Dance of the Reptiles (36 page)

And at some point, she’ll sit down with Diane Sawyer
or Oprah, and we’ll get to hear a brand-new version of poor Caylee’s death.

Millions and millions of people will watch the interview, after which a group of big-haired experts will tell us what it all means. Don’t be shocked to see a Kardashian on the panel.

PARTY WITH THE FRINGE ON TOP

August 24, 2003

Fringe Embraces “Martyr”

The man who did more damage to the anti-abortion cause than anybody in history is at peace with himself. Paul Hill, sitting on Florida’s Death Row, says he’s glad that he murdered an abortion doctor and would do it again.

Fortunately, he’ll never get the chance. He’s scheduled to die on September 3.

Opponents of capital punishment are asking Gov. Jeb Bush to halt the execution because it could make Hill a martyr to pro-life extremists.

Crackpot websites are hailing him as a patriot and a hero and warn that his death will bring bloodshed to other abortion providers, judges, and politicians. Last week, single rifle bullets were anonymously sent to prison officials, Attorney General Charlie Crist, and the judge who sentenced Hill.

Here’s what brave Mr. Hill did to earn his martyrdom: On July 29, 1994, he carried a loaded shotgun to the Pensacola Ladies Center and blasted Dr. John Britton; his driver, retired Air Force Lt. Col. James Barrett; and Barrett’s wife, June. Barrett, 74, and Britton, 69, died.

If mowing down senior citizens with a 12-gauge doesn’t seem especially courageous or noble, remember that Hill was only following God’s orders. That’s what he said, anyway.

At trial, the former Presbyterian minister sought to portray his actions as justifiable homicide committed on behalf of the helpless unborn. The judge nixed that defense, noting that the operations performed by Dr. Britton were legal.

A Panhandle jury wasted no time convicting Hill, and mainstream anti-abortion groups wasted no time renouncing his crimes. Still, the assassination was a nightmare for a political movement that has claimed as its moral cornerstone
a reverence for human life. The overwhelming majority of Americans who oppose abortion take a similar view of murder, and a homicidal fanatic like Hill is the worst possible poster boy for their cause.

Not surprisingly, the freak fringe has embraced him. “God’s prophet,” enthused one Maryland preacher, while an anti-abortion newsletter called Hill “an authentic Christian martyr, whose death proves the government of the United States has been enslaved by the forces of Satan.”

If these drool-flecked screeds sound familiar, it’s because the news these days is full of instant martyrs. You hear the same righteous pseudo-religious tripe about the suicide bombers in Israel and Baghdad; about the dead Hussein brothers; about the 19 creeps who hijacked those jetliners on September 11, 2001.

You’ll hear more if and when Osama bin Laden ever gets whacked—remember, he’s only trying to save the Islamic world from us wicked Western devils. Like Hill, all wannabe martyrs claim to be true believers. And they all try to justify their cowardly deeds with selected quotes from holy books—the first refuge of hypocrites and the oldest alibi for slaughter.

In a letter to the
Herald
, Hill wrote, “Yes, the Lord is giving me a generous measure of peace and joy as I anticipate my departure. My confidence is not in anything that I have done, but in the righteous life and the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross.”

Even as he plays the Jesus card, Hill concedes that “only a relatively small number of people” have voiced support for the Britton murder. Gee, what a surprise. Predictably, Hill’s sparse following has found a nest on the Internet, where the dumb notion of mailing bullets to public officials first caught on. Evidently, some rare editions of the Bible now include The Book of Remington.

In one online diatribe, an anti-abortion activist even compared Jeb Bush to Pontius Pilate. At least one death message has been sent to the governor, who told the
Herald
: “I get threatened all of the time. The execution goes on as planned.”

Ironically, Bush is a longtime opponent of abortion. He’s also a supporter of capital punishment. Being simultaneously pro-life and pro-death isn’t easy to explain, but plenty of conservatives—including the governor’s older brother—take that position.

In Hill’s case, the law is unambiguous about punishment. Bush would set a reckless precedent by sparing a cold-blooded killer out of sympathy for a cause, or out of fear that his execution might instigate more shootings. If, as Hill’s supporters predict, his death touches off a new “torrent” of violence against abortion providers, the pro-life movement might never recover from the backlash. On both sides of both issues (abortion and capital punishment) there are lots of decent, thoughtful people who don’t feel the need to shoot somebody to advance a viewpoint.

Paul Hill is no better than any common terrorist, pious, unrepentant, and blind to his own hypocrisy. The guilt-free inner serenity that he claims to enjoy is precisely what you’d expect from a malfunctioning moral compass.

Note: Paul Hill was executed by lethal injection on Sept. 3, 2003
.

October 8, 2006

Foley Contrite, but Only After He Got Caught

New rule for all members of Congress: Keep your hands where we can see ’em.

In a dubious feat of multitasking, then-Rep. Mark Foley
engaged in online sex with a former congressional page in April 2003 while Foley was on the floor of the House of Representatives, preparing to vote on an appropriations bill for Iraq.

Afterward, Foley asked for a “good kiss good night,” and suggested that the boy visit him over the Veteran’s Day weekend. “We may need to drink at my house so we don’t get busted,” Foley chirped.

Now unmasked and disgraced, Foley has rabbited off to rehab, where he is said to be remorseful, shattered, etc. Meanwhile, his lawyer spins a woeful tale of an unnamed clergyman who supposedly abused Foley in his youth. Whatever. It’s not as if the West Palm Beach Republican voluntarily marched forward and confessed to making lewd passes at high school boys. He got contrite only after he got caught.

