Krauthammer calls 'foul" on Foley scandal

How debased is our political culture when the public is nonplussed by an illegal war that's taken a half-million lives, wages stagnating for six years, an imminent war with Iran, a housing bubble bursting around them, the fact that the country is in debt up to its eyeballs and lobbyists are running around writing legislation, yet can become outraged about some pervy old bastard's instant messages asking highschool kids to measure their shlongs.

Priorities, folks.

Personally, I could care less -- I think a GOP rep like Foley has done infinitely more harm to America's youth with his votes than with his hunger for teenage man-flesh. And I certainly don't think the guy's a pedophile -- he's an ephebophile (or a hebephile) -- which, in my mind, is far less yucky (although still highly sleazy).

And while I'm nonplussed by the charges themselves -- as long as there's no sex with kids or coercion involved, I have a high degree of disinterest in people's sexual desires unless they're directed at yours truly -- I'm as happy as the next guy to see something pierce the fog of the electorate, especially the folks that ostentatiously label themselves "pro-family."

And it is entertaining, to say the least, to watch the right bend itself into pretzels trying to stop the bleeding.

Which brings me to Charles Krauthammer's whiney Weekly Standard column, in which he parrots one of the new classics: there's a liberal conspiracy to be mean to Mark Foley only because he's a Republican, and, damnit, it's just not fair: