The Dish

The bleeding obvious – which is why it doesn’t seem to have occurred to Bush.

It was bound to happen. For the editors at the Wall Street Journal (weren’t they once actually worth reading?), the problem is that all gays are potential predators of teens, and that gay congressmen should be barred from interaction with pages. Money quote:

In today’s politically correct culture, it’s easy to understand how senior Republicans might well have decided they had no grounds to doubt Mr. Foley merely because he was gay and a little too friendly in emails. Some of those liberals now shouting the loudest for Mr. Hastert’s head are the same voices who tell us that the larger society must be tolerant of private lifestyle choices, and certainly must never leap to conclusions about gay men and young boys. Are these Democratic critics of Mr. Hastert saying that they now have more sympathy for the Boy Scouts’ decision to ban gay scoutmasters? Where’s Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on that one? …

Yes, Mr. Hastert and his staff should have done more to quarantine Mr. Foley from male pages after the first email came to light. But if that’s the standard, we should all admit we are returning to a rule of conduct that our cultural elite long ago abandoned as intolerant.

Huh? I had no idea that the "cultural elite" was now in favor of older, powerful men exploiting younger, powerless men in their teens for sexual titillation. In fact, the cultural elite is far more sensitive to that kind of sexual abuse than it was in the past. No one would regard it as intolerant to bar a person with such a predilection from interacting with teens past the legal age of consent. They might, however, consider it intolerant to accuse all gay men of such behavior and seeking to smear and "quarantine" them. In fact, they’d consider it a form of bigotry. Which is what the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page is all about now, when it isn’t endorsing torture. (Rich Lowry, natch, hypes the smear.)

It had to happen: a dramatization of a Mark Foley IM message stream.

The following far-right blogs are now suggesting that the Foley emails were faked or tampered with: Passionate America; Malkin’s Hot Air; and American Thinker. The case is unpersuasive to me.

This is a fascinating response to the news that Condi Rice was allegedly briefed urgently about the al Qaeda threat in July 2001 and did nothing about it:

"I did tell the president at one point that I thought maybe all of us should go, because we had fought two wars and we … had the largest terrorist attack in American history," Rice disclosed Sunday night while en route to the Mideast.

"And when he asked me to be secretary of state, I said, ‘I think maybe ‚Äî maybe you need new people.’ " She did not say what the president’s immediate response was.

So we know that both Rice and Rumsfeld want us to know that they both offered to resign after respective screw-ups, but the president insisted they stay on. As the evidence mounts of complete disarray in the White House over Iraq and the war, what I think you’re seeing is an attempt by some of the principals to say: "Hey, we knew we’d screwed up, but we offered to quit – and POTUS wouldn’t let us." I.e. the not-so-subtle message: don’t blame us; blame Bush. Don’t worry. Many of us do.

(Photo: Ron Edmonds/AP.)

The Republican campaign to ban, stop, prevent, crush, stomp on, destroy, remove, and stigmatize any gay couple wanting to settle down is still continuing in Virginia. Now, however, the extreme hostility to gay coupling is threatening straight people as well. And so a backlash is brewing. Wouldn’t it be great if we could actually support stable relationships regardless of sexual orientation?

John Dickerson makes a good point:

For GOP leaders to pay a heavy political price requires either more evidence that they really knew what Foley was doing or for Democrats to form an alliance, at some level, with people who find homosexuality outrageous no matter what the age.

If I were the Dems, I would exercize restraint. This is a case of abusing power in creepy ways. In that way, it speaks to the broader problem of GOP corruption and degeneracy. People can draw that conclusion without having homophobia pandered to – by either side.

Oakland, California, 4.10 pm.

This story says that the 9/11 Commission was indeed told of the July 10, 2001, briefing on al Qaeda, attended by Condi Rice. Money quote:

In the briefing, Tenet warned "in very strong terms" that intelligence from a variety of sources indicated that Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization was planning an attack on a U.S. target in the near future, but didn’t provide specifics about the exact timing or nature of a possible attack, or about whether it would take place in the United States or overseas, said the former senior intelligence officials, all of whom requested anonymity because Tenet‚Äôs presentation was classified.

However, said one of the officials, "the briefing was intended to ‘connect the dots’ contained in other intelligence reports and paint a very clear picture of the threat posed by bin Laden." The CIA declined to comment.

The 9/11 panel, however, never asked for additional information or mentioned the briefing in their report.

Now we also find that Woodward’s claim that Rice was indeed briefed as well is backed up by White House records. What happened in the meeting is, of course, still disputed.

Here’s Brian Ross’ latest. I’d say it’s looking grim for Hastert. There is a very sick irony in the possibility that of all the issues that this Congress deserves rebuking on, they may end up being most damaged by coddling and protecting a sexually predatory creep.

(Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty.)