. Is there such a possibility? Or did someone keep saving and recording these IM exchanges at the time – presumably the teens involved? It’s just an empirical question. But if these exchanges had to be taken down and recorded at the time, then it seems there are further questions to be asked about their provenance.

A reader writes:

Nice essay. My favorite line:

"From a humble faith comes toleration of other faiths. And from that toleration comes the oxygen that liberal democracy desperately needs to survive."

That’s it in a nutshell, buddy.

Elsewhere on the blog today you quoted Mark Foley on Clinton:

"It’s vile. It’s more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction."

Let’s call fundamentalism what it is: religious addiction. Religion, like sex, like food, can become a drug. What should be a healthy and joyful part of a normal balanced life becomes a sickness, a neurotic attempt to fill the void within. It can even descend into psychosis ("An illness that prevents people from being able to distinguish between the real world and the imaginary world. Symptoms include hallucinations [seeing or hearing things that aren’t really there, or delusions], irrational thoughts and fears."). We’re used to associating religious addiction with small cults. But it can infect whole societies. And it’s extremely dangerous. It can damage, even destroy an individual life. It can fuel pogroms and inquisitions, mass suicides, terrorism, torture and murder. It can bring on wars. It can destroy the potential of whole societies – certainly, whole democracies – for generations. Perhaps, in some cases, for good.

So let’s not mince words. The first step in fighting an addiction is calling it what it is: Fundamentalism is religious addiction.

I prefer to think of extreme religious fundamentalism as more a function of neurosis than addiction. Any thoughts?

That’s an interesting idea. And the blog involved is a literate and articulate one. Check out this wonderful discussion of the virtue of "adoration." And a paean to agape. As the blogosphere evolves, it’s good to keep up with the inspiring innovations as well as the dreadful ones.

"A political movement by nature draws lines, makes distinctions, pronounces judgment; in contrast, Jesus’ love cuts across lines, transcends distinctions, and dispenses grace. Regardless of the merits of a given issue – whether a pro-life lobby out of the Right or a peace-and-justice lobby out of the Left – political movements risk pulling onto themselves the mantle of power that smothers love. From Jesus I learn that, whatever activism I get involved in, it must not drive out love and humility, or otherwise I betray the kingdom of heaven," – Philip Yancey, "The Jesus I Never Knew."

This is obviously related to my account of non-fundamentalist Christianity in this essay, "Why Not Seeing Is Believing." The political dimension of this kind of moderate faith – limited, morally neutral government – is explored in the final chapter of "The Conservative Soul."

Several readers have asked me what I mean by that phrase in the quote below. Read the essay and you’ll find out. I’m talking about the polarization in America between religious fundamentalists who proclaim their inerrancy and certainty as the only legitimate form of religion and the secular atheists who agree with them. There’s no question in my mind that America is suffering from a dialogue in which excessive fundamentalism spawns an understandable but misguided anti-religious sensibility that borders on contempt for all people of faith. This is the culture war cycle that is consuming the country and polarizing the political parties into religious and secular camps – a dangerous development. My point is that one important response is for non-fundamentalist believers to speak up more, to take on the fundamentalists, to refuse to have their faith coopted, and to fill the growing vacuum in the center of American life. That’s what the essay is arguing about and it’s what my book tries to make a long and careful case for.

A "Goldwater Democrat" writes:

This is just my personal experience and observations (Generalissimo Kos hasn‚Äôt given me any talking points today, and the Kool-Aid seems oddly weak for a Monday), but the idea of Democrats as ‘Big Spenders’ is quickly becoming myth. I know special interest groups and some of the old guard probably cling to those tendencies, but modern Democrats I know and converse with (myself included) are all about rational, reality-based spending.

Perhaps this is an effect of the Clinton years, where the struggle between President and Congress meant reduced spending and a great boom in prosperity. This Democrat wishes very much to go back to the days of responsible budgets, rising wages and budget surpluses. I would also prefer not living in fear of a new Great Depression sparked by irresponsible deficit spending, foreign borrowing and out-of-control war costs.

I say give Democrats a chance on the spending issue. I really don’t believe it can get worse than it is now, but it can certainly get better. Those in power now have proven themselves incapable of restraint.

You can say that again.

"Those people who say they want tax cuts and they want them now ‚Äî they can’t have them," – British Tory leader, David Cameron.

Is Foley in a Scientology Rehab Center? More speculation here. A Thetan page scandal? Just as the new season of South Park beckons.