Here's The GOP's Plan With Regard To The Foley Diddler-Gate Scandal

From the Washington Post:

The GOP's emerging strategy on the Foley scandal is to try to limit losses among conservative voters who are expressing alarm about the scandal and about the apparent failure of GOP leaders to act on early warnings about Foley's behavior.

As part of that strategy, the Republican National Committee is seeking to convince conservatives that the debate is fundamentally centered on politics, not values. The RNC is shipping reams of information to conservative radio hosts, television commentators and bloggers. Those GOP talking points detail the Democratic connections of groups including the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and American Family Voices, which are working to turn the scandal into an issue with national implications.

And Raw Story has this to add:

A story appearing in the American Spectator claims that news of then-Congressman Mark Foley's (R-FL) inappropriate communication with pages was supposed to be released by Democratic "party operatives" at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington or American Family Voices just ten days prior to the election.

C.R.E.W. has contended that they received Foley emails many months ago, and turned what they had over to law enforcement, rather than passing it along to journalists.

That's a pretty interesting strategy. Let me see if I got this right. The plan is to accuse the Democrats of wanting to release this information right before the election, but they were prevented from doing so because someone else -- another group of America-hating liberals, no doubt -- released it last July, but intentionally didn't release enough information for the FBI to seriously investigate the allegations, thus keeping the story under wraps while at the same time giving themselves cover because, after all, these evil liberal groups did try to tell the F.B.I. (kind of).

Wow, that's quite a plan. Is the average Rush Limbaugh listener even capable of following the bouncing ball on that one? Well, I guess it will give Hannity, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and the rest of them something to talk about during the run-up the mid-term elections. The Dittoheads will undoubtedly nod their heads in agreement even if they don't quite grasp what the hell is being said.

And I guess this explains why the FBI is lying to everyone on this issue. It's all part of a coordinated GOP strategy to brand this whole Foley Scandal as nothing more than a Liberal Dirty Trick.

Of course, in order for such a strategy to work, the GOP will have to convince their disgruntled voters that C.R.E.W. really did not send complete versions of the Foley e-mails to the F.B.I. back in July. The facts appear to show otherwise.

But I think the real problem with the GOP strategy is the whole "who gives a shit where this came from" component that is built right into this situation. Foley did send the e-mails. He did resign from Congress. Hastert and other Republicans leaders did know for quite some time that Foley was a sexual predator. I just think that all these facts will probably overcome the GOP's "let's blame the messenger" approach, particularly given that the success of such a strategy largely depends on the Republicans' ability to re-write history.

No, I think the GOP's best shot at weathering this storm is the whole "Let's Blame The Gay Cabal In Congress" plan to which I referred in an earlier post. After all, members of the Extreme Religious Right hate gay people a lot more than they hate liberals.

Don't they?

UPDATE: This Daily Show piece on the Foley Scandal is hilarious (and quite informative as well).