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Enter Newt

In their campaign to defend former Republican Congressman Mark Foley and high-level Republicans such as House Speaker Dennis Hastert who refused to do anything about Foley’s sexually-explicit messages to teen-age boys and invitations to meet in person, conservatives like Newt Gingrinch [that’s not a spelling error – he is a grinch, to say the least, and by the way, why the hell would anyone name their chid Newt?] are lying their asses off, as usual.

Republicans want everyone else to take responsibility for their actions, but when it comes to one of their own, their motto is: Blame Democrats or anyone else. Foley blamed alcohol and a priest for his predatory behavior. Hastert blamed “liberals” for his role in the Foley scandal cover-up. Gingrinch lied that Democratic sex scandals are worse than Republicans molesting kids, then could not cite any such Democratic scandals. The usual one conservatives cite – Monicagate – is old and boring and involved adults.

Fox News outright lied by labeling Foley as a Democrat. Blogger Matt Drudge blamed a victim. Others tried to divert attention by citing the name of Gerry Studds, a former Democratic representative from Massachusetts who in 1983 was censured by the House for having sex with a 17-year-old male page.

That’s right, Republican researchers had to reach way back to 1983 to find a Democratic politician who sexually preyed on underaged teens, although someone pointed out to me that 17 was the consenting age in D.C. then. That tells you something about how relatively few Democratic pedophiles there are compared with Republican ones. Some critics say that Republican pedophilia is even official, that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the rape of children in Iraqi prisons to humiliate their parents into providing information about the insurgency.

As usual, Republicans who bring up Studds have a selective memory. Also in 1983, former Rep. Daniel Crane, an Illinois Republican, admitted to having an affair with a 17-year-old female page. Conservatives like Rush Limbaugh bring up Studds but surely not Crane.

For every Studds that the conservative hypocrites bring up, I can bring up five or six Republicans arrested or convicted just in recent years for sexually preying on underaged boys or girls.

There is Texas Republican advertising consultant Carey Lee Cramer, who was sentenced in June 2006 to six years in prison for molesting two 8-year-old girls, one of whom appeared in an anti-Al Gore television commercial. There is Republican County Chairman Armando Tebano of New York, who was arrested in June 2006 and charged with sexually molesting a 14-year-old girl. There is Tom Adams, the Republican mayor of an Illinois city, who was arrested earlier this year for distributing child pornography over the internet.

There is the Republican human resources director of the arch-conservative Washington Times, 53-year-old Randall Casseday, who was arrested in Sept. 2006 on charges of soliciting a teenager for sex on the Internet. He had allegedly arranged to meet what he believed was a 13-year-old girl he had been corresponding with online, but that person turned out to be a D.C. police official.

There is former Waterbury, Conn., Republican Mayor Philip Giordano, who was sentenced to 37 years in federal prison in 2003 for sexually abusing two girls, ages 8 and 10. There is Republican Constable Larry Dale Floyd, who won several elections in Denton County, Texas, before he was arrested in July 2005 and charged with sexual solicitation of a an 8-year-old girl. A grand jury indicted him on three counts of possession of child pornography.

There is former Republican Monroe County, Pa., judge Mark Pazuhanich, who pleaded no contest in 2004 to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation. There is Robert “Bobby” Stumbo, a former Republican Party chairman in Kentucky, who was arrested in 2005 and charged with sexual abuse involving a 5-year-old boy.

The Republican chairman of the Oregon Christian Coalition, Lou Beres, admitted in a police report that was released during a lawsuit filed in March 2006 that he molested a 13-year-old female relative. Beres, who once ran for a seat on the Republican National Committee, also acknowledged sexually touching a teen-aged friend of his daughter’s.

