Conspiracy Theories Anyone?

Ok, be prepared to don your tin foil chapeau as there are some pretty interesting conspiracy theories floating around about Rep. Mark Foley. After all, with Matt Drudge, Rush Limbaugh, Investor's Business Daily and Katherine Harris all hocking some sort of conspiracy theory about how it is the Democrats or the kids' fault that Rep. Foley was talking about his privates to 16 year olds, I thought I'd weigh in with my own little conspiracy theory (after all, you can't have too many). But my theory doesn't revolve around the Democrats pulling the strings. Mine will go straight to the White House itself...

What's been happening lately is this annoying behavior of the media to cover stories, while important to some, but ignoring the *real* stories that fundamentally affect our society. This was witnessed quite recently after the Hamdan Supreme Court case. On June 29th, the court found that the president's military tribunal system was unconstitutional and that they would have to change the system to match current US law and the Constitution (you know, that little piece of paper that guaranteed a few inalienable rights to all of us upon birth as US citizens...). When the decision came down that the president and his men were wrong, what story magically appeared that distracted the media for the next month? A story so important to our society that it was able to divert the *entire* media complex away from one of the most important Constitutional issues of our time (the right of all persons a fair and just trial by a court of their peers)? Three words: Jon Benet Ramsey.

Miraculously, out of nowhere, on August 11th, came word that they had found the killer. Never mind that the first press conferences were given by Department of Homeland Security spokespeople (an agency that is not responsible for extraditions; that's the Department of Justice). Never mind the fact that even the prosecutor in Colorado wasn't sure she could try the case. Out pops John Mark BushAssSaver to move the press off covering the Hamdan decision and the related important questions of torture and adhering to the Geneva Conventions to an admittedly "cold," no-further-leads, 10 year old child murder. Hamdan was wiped right out of the A section of the NY Times and out of the consciousness of gossip-mongering Americans.

But that wasn't enough. As the media enhanced their coverage, things that would keep the press interested in the JBR story kept emerging. Endless coverage of his dinner on the flight back from Thailand; coverage of how he had visited a Thai clinic for a sex change (that would be sure to keep the press interested); hell, even analysis of what he was wearing to his impromptu press conference:

"ANNOUNCER: He has made a startling confession. He has made headlines all over the world. Now he`s making fabulous clothes. Introducing the Captain High Pants pale and creepy collection. If you like collecting child porn, and want to look good doing it, check out the Captain High Pants pale and creepy collection."

The point I'm trying to make is the timing of the announcement. I just found it strange.

So, fast forward to today. Foley has been talked about almost non-stop since Friday. Media outlets writing story after story about "who knew what when" and "open secrets." But what also happened at exactly the same time? Only the most egregious executive power grab in the history of our country. A law drafted by the White House, enacted by Republicans and given the virtual "thumbs up" by out-of-touch Democrats that:

• Gives the executive, and only the executive, the power to "interpret" the Geneva Conventions;
• Gives the executive the power to deem any person, whether foreign or U.S. citizen, an "enemy combatant" and throw them in "black holes" of physical detention with no hope of trial or legal representation. Hell, they don't even get to know the evidence the government has collected that led to that detention...
• Retroactively gives the executive and any of his designates, protection from prosecution from any potential war crimes they may have already committed;
• Repeals the "writ of habeus corpus," a concept that was first enshrined in 1215 by the Magna Carta and re-affirmed in our own Consitution (the Bill of Rights), that all people are entitled to a fair trial by a jury of their peers and will not be subjected to unfounded transgressions of their personal liberty.

This "law" (and I put it in quotes to designate that it can't be a law when is so *clearly* violates the basic tenet of our Constitution) which is so clearly aimed at protecting the milky white asses of our current executive administration, is the biggest affront yet to the very fabric of our democracy. As Arthur Silber so eloquently points out the similarities to a then rising Nazi regime, the magnitude of this one-party assfuck to America deserves to be on the front page of every newspaper, website, magazine and TV set 24 hours a day. This is fascism, folks.

But what happens? The same day the bill passes the Senate, another story surfaces that will guarantee that the media will elevate it to the highest Nielsen ratings possible: a gay congressman prowling for under age teens in our Nation's hallowed Congressional halls. I mean, look at the story. It has it all: Corruption, cover-up, alternative lifestyles, children, exploitation. Guaranteed ratings gold and guaranteed to move anything else off the front page and out of the minds of the public with the goldfish attention span.

So what is my theory? Same as the last situation. The White House "leaked" the story through aides to ABC News to keep the focus off the really important stuff . You know, the stuff that's leading us down the path towards Orwell's 1984. The old slight-of-hand technique. Misdirection. It's what these guys have done since they came into office so why should it change now? (Update: Now we know that it was Republicans that leaked the story to ABC News.) The facts show us:

• The top Republican leadership knew about the transgressions. We can assume since Denny knew, the Bushies knew.

  "I know Denny Hastert. I meet with him a lot," Bush said, speaking to reporters outside an elementary school in Stockton, Calif. "He is a father, teacher, coach, who cares about the children of this country. I know that he wants all the facts to come out."

• Who gained the most from the release of this story? I would argue that Bush and Cheney gained the most out of silencing any debate surrounding the passage of the Military Commissions bill and, in one fell swoop, the recinding of 700+ years of democratic ideals. (Watch this show on how Cheney, Rumsfeld and the others feel about the all-powerful executive.)
• They've thrown others in the past under the bus for political advantage. Most recently, Valerie Plame Wilson and Scooter Libby. But there are many, many others. Just off the top of my head: Paul O'Neill, Colin Powell, George Tenet, Richard Clarke and Bunnatine Greenhouse just to name a few.
• A steady drip of ever-more salacious IMs from Foley to "unnamed" former pages as well as changing rationales for what caused the behavior in the first place ("No, really. I was molested by a drunk priest when I was 14 while we were sharing a beer behind the altar...") It's guaranteed to keep the media focused on Foley and nothing else.
• As reported just about everywhere, Foley's problem was not exactly secret. It seems to have been one of the more well-known secrets in Washington making it easy for the Bushies to collect even more damaging information about him.

But why, you may ask, would the Bushies submarine their own chances at retaining Congress? After all, this scandal is just marring the chances of rank and file Republicans on retaining their current seats. Also, if the Congress goes Democrat, surely impeachment proceedings wouldn't be far behind so why risk it?

You could do it if you somehow knew that you were going to keep the majority in Congress after the election. As Robert Kennedy has written and an official report from Congress has shown, there were massive problems with the 2004 election and nearly all the reported problems broke in favor of Bush. That's statistically near impossible. In this upcoming election, 80% of all votes will be cast from electronic voting machines that may or may not have a paper trail for accountability. And seeing how 2 of the major vendors of electronic voting machines (ES&S and Diebold) have close connections to Republicans (covering 80%+ of deployed voting machines) and that every voting machine that has been looked at in any detail has been shown it's vulnerable to tampering, it's not so tinfoil hatish to think this election will be any different from those since Gore won the popular vote in 2000.

So, ultimately, do I really believe this is what's going on? Taken as a whole, I think it's pretty far-fetched. But, there are lots of interesting things that seem to link together which, to me, takes this theory out of "Freaky, tinfoil hatspace" and into "eerily plausible." I'll leave it to you what you think.