NUH-UH!?!

You mean to actually tell me that Karl Rove lies?

And that he was lying about how close his relationship was with Jack Abramoff?

So much so that a top aide to Rove, who also coincidentally worked for Abramoff, had to resign on a Friday under the cover of a Republican boy-petting scandal?

Ahh yes, The Party of Criminals and Pedophiles at your service once again.

WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?

Fedora-wearing, self-loathing, buffoon Matt Drudge and thrice married, donut inhaling, oxycontin-jockey Rush Limbaugh have now pioneered a new strategy for defending their fellow morally repugnant members of the GOP who like to hit on high school kids.

Blame the pages who were cyber-molested.

I am not kidding. Cenk Uygur has the story at Huffpost.

It is sad and pathetic, but then again, so are guys who won't admit their own sexuality and need to take little red pills down to the Dominican Republic to troll the streets for ladies of the night.

So we really shouldn't be surprised at all by the behavior of Drudge or Limbaugh. And I'm sure nobody here is.

Just another example of that herpes sore on the body politic known as The Right.

What a shocker!

Pretend-moderate right-wing horses ass Mike DeWine, who likes to use fake footage of 9/11 in his ads to attack his vastly superior opponent Sherrod Brown, also doesn't like to show up for intelligence hearings.

It's not like they're important when it comes to, umm, protecting the country. So nice try with the whole tough on terrorism thing Mike, you're just another Paris-Hilton tax-cutting, troop-ignoring, 9/11-exploiting, intellectual outhouse posing as a reasonable Republican.

I will be looking forward to Senator Brown.

Cliff went back on MSNBC today:

To all who enjoy the wonders of the boob tube. I will be going on CNBC this evening at 10PM Eastern Time to discuss viral video and its effect on political campaigns.

The show is Donnie Deutsch. Done't cut and run. Tune in.

Cliff takes on GOP hack

So maybe some of you are shocked by the growing scandal over the cyber-trolling by Representative Mark Foley and the fact that Representative Denny Hastert and NRCC Chair Tom Reynolds, among others, have been fully aware that this man was hitting on high school boys for the past year.

You shouldn't be.

This is, very simply, emblematic of the current state of the GOP, a once proud party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt that has devolved into an elected membership comprised of racists, criminals, self-haters and perverts. Am I exaggerating? I think not.

I'll leave the Neo-Confederates such as George Allen and the Abramoffers such as Bob Ney for another column. Let's just talk about the latter two categories. Former Representative Ed Schrock of Virginia, who sponsored anti-gay legislation in the House, was caught in 2004 making calls to a homosexual phone-sex operation. He then resigned without comment much like Foley. Hate yourself much Ed?

See Mayor Jim West of Spokane for a very similar story to the one currently bedeviling poor Mark Foley, who was still Chairing the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited children as of last week.

You want to find adultery among these miscreant moralizers? Why go no further then Pennsylvania Representative Don Sherwood, who thought it wasn't good enough to just cheat on his wife with a women in her 20s (he's in his 60s), but decided to try and choke her for extra credit. Or Representative Steve LaTourette of Ohio, who didn't only cheat on his wife of 28 years with an aide, but set her up with a nice little shop that lobbied a committe on which he sat (Transportation). The piles of money she made was helpful though, as it most likely helped pay his rent as she was living with him.

Divorce you say. Ok, well here's a math problem for you. What do you get when you add the divorces of Newt Gingrich + Rush Limbaugh + Bob Barr? A hint, you're almost in double digits.

Senate Republican Leader-to-be, Mitch McConnell, has no relationship with his first wife and daughters (he runs a helluva partisan machine in Kentucky and Washington, however). Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist? He dumped his fiancee for another woman on the eve of his marriage.

This is today's GOP. The family values crowd in all their glory. It is the reason I started doing a weekly segment on The Young Turks called "Republican Sexcapades" (you may be familiar with the insightful analysis of Cenk Uygur, one of The Young Tursks' hosts, on this very site). Because somebody had to point out their sexual hypocrisy on a weekly basis.

And I've never lacked for material. Ever.

If you want to catch our discussion of Mr. Foley, by the way, I will be on the show tomorrow at 6:05 AM Eastern Time, to discuss the latest developments in this sickening story (our normal time is 8:00 AM Eastern on Thursdays--but this one was too big to wait). By then, who knows, maybe one more Republican will have cheated on his wife with a circus midget or another will be found to enjoy the company of the bovine.

PS I will also be on MSNBC tomorrow at 11:00 AM Eastern to discuss this and other enlightening topics

I write a weekly column every Friday for popular site AMERICAblog, called Cliff's Corner. Check it out below, if you are so inclined:

The Week That Was 9/29/06

Another week. More preposterousness to report.

Just wondering if there are any Republicans who are at this point not under investigation for massive corruption, absolute incompetence or thinking a 16-year old boy, whose friends are in “great shape,” is the logical choice with which to embark upon cyber-pen pal relations? I mean does it ever end with these guys?

You’ll find more scruples in the Gambino residence than the Republican Caucus.

Now whether Mark Foley is guilty of anything, hopefully CREW will get to the bottom of that (UPDATE: Since I wrote this Foley's guilt has been established, and he has tendered his resignation from Congress to Denny Hastert). But does this man really not see where emails that say things like “how old are you now” and “send me a pic of you as well” might be inappropriate for The Co-Chair of the US House Missing and Exploited Children Caucus to be emailing to underage boys?

You may remember another Republican Frank Figueroa, the special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Tampa–which controls Operation Predator, the agency's program to arrest child predators–was charged with walking up to a 16-year-old girl in a mall, pulling up his pant leg and masturbating for 10 minutes.

I mean I do understand the Kung Pao Chicken in the food court can get pretty exciting. And really, who hasn’t looked at the mannequins in The Gap and thought to themselves, maybe I need to try something on in the fitting room for a few minutes?

But really folks, I am almost at the point where Republican reality has gone beyond any jokes I could think to cook up.

I mean I now understand how George W. Bush “didn’t really know” Jack Abramoff. Hell, Abramoff had only talked to members of the Bush Administration 485 times in 5 years, which is only like one time for every three days Bush spent on the ranch…I mean in the White House. Why should he remember a guy like that? It would be like remembering you were friends with your largest financial contributor after his company Enron went down in flames, or how to pronounce nuclear.

And who has time for that when you’re reading a couple Shakespeares and My Pet Goat II: This Time I’ll React When We’re Attacked.

I don’t want to ruin the plot, but from what I can gather the goat becomes an Arab linguist who is fired from the armed forces for being gay. When he responds by protesting a Bush campaign event, his legs are shattered with a Gothic War Hammer after the president determines that’s not considered torture in the United States. It’s supposed to be a real tear jerker.

In any case, I think we need to set up pool. Whoever correctly guesses the next Republican occurrence of law-breaking wins the all the marbles. You know Bill Bennett’s in. And there are so many possibilities where they can break new ground. Deer heads stuffed into mailboxes for example. Oh…right.

Ok, how about grand theft auto? Public urination? Hey, I don’t think necrophilia has yet been discovered among GOP elected officials yet.

Although you might want to check with Henry Hyde’s wife on that one.


Shameless Plug #1: Go here for my weekly appearance on the Young Turks (Where else will you find conversation about Ron Jeremy and GOP Rep. John Sweeney).

Shameless Plug #2: My take on Republican foreign policy inanity throughout the years.

Shameless Plug #3: I will be on MSNBC this Sunday twice between 12-1 Eastern Time (supposedly 12:15 and 12:45) if you want to see me debate the usual Republican miscreant.