Mark Foley is a REPUBLICAN!

If Fox News had any credibility before, they have now lost it all.

On the third of October, Fox's O'Reilly Factor ran two segments covering the recent news concerning former US representative Mark Foley of Florida. These segments included three cutaways to footage of Foley. In each cutaway, at the bottom, was the label "Former Congressman Mark Foley (D-FL)."

That's D as in Democrat.

But Mark Foley is a Republican.

In the late-night reruns of O'Reilly Factor (which have a smaller audience than the initial broadcast), they reran this footage of Foley, but with the label at the bottom entirely missing. Fox News didn't correct the label, nor did they acknowledge and apologize for the mistake. They simply removed it.

The following day, the fourth of October, the Associated Press put out an article which also mislabeled Foley as a Democrat. However, a few hours later they made the necessary corrections and released a correction notice, as did several of the outlets who ran AP's original version of the article. But who knows how many times the original article ended up printed in physical newspapers across the nation. And somewhere in the fray, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert has also been mislabeled as a Democrat.

Now nearly everyone seems to have noticed the Faux News scandal and has commented on it — of course, except for Fox News, which, to my knowledge, continues to pretend it never happened.

Imagine the uproar that would've ensued among neoconservatives had this guy actually been Democrat and had some news source referenced him as a Republican without correcting themselves or apologizing.

I'm tempted to say that I miss the liberal bias in the media, but then I wonder if one can miss that which never was.

As for the Foley scandal itself, they're now apparently going around making a big deal that Foley is gay and that he was molested by a Roman Catholic clergyman when he was a teenager. As if to imply that all people who molest children are gay, and that they are gay because they were molested when they were children.

First of all, the apparent importance that it was a Roman Catholic clergyman rubs of the classic struggle to disassociate Protestant Christianity from Catholic Christianity by claiming that Catholics aren't Christians. One is reminded of when it was found that some Catholic clergymen were molesting some of the adolescents who went to their church. And we all know that this is why Catholicism isn't at all Christian, even though they believe in Christ, just like Protestants do. Right?

And second of all, and more importantly, I have the sneaking suspicion that the GOP is now going to try to use the Foley scandal as fodder to claim, again, that gay people are just monsters who prey on children and who converted to their abominable ways when they themselves were molested during childhood. The Faux News scandal just adds the cherry on top: After all, only Democrats are gay, and so only Democrats would think of molesting a child. Right?

Don't think people would really buy into this? Think again.

I feel I must clear up some disinformation about this whole thing (you can look here too):

• Foley is a Republican.
• The legal age of consent to sexual activity is 16 in the District of Columbia. We must keep this in mind, although Foley's abuse of his office, the worst aspect of the scandal, must also be taken into account. It remains to be found whether he committed these same acts outside DC, where it would actually be illegal. (Edit: I have just learned that Foley's acts were indeed illegal. In DC, 16 is the earliest you can consent with someone no more than four years older than you. This applies until you reach the age of majority — 18 in DC, just like everywhere else.)
• The Lewinsky scandal was not worse than the Foley scandal. Monica Lewinsky was 22, and she consented. Remember, it was an affair.

In closing, allow me to share a pertinent clip from the Daily Show, because laughter is the best medicine.

— Athelwulf