Mr. Foley,

I really don’t have anything to say to you that hasn’t been said, but in spite of the fact that my mother’s health is monopolizing my thoughts today, I didn’t want you to think you’d escaped my notice. That said, I’d like to offer up a little family story and a bit of advice.

A few years ago, my son and I were hustling our way down the interstate and were closely following one of those big trucks…one that was so tastefully decorated with “SHOW ME YOUR TITS” repeatedly scrawled in the dust and dirt that covered the entire trailer. We were stuck behind this truck for miles, with no way around the thing, with no other view than “SHOW ME YOUR TITS.” Finally, the traffic in the left lane subsided long enough for me to dart into the lane and accelerate to pass the truck.

When I changed lanes, my son took off his seat belt and leaned up in his seat…I was focusing on driving at the moment, so I didn’t immediately lapse into my “what the fuck are you doing” speech. When we got almost even with the cab of the truck, my son reached over, honked our horn, turned back towards the truck and lifted his shirt, exposing his bare, adolescent boy chest. Technically, the truck driver got that for which he asked, although he’d probably hoped for something a bit older, more substantial, and of a different gender; as a result, he laughed his ass off (we all did, in fact), and I bet you that he washed his truck of all of its…filth.

That said, Mr. Foley, rest assured, no matter how bad you think things are, you were wise never to tangle with my son. Dylan would’ve given you exactly what you wanted but he’d have made you wished you’d never asked. You’ve been shamed, I know, but nothing like my son would’ve done to you.

I know, I know…just like that truck driver, what you did was likely not illegal. However, Mister, it is off the fucking charts on both The Ickiness Scale and The Politician Betrayal of Trust Scale…Yes, we heard you were drunk (in private) when you sent those e-mails and IM’s…oh wait…no, poor folks with no voice get drunk…so, um, yeah, you were just in the throes of your well-hidden “alcoholism” when it all happened.

But, Mr. Foley, I gotta give you some advice. I’m from the South, the Deep South, Dixie, I mean, not that fake-ass south like Florida where you call home, but I mean The Heart of Dixie South…and we know drunks, er, alcoholics when we see ‘em. You don’t qualify.

Alcoholics are the ones who piss themselves, wake up in the middle of a cornfield, and have a half-empty bottle of evidence spilling out onto their floorboard. You, however, didn’t seem to drink enough to pass out, lose control of bodily functions, behave erratically, or even misspell. That means you ain’t a drunk…I mean an alcoholic. Moreover, how pathetic do you have to be to be so far down on the likeability scale that you aspire to rise to the status of someone with a substance-abuse problem? Fuck, you’re lower than low.

So when that excuse got you nowhere, you tried one more: you are a victim of the same type of sexual predator that we all fear you may truly be, the one against whom you made all those speeches and such. Well, you should probably call Rush Limbaugh on this one, but the long and short of it is this: don’t ask for our sympathy after you’ve staked your very-public reputation on fighting the very thing that you are.

I guess, on top of all this, I am very disturbed by what appears to be a cover-up of your, um, shenanigans by your Republican cronies. I don’t know that Democrats would’ve acted any differently if they were struggling to hang onto control of Congress, but had they done so, they, too, would’ve (rightfully) lost a few seats in both the House and the Senate. Or maybe not. On second thought, you and your ilk have long portrayed us as a passel of amoral, Godless heathens, so if we’d have done what your party appears to have done to protect you and your seat (both your literal and figurative seat), we’d have simply been confirming our reputation, right? But when you do it, you fucking rattle your base, all those neo-cons and social conservatives who were, just last week, so convinced that God was on their side—and now, they're not so sure that anyone is on their side; although they likely won’t vote for a Democrat, they’re likely to not vote at all. This is what you call political fallout, Sir. So I don’t know when Denny Hastert knew what, but at this point, I’m not sure that it matters nor do I think it necessary that he resign; I think you absolutely have assured he won’t be Speaker of the House in the very near future.

Finally, I wish I could thank you for your almost-gift-wrapped concession of control of the House of Representatives, but I am still enough of an idealist to think that the end doesn’t always justify the means. I wish the Democrats would’ve taken control in an election that wasn’t darkened by your (rather creepy) shadow.

Best,

A