ABC's Brian Ross is now squeezing the last little drops out of the Mark Foley IMs—to—teenage—boys story. The Democrats know they must hold down GOP voter turnout less than three weeks from now. We know how they operate. They're going to drop more stinkbombs just before the election, too late for the smear targets to respond. It's as predictable as a Kabuki play.

The only question is: What will the stinkbomb be?

I call it Foley II. It has to be a story that smears all Republicans by the sins of a few. It can't be just another foreign policy leak ——— voters discount those by now;  it tends to remind them about 9/11, the Nork nukes, and the sinister mullahs getting ready to wipe Israel off the map. It can't be a story on the economy, not a truthful one. Sure, all those fake stories will be tried, but the Democrats need a Stink Nuke. Since they seem to believe the GOP is filled with high—hatted Puritans straight out of Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter,  it's got to be a sex story.

Power attracts sex. There are bound to be some surprising bedfellows in the giant gossip factory that is Washington, D.C. The Gay Left has now made it ok to "out" Gay Republicans against their will, just as the feminist Left made it ok to for Democrat presidents to play degrading sex games with 19—year old interns in the Oval Office. The press corps is so jaded that it has to be something truly rotten — even by the very low standards of the public culture of 2006. There is no question that the Democrats have a collection of rotten tomatoes to throw. Republicans know something is coming. They are acting spooked.

I don't know what it's going to be, but I'll bet some kind of GOP sex scandal will swamp  the media in the next two and a half weeks.

James Lewis    10 18 06