1115.org

While there are certainly a lot of issues out there that would make the President a pretty unpopular guy, the recent numbers seem to show that the Mark Foley scandal hasn’t left the White House immune to the nonsense that is brewing in the House.

Many of the President’s supporters are shocked, just shocked, that the Foley scandal would have such a wide reach. After all, President Bush wasn’t part of this. And there’s every possibility that he knew nothing about it until the story broke. So why are people seemingly assigning blame to him?

The situation reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend during the 2000 election campaigns. My friend’s mother, who had long been a self-identified Democrat, had decided to switch sides and vote for Bush over Al Gore. Why? Because she was disgusted by the Bill Clinton sex scandal, and voting against Gore would be her moral statement—this despite the fact that Clinton’s blowjob-and-cigar activities had absolutely nothing to do with Gore’s character or how he would run the country. I highly doubt that my friend’s mother was the only person who felt that way.

But that’s the thing with big sex scandals; they have the ability to strip logical thought away from voters, who are more than willing to turn on politicians who aren’t connected to it except by shared party orientation. How much blame will voters feel they have to assess this November?