Tony Blankley Blows Goats for Spare Change

Tony Blankley is the editor of the Washington Times — not to be confused with the Washington Post, New York Times, or Los Angeles Times — and an avowed Republican partisan. He worked for the Goldwater campaign in 1964, served in the White House under Ronald Reagan, and was Newt Gingrich's press secretary. He took a principled stand by calling for House Speaker Dennis Hastert to resign his leadership position because of the way he handled the Mark Foley allegations:, but he loses all semblance of principles when he begins discussing the Democrats in relation to the scandal and its timing.

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In this case, defending Denny Hastert's decisions is ethically wrong, would undermine our party's commitment to the defense of traditional moral values and is politically stupid in the bargain.

I have known Denny for almost two decades. He is an exceedingly decent man and a hard worker for conservative Republican values and politics. But we cannot deny the fact that he had a sustained lapse of good judgment. The fact that he reportedly has been quite ill for some time may be an explanation — but not an excuse.

However, he loses all semblance of principles when he begins discussing the Democrats in relation to the scandal and its timing:

The fact that Democrats might also cover up such facts is just another reason why I am a Republican. Republicans do stand for sound moral values.

Republicans stand for "sound moral values," huh, Tony? The Republican Party ceaselessly talks about their narrow vision of "moral values," but they don't do a very good job of practicing what they preach. Take Tony's former boss Newt Gingrich, for example. His wife was lying in a hospital bed, recovering from her third cancer surgery. Newt came to her bedside — to serve her with divorce papers! Later, he divorced his second wife in order to marry the aide with whom he had been having an affair. That's just one example that hits close to Tony Blankley, but I could go on and on.

But this may end up being embarrassing to the Democrats, too. It is implausible that ABC got a hold of this information on their own and just happened to broadcast it on the last day of the congressional session.

While I don't have any proof, I will be amazed if Democratic operatives and at least a few Democratic congressmen didn't know about this and fed it to the media through various obscure blogs and to ABC. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) (just like the National Republican Congressional Committee) is in the business of disseminating negative information before elections, among other things.

Well, Tony, while I don't have any proof, I will be amazed if you don't blow goats for spare change. It's an equally well-founded accusation. Be careful throwing conspiracy theories around, Tony, because you might lend credibility to some of the real conspiracies, like Bush's conspiracy to eliminate all checks on Presidential power.

Quotes are from Tony Blankley's column "Republican integrity" in the Washington Times, 2006-10-04; emphasis added by The Third Path.

Technorati tags: Washington Times, Tony Blankley, Mark Foley, Republicans, Democrats, Politics

See also: "Tony Blankley Foretells the End of His Own Career," 2006-02-12