Noam Scheiber, writing in the online edition of The New Republic today (registration req):
Can there be any doubting the conspiracy at the heart of the Mark Foley scandal? For years, much of official Washington has harbored a shameful secret about a certain congressman. Republicans looked the other way because they worried about their fragile majority, while the media played the role of willing enabler. Most knew the truth would come out eventually, but few had the guts to face it.
I refer here, of course, to the fact that Dennis Hastert is a bumbling half-wit -- something that became apparent to the world last week but had been common knowledge in Washington for almost a decade...
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Not long after FoleyGate began, The Wall Street Journal editorial page made a provocative point about the scandal's root causes. "Today's politically correct culture," the Journal observed, gave senior Republicans "no grounds to doubt Mr. Foley merely because he was gay and a little too friendly in emails." Since the editorial first appeared, this view has been roundly jeered by mainstream commentators. But I would like to make a concession to my friends on the right: Political correctness clearly did prevent the GOP from confronting what was an open secret in Washington. It's just that the relevant open secret wasn't about sexual orientation. It was about intelligence. For some reason it's just not politically correct to call people dumb, particularly if they happen to be in positions of power, particularly if they happen to be Republicans. If you're wondering how the GOP fell into such a tailspin, that might be the place to start.
Lunch break over. Back to work...
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