Even if Foley really has an alcohol problem, which would be news to many of his friends, it doesn’t alter the unforgivable fact that he used his position as a congressman to troll for teenage sex partners. A congressman who bragged about his high marks from the Christian Coalition and American Conservative Union, a congressman who co-chaired the caucus on missing and exploited children, railing against Internet pedophiles … Perfect cover for the secret Foley, who was sending out electronic messages asking, among other things, for a young male page to provide the measurements of his penis.

That’s not a drunk talking. That’s a predator.

Foley has disappeared into Detox Mansion, but no such refuge is available to the Republican House leadership. With each day’s tawdry headlines, Speaker Dennis Hastert struggles to appear suitably shocked and disgusted, while clinging to his job like a bear up a tree. His credibility is zero, his memory worse than Condoleezza Rice’s. Kirk Fordham, Foley’s
ex–chief of staff, says he warned the speaker’s office three years ago that Foley was getting too chummy with the pages.

Hastert denies it. Three other top Republican lawmakers say they told him last spring about a troubling Foley e-mail. Hastert says his colleagues spoke not with him but with his staff and that nobody passed the information along to him. Either the speaker’s lying or his staff is full of chowderheads.

The incident involved a 16-year-old page from Louisiana who was disturbed by chatty online messages from Foley that included a request for the boy’s photo. “Sick … sick … sick … sick,” the teen had typed in response. “Overly friendly” was how the congressman later described it.

You know—like when your neighbor’s poodle gets overly friendly with your leg.

The page’s parents complained to Rep. Rodney Alexander of Louisiana, who told Majority Leader Rep. John Boehner and New York Rep. Thomas Reynolds. All have said they informed Hastert, whose recollections might be less hazy if Foley were not a member of his own party.

Foley was eventually questioned by House officials, and he agreed to stop communicating with the page. Hastert said the matter was handled quietly because neither the page nor his family wished to publicize it.

In defending himself, the speaker noted that editors at two Florida newspapers—
The St. Petersburg Times
and
The Miami Herald—knew
the content of the 2005 e-mail and decided not to write anything. It wasn’t a stellar moment for the
Times
or this paper, although nailing down the story would have been difficult—but not impossible—without the teen’s cooperation.

Hastert or any of the GOP big shots who knew of the e-mail were in a better position to investigate; with a single call, they could have put the FBI on Foley’s computer trail to
find out if there was a pattern to his creepy correspondence. As it turned out, there was a pattern. The congressman (aka “MAF54”) resigned abruptly after Brian Ross of ABC News confronted him with graphically sexual electronic messages that he’d sent to an ex-page in 2003 and 2004.

More such revelations are bound to seep out in the days ahead, which is grim news for GOP incumbents as the midterm election approaches. This, after all, is the party that has declared itself morally superior; the party that lectures all of us about conservative family values; the party embraced by the Christian right as God’s political arm in America. The party that spent $47 million of taxpayer money investigating the Clintons, ultimately impeaching the president for lying about consensual sex with an adult woman who wasn’t his wife.

How much will these pious stiffs spend to ferret out the truth about one of their own who sought out underage boys? Will they bring back Ken Starr to track down those on Capitol Hill who knew what Foley was doing?

The young page who received that request for a photo last year thought it was sick, sick, sick, sick.

But not sick enough to concern the Republican leaders who shrugged it off. They were waiting for something sicker, and now they’ve got it.

September 2, 2007

Sen. Craig Tells What Really Happened …

Rejected first draft of Sen. Larry Craig’s press statement about his arrest in a restroom at the Minneapolis airport
.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming out today.

I’m not.

Joined by my devoted wife, I’m here to assure the citizens
of the great state of Idaho that I am not gay and never have been gay.

How do I know?

Because every week I answer a simple are-you-gay survey that I clipped out of a reputable underground men’s magazine and carry around in my very masculine rawhide wallet.

The survey questions are pretty easy: Can I whistle more than three Broadway show tunes? Do I tint my eyebrows? Can I make a quiche? Stuff like that.

The most points I’ve ever scored is 73, and you aren’t officially gay unless you score 75 or higher. So there!

As an outspoken crusader for conservative family values, I have extensively researched the gay lifestyle and trained myself to identify its sinister operatives. I usually remain on guard, but my concentration lapsed that fateful day in the Minneapolis airport. Let me explain.

Yes, as the police report says, I peeked into an adjoining stall in the men’s room. That’s because I thought I recognized the gentleman—he looked like a strapping young trout guide who once floated the Snake River with me—and I wanted to say howdy. That’s the extra-friendly Idahoan coming out in me, but apparently, the rules are different in the big city. The fellow rudely ignored me, so I sat down to take care of business.

As the police report states, I did start tapping my right foot. I have since come to learn that that is a common signal for persons wishing to make sexual contact in public restrooms. In my case, the explanation is totally innocent. There was this song playing on my iPod—“Vogue,” by Madonna (the live version!)—and my feet just went crazy to the beat. Now, I defy anyone, Democrat or Republican, to listen to that cut (the drum work is absolutely fierce!) and not start to boogie.

And yes, as the police report alleges, my right foot veered
slightly under the divider and touched the foot of the gentleman who was in the next stall. Later, I found out that this is another sign often employed between men trying to “hook up.” Who knew?

Back in Crested Butte, you might get your teeth knocked out for playing footsies with another guy, but you wouldn’t get arrested and have your name splashed all over the headlines and end up as a joke in Letterman’s monologue. Geez Louise!

The police complaint goes on to say that I put my left hand under the stall divider three times, making an overt gesture to the other fellow (who, unfortunately, turned out to be an undercover officer).

Again, I have a simple explanation. There’s a little-known cowboy custom—even some cowboys haven’t heard of it—that says you always wave three times when saying goodbye to strangers. Once more, my western friendliness got me into trouble.