Nobody died in the Foley Scandal

Connecticut Republican Congressman Christopher Shays in a desperate attempt at counter-accusation dug up a Republican moldy oldy and dusted it off claiming "no one died like during the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident involving Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy".

This just shows how desperate they are getting on the other side folks...digging up 37 year old ancient history like it's recent news.

But yes, Congressman Shays you are correct, indeed, nobody died in the Foley scandal.

On the other hand there ARE recent scandals that are probably far more important in terms of their consequences where people HAVE died.

Let's examine a few, shall we?

1) For instance... on August 6th, 2001 President George W. Bush received an urgent warning entitle "Osama bin Laden determined to strike in U.S. in his Presidential Daily Briefing while on vacation at his ranch.

He had ignored the urgent warnings of the previous administration and done nothing significant to find Osama bin Laden for his first 8 months in office and made no serious efforts to deal with terrorism AFTER this warning until mere days before the attacks of September 11th, 2001 which killed 2,985 people. At this point it was far too late to make a difference.

Why don't you talk about the deaths that resulted from this scandalous dereliction of duty by President Bush?

2) Prior to August 29th, 2005, President George W. Bush received urgent warnings about the massive devastation that impending category 5 hurricane Katrina was going to inflict upon the Gulf coast - yet he failed to respond effectively either before the hurricane with mandatory evacuations using Federal resources or AFTER the event for the better part of a week AFTER it became clear to the whole world just how devastating the disaster really was.

The death toll for Katrina has been placed between 1400 and 1800. This was yet another scandalous example of dereliction of duty and sheer incompetence.

Why don't you talk about this one Congressman Shays?

3) Or worse than just dereliction of duty or incompetence, how about lies being told by government officials that lead to thousands of deaths?

The Bush Administration, including the President, the Vice President, the Secretaries of State and Defense, and the National Security Advisor conducted a concerted media campaign to frighten average Americans and members of Congress alike into believing that Iraq and Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction including chemical, biological, and nuclear capabilities and even cruise missile delivery systems allowing such weapons to be delivered to East Coast cities within 45 minutes.

None of these lies to Congress or the American people proved to be remotely true.

In the resulting war with Iraq, as of today 2985 coalition deaths have occurred (equalling the number of 9/11 dead) of which 2752 are Americans. Beyond these military dead, iraqbodycount.org conservatively places the number of Iraqi civillian deaths thus far between 43,850 and 48,693. A less conservative study released today by John Hopkins University places the number over a magnitude higher at 655,000.

Even if we only go with iraqbodycount.org's most conservative number of 43,850, that's still 43,850 Iraqi civillians who have been killed because our President and Vice President and members of his cabinet chose to tell us lies so that they could get our permission to start a war.

Why aren't you talking about THAT scandal Congressman Shays?

That's the kind of scandal that impeachments should be based upon.

Instead you feel that it is more important to discuss a 37 year old automobile accident and try to use it to equivocate with the intentional sexually inappropriate, if not outright illegal behavior of your fellow Republican Congressman - Mark Foley.

As they say in the TV business, you've "jumped the shark" Congressman Shays. No reasonable voter will accept your claim of equivalence between a 37 year old auto accident and the recent behavior of Foley.

Worse yet, the claim that "nobody died" is only going to invite comparisons to 9/11, Iraq, and Katrina that you really don't want the voters to make and only begs the voters to go places that you don't want them to go.

Nobody died, indeed.

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: Foley - Kennedy - Katrina - 9/11 - Christopher Shays - Republican moldy oldy