Former Republican Constable Larry Dale Floyd, who won several election in Denton County, Texas, was arrested in July 2005 and charged with sexual solicitation of a an 8-year-old girl. A grand jury indicted him on three counts of possession of child pornography. Former Republican Monroe County, Pa., judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest in 2004 to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation. Robert “Bobby” Stumbo, a former Republican Party chairman in Kentucky, was arrested in 2005 and charged with sexual abuse involving a 5-year-old boy.

A Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups in Montana, Richard A. Dasen Sr., was arrested in 2004 and later found guilty of raping a 15-year old girl. Dasen allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women. California Republican petition drive company owner Tom Randall pleaded guilty in 2002 to molesting two girls under the age of 14, one of them the daughter of an associate in the petition business. He served six months in jail and another three months on a work crew.

Republican former New Jersey city councilman John Collins pleaded guilty in 2005 to sexually molesting two teen-age girls. New Hampshire Republicans repeatedly hired convicted child molester Mark Seidensticker to work on the campaigns. The Republican Mayor of a New York city, John Gosek, was arrested in 2005 on charges of soliciting sex from two 15-year old girls. A former Republican County Commissioner in Ohio, David Swartz, pleaded guilty in 2004 to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.

The former speaker of Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives, Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo, was arrested in 2002 and sentenced to 10 years in prison for raping his daughter. Former Kansas Republican zoning supervisor and Lutheran church leader Dennis L. Rader pleaded guilty to performing a sexual act on an 11-year old girl he murdered. Iowa Republican pastor Mike Hintz, whom George W. Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign, was arrested in 2004 for having sex with a female juvenile.

Randy Ankeney was a rising star in Colorado Republican circles who held a $63,000 position in the Governor’s Office of Economic Development until he was arrested in 2001 and accused of trying to have sex with a 13-year-old girl he met through the Internet. Another 17-year-old girl said Ankeney sexually assaulted her while working on a political campaign. In 2002, he pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault of a child and was sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2003.

Parker J. Bena, a Virginia Republican activist who proudly cast one of his state’s electoral vote for Bush in 2000, was indicted for possessing child pornography in 2001. Bena was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000. Long-time Virginia Republican fund-raiser Richard Delgaudio was more fortunate. He only received two years probation in 2003 after pleading guilty to taking sexually-related photos of a 16-year-old girl in a motel room.

Republican Marty Glickman of Florida, one of those rabid dog conservative talk radio commentators who rail on about the lack of morals, was arrested in 2001 and charged with giving drugs like LSD and money to underaged girls in exchange for sex. Kevin T. Coan, a Republican who formerly directed the St. Louis Election Board, was charged in 2001 with trying to solicit sex from a 14-year-old girl in cyberspace.

None of this is new. The late Republican Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with an underaged black girl in the 1920s, a union that resulted in a child. Republican activist Lawrence E. King, Jr. and Republican lobbyist Craig J. Spence organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.

Other prominent Republican pedophiles include former Congressmen Donald “Buz” Lukens and Robert Bauman, and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell.

The list of conservative sexual predators goes on and on and on at http://www.armchairsubversive.com/

So while conservatives point at Democratic sex scandals, I say the evidence shows that there are more Republican pedophiles than Democratic ones. I find Republican sexual scandals more appalling than Democratic transgressions after all the Republicans did to expose Clinton’s private life – even spending upwards of $100 million of tax money – in the 1990s.

Ultimately, the Clinton affair was none of our business–it wasn’t a crime since Monica was of legal age. All that crap about obstruction of justice was bullshit since it was a civil lawsuit filed by a conservative legal outfit that forced the issue. Clinton should have never been forced to answer such a lawsuit until he was out of the White House, if then. Since the Republicans forced this morality issue on us, Democrats should turn the tables whenever they get the chance.

Especially when the issue is protecting children from Republican sexual predators.

JACKSON THOREAU is a Washington, D.C.-area journalist/writer. His latest book, “Born to Cheat: How Bush, Cheney, Rove & Co. Broke the Rules, From the Sandlot to the White House,” is due out in late 2006. He can be contacted at jacksonthor@gmail.com.