Something That Needs to Happen

I know George Allen has taken boatloads of cash from many questionable people for whom he has performed certain favors (Big Oil, Enron, etc.) but pedophiles? I was going to leave Allen out of this Mark foley debacle until I found out that Allen recieved $2000 from Foley. Is that a problem? No. You can't expect a candidate to know every detail about a person who donates money to their campaign. However, now that Allen does know about Foley (I'm giving Allen the benefit of the doubt that he didn't know before Friday - although for a less charitable take on this, see below), why has he not returned Foley's $2000? This seems ridiculously simple to me: 1) You find out a pedophile has given you money, 2) You return said money to said pedophile, 3) People no longer associate you with a pedophile. End of list. And its $2K! Allen supposedly has $9 million (minus whatever he is pissing away with his post-Seinfeld-rerun-bathroom-break "address" tonight)! How in love with cash do you have to be to not return this money? Also, WHY WOULD YOU STILL WANT IT? But I digress. As to the issue of whether Allen knew or not, who can say? All I know is that I learned this weekend that there is no doubt that House Republicans knew that Foley was gay. It was an open topic of conversation. I even learned that Foley did not have Congressional plates on his car because he (or the Republicans?) didn't want him to be spotted when he was trolling gay areas. Is this a big deal? No. (Unless you are gay and find something offensive about a closeted gay man voting against marriage rights for gays.) Its sad that he's denied who he is for so long (and that he now seems to be blaming alcohol for making him gay), but it illustrates that secrets like this can be hid by many people when it is politically expedient for them to do so. I'm pretty sure that many in Congress knew about his inappropriate behavior towards pages and those people need to be exposed and removed from office. So, George Allen needs to return Foley's money immediately, as do all Republicans. Allen especially needs to since he ran this commercial pimping his record of keeping children safe: It feels kind of creepy watching this now. I certainly feel safer knowing that George Allen worked with a pedophile to protect children from pedophiles. [Worked together to raise money, too.] [Disclaimer: I think I may be losing some objectivity on this as it is so infuriating. Republicans can't protect teenagers in the US Capital from themselves and we are supposed to trust them to protect us from terrorists? It sounds like they are too busy playing grab-ass up on the Hill and then covering it up to take care of anything else.] They need to go now. These people have forfeited their right to govern time after time. On November 7th we need to explain accountability to them. Update: Allen will give Foley's money to a charity. Good for him. Unfortunately, the National Republican Congressional Committee will be keeping the $550,000 in contributions it recieved from Foley. "We will be using the money like every other contribution — to help elect Republicans across the country." Disgusting. Once again we see that the only thing they care about is their team winning. Republicans should raise hell over this. To contribute to Jim Webb for Senate, click James Webb, VA-Sen, Virginia, Virginia Politics, Politics, Jim Webb, News, 2006, Senate, George Allen, 2006 Races, Democrats, Republicans, Campaigns, Congress, Campaigns-Elections, macaca