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October 09, 2006

Politics First; Religion if it Helps with Politics

If you’ve ever wondered just how honest James Dobson (of Focus on the Family) really is about his religion, his comments on the Mark Foley scandal should put any questions to rest: it's politics first, and religion as convenient for politics.

Paul Krugman asked a question many of us have been asking in a recent column for the New York Times: "Does the failure of Republican leaders to do anything about a sexual predator in their midst outrage [Dobson] as much as a Democratic president's consensual affair?"

Dobson's response says it all:

We condemn the Foley affair categorically, and we also believe that what Mr. Clinton did was one of the most embarrassing and wicked things ever done by a president in power. Let me remind you, sir, that it was not just James Dobson who found the Lewinsky affair reprehensible. More than 140 newspapers called for Clinton's resignation. But the president didn't do what Mr. Foley has done in leaving. He stayed in office, and he lied to the grand jury to obscure the facts. As it turns out, Mr. Foley has had illicit sex with no one that we know of, and the whole thing turned out to be what some people are now saying was a -- sort of a joke by the boy and some of the other pages.

You got it. For Dobson it's still all about Clinton the womanizing Democrat, and by the way, the Republican really didn't do anything to fuss about. Dobson has signed on with the right wing propagandists spreading the untrue rumor that Foley was "set up" as a "joke" by one of the pages (which prompts the question why would a loyal Republican rising star former page try to screw the party right before an election by releasing "prank" emails? Answer: He wouldn't.).

Dobson never mentions the number of Republicans who knew literally for years that Foley was "too friendly" with these young boys. Nor does he mention the at least one other unidentified Republican who is likewise misbehaving with the pages.

Dobson also tries to excuse Foley's behavior saying he never actually had sex with an underage page. This is sort of like the definition of "is." Does Internet sex count as sex? Does asking underage boys to describe the size of their penis and tell him whether it's hard and describe to him how they masturbate sound like not having sex? If Foley happened to be into 16-year-old girls and had internet sex with them, would that make this any different? If he did exactly the same thing and was a Democrat, would Dobson be out there ranting about how only the Republicans really care about children? I think we know the answers to these questions now. Most important, we know that when Dobson focuses on the family, he's really focusing on the family's Republican votes.

Posted by Becky at October 9, 2006 11:56 AM