Bad Call

I just want to get some things off my chest. While I'm pleased that the Foley revelations are probably bad for Republicans and probably good for Democrats when it comes to the up-coming elections, I have to say that it's disheartening that the only reason so much attention is being paid to this issue is because it's about sex. The malfeasance that is being displayed, as more details of the cover-up are exposed, is real and typical. But the magnitude of this "wrong" pales to insignificance when contrasted with what should be outraging voters -- the consequences of the culture of corruption and incompetence is having on foreign policy, war, torture, domestic freedoms, the economy, social programs... the list goes on.

The voting public and its media enablers are so juvenile that all concern for any of the above matters disappears when someone mentions "sex". It's pathetic and discouraging. I didn't like it when it dominated so much of Clinton's tenure and I don't like it now. I was critical of his actions but they weren't very important to me. I am more critical of Foley's simply because the pages were much younger. It's makes no difference that this is homosexual sex; my reaction would have been the same if the pages had been female. It was inappropriate behaviour... it's wrong, but not that big a deal -- a bigger deal is the failure of the house leadership to do its due diligence. But the whole issue is not a big enough deal (when compared to other issues noted above) to deserve the media attention it's getting. I mean... shit does happen. But as the Little Prince might have said: it is not a matter of great consequence. And, there are matters of great consequence before us.

To use a baseball analogy, I don't like it when the ump makes a bad call... even when it benefits me.