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Why does the media hide the fact that House Speaker Denny Hastert actually lives with his Chief of Staff, 56 year old Scott Palmer, Hastert's longtime unmarried adviser, in a DC townhouse along with Hastert's Deputy Chief of Staff, Mike Stokke, while Hastert's wife Jean lives in Yorkville, Illinois and stays at a hotel when she visits Washington? Is it because it might imply to some folks that Hastert is gay and is protecting a rather large GOP network of folks from being outed? Is it because Representative David Dreir (R - CA) lives with his chief of staff, and they are gay partners, and some might see a parallel?
So we have a curious bedding relationship among some males, one of whom (Palmer) is an out of the closet gay male. They “share a house in DC” – but only a few reporters like Matthews have noted this. Now I do not care why they share a house. The Foley cover up is the same moral and ethical situation if the reason for the Speaker’s three-some is the District of Columbia’s high living costs or friendships, rather than his being gay. But you can bet your bottom dollar that if the Speaker were a Democratic Part member, the media would be doing nightly specials on this interesting living arrangement.
Now let’s get something straight from the get go – gays are much less likely to be pedophile perverts than straight folks, as has been shown in many studies of the topic. So ignore the right wing nuts that try to change the Foley story from “Why did the GOP over possibly 11 years (at least 5 years per GOP Congressman Kolbe) hide the pedophile pervert Congressman Foley (R-FL)” to “those evil gays must be dealt with”. The number one story here is about ethics and morals and coverup, which means it is NOT about being gay.
There is a second story in all this and it is how the arrogant and ruthless and believers in scorched-earth governance, Palmer and Hastert, have been able to get the media to covered up the past Haskert ethical lapses, and the past “throw the staff under the bus” Haskert response to getting caught. In the 1992 scandal when dozens of members of Congress were caught writing bad checks that the House Bank covered without penalty, among those caught with their hand in this particular cookie jar was J. Dennis Hastert - in his first year in office. “Throw the staff under the bus” Haskert, running his office via Palmer but having a Washington-based “chief of staff” Peter Vroom, blamed his problems on Peter Vroom and fired him. Of course the crime was all Haskert and Vroom had nothing to do with the checks and the illegal activity (just ask the staff from that time and they will confirm this).
If the Democratic Party wins in November, it will be because of a great deal more than the Foley coverup. Democratic Party members seem a bit more ethical, moral, and honest than most of the GOP in Congress or the Whitehouse or the Supreme Court, and they have a very real set of core beliefs. Most are conservative in fiscal matters, as the decrease in the size of government and the budget control via fair taxes and moderate spending under Clinton showed – and most are liberal in social matters. The media likes to pretend that “liberal” has no meaning – that there are no liberal core beliefs. A piece in the Chicago Tribune by Geoffrey R. Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago, did a very nice job describing what a liberal believes:
1. Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others. This is at the very heart of liberalism. Liberals understand, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once observed, that “time has upset many fighting faiths.” Liberals are skeptical of censorship and celebrate free and open debate.
2. Liberals believe individuals should be tolerant and respectful of difference. It is liberals who have supported and continue to support the civil rights movement, affirmative action, the Equal Rights Amendment and the rights of gays and lesbians. (Note that a conflict between propositions 1 and 2 leads to divisions among liberals on issues like pornography and hate speech.)
3. Liberals believe individuals have a right and a responsibility to participate in public debate. It is liberals who have championed and continue to champion expansion of the franchise; the elimination of obstacles to voting; “one person, one vote;” limits on partisan gerrymandering; campaign-finance reform; and a more vibrant freedom of speech. They believe, with Justice Louis Brandeis, that “the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.”
4. Liberals believe “we the people” are the governors and not the subjects of government, and that government must treat each person with that in mind. It is liberals who have defended and continue to defend the freedom of the press to investigate and challenge the government, the protection of individual privacy from overbearing government monitoring, and the right of individuals to reproductive freedom. (Note that libertarians, often thought of as “conservatives,” share this value with liberals.)
5. Liberals believe government must respect and affirmatively safeguard the liberty, equality and dignity of each individual. It is liberals who have championed and continue to champion the rights of racial, religious and ethnic minorities, political dissidents, persons accused of crime and the outcasts of society. It is liberals who have insisted on the right to counsel, a broad application of the right to due process of law and the principle of equal protection for all people.
6. Liberals believe government has a fundamental responsibility to help those who are less fortunate. It is liberals who have supported and continue to support government programs to improve health care, education, social security, job training and welfare for the neediest members of society. It is liberals who maintain that a national community is like a family and that government exists in part to “promote the general welfare.”
7. Liberals believe government should never act on the basis of sectarian faith. It is liberals who have opposed and continue to oppose school prayer and the teaching of creationism in public schools and who support government funding for stem-cell research, the rights of gays and lesbians and the freedom of choice for women.
8. Liberals believe courts have a special responsibility to protect individual liberties. It is principally liberal judges and justices who have preserved and continue to preserve freedom of expression, individual privacy, freedom of religion and due process of law. (Conservative judges and justices more often wield judicial authority to protect property rights and the interests of corporations, commercial advertisers and the wealthy.)
9. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, for without such protection liberalism is impossible. This, of course, is less a tenet of liberalism than a reply to those who attack liberalism. The accusation that liberals are unwilling to protect the nation from internal and external dangers is false. Because liberals respect competing values, such as procedural fairness and individual dignity, they weigh more carefully particular exercises of government power (such as the use of secret evidence, hearsay and torture), but they are no less willing to use government authority in other forms (such as expanded police forces and international diplomacy) to protect the nation and its citizens.
10. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, without unnecessarily sacrificing constitutional values. It is liberals who have demanded and continue to demand legal protections to avoid the conviction of innocent people in the criminal justice system, reasonable restraints on government surveillance of American citizens, and fair procedures to ensure that alleged enemy combatants are in fact enemy combatants. Liberals adhere to the view expressed by Brandeis some 80 years ago: “Those who won our independence … did not exalt order at the cost of liberty.”
Bush has shown that the old idea that conservatives want what liberals want, and the only question is how, is not true. Conservatives do not want what liberals want - conservatives want what corporation and the rich want, and will say whatever is required to get votes regarding ethics and morals, as they practice the morals of convenience.
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