[UPDATE: Is it possible somebody set us up the bomb? Maybe that's why ABC mentioned that this former aid and IM buddy of Foley was getting a lawyer... For ultimate justice. Oh my. I didn't see that one coming. The Kosophiles aren't going to like this one...]

Following up on Babbin’s theme… It’s not just throwing the pass.

Quarterbacks succeed or fail in the NFL based on how well they can read defenses. A guy can be slow, fat, and not particularly adaptable, but if he can throw half decently and understands how the defense is reacting to each play, he can have a Hall of Fame career. See, e.g. Dan Marino.

Politics is the same way. People that can read the play, see how it’s developing, can do some things with it. Babbin’s right, but he’s only telling you what just happened. Here’s my read on this Foleygate/Masturgate scandal and how I think the play might develop.

First off, the players and the formation:

1) Foley is scum. Even if he isn’t a pederast as it first appeared, he hits on adolescent boys. Sorry gay community – I know this is perfectly normal behavior for a lot of you, but it’s scummy. It’s gross as shit when a 25 or 30 or 50 year old guy hits on a 17 or 18 year old girl, or even starts sending chummy emails to her at age 16; it’s just as gross when it’s some gay guy doing it to a boy of that age. Unsportsmanlike conduct, for sure.

2) Denny Hastert is getting screwed over because he’s an inside baseball “club” guy. He seemingly didn’t know much about what Foley was doing, other than cozeying up to young pages. Gay congresscritter,Republican, good committee guy… “leave him alone.” Foley was a team player, and Hastert is the ultimate coach. Coaches look out for team guys, never so much as when the team is a very exclusive club. Foley was like an over-the-hill quarterback with personal problems – coaches put up with a guy like that for a very long time, and it often gets the coach fired.

3) This doesn’t mean that Hastert doesn’t deserve to get screwed over. There is a place to be a good guy in politics, and a place to not be a good guy. When there are disturbing rumors about a committe vice chair (ironic, that term…), that’s the time to be a jerk (another ironic term) and ask the RNC to do some internal ‘research’ on the matter. He’s a smart inside player, but don’t ask him to come up with new plays.

4) The media operation side of this mess operates on two principles. a) Most people think that people under 18 are kids, and that seduction is part of sex. Therefore, seduction of a kid under 18, even if there’s little or no actual sex, is classified in most people’s minds as pederasty; b) Republicans are all slavering homophobes, and by outing gay staffers and Members, the Dems can create a landslide. “Look at the Republican Congress, you Republican rank and file… why those members are a pack of queers! Now go vote Dem!” That’s how the defense reads the offense. It’s only a good read if the offense is dumb enough to fall into it.

5) This whole operation reeks of John Aravosis, who, when he’s not busy slavering over Bill Clinton’s eyes, likes to out conservative political figures. They may have a Log Cabin-type leaker spilling some of the beans, but this sounds like something he’d do. It’s like the West Coast Offense… West Coast coaches all talk about talking to Bill Walsh, because they have to hit up the mentor for advice. He’s the only guy that really gets it. Aravosis and another chap in chaps named Rogers have made a name for themselves in D.C. outing Republican pols. I’d love to see their email logs right about now. If this ain’t the West Coast / San Francisco offense, then it’s a pass happy knockoff of it…

6) The Republicans are in panic mode because they rather stupidly believe the Democrats’ premises. The first premise is correct – most Americans think a 50+ year-old hitting on anybody under 35 is kind if icky. And as for the second… why, everybody knows, the American conservatives would never tolerate politicians who are gay, or rumored to be gay, who have gay friends, staff or family members. It’s always a mistake when the offense starts the game believing the hype about the defense.

The Play. Here’s how I think it’s going to unfold.

1) Either there are a bunch more revelations about Foley, or this was the best they had. I think the Dems have already shot their wad on this. The revelations are getting tamer and tamer by the day. It started out with pederasty, then it became hitting on a 16 year old – legal in the District – then it turned into friendly emails, followed later by disgusting IMs. Now the IM’s were only sent to a kid who was 17 and older, and the sex IMs may not have started until he was 18, two years out of the page program, and an adult for the purposes of this kind of thing. In other words, we may be looking at a Seinfeldian scandal here, and unless the Dems can start ginning up some increasingly incriminating evidence – sex emails to a 15 year old, or similar IMs – then they’ve already given the best they have. That’s what I suspect.

2) The next Dem play is to howl for greater and greater exposure of what Republicans knew (about what may have been a legal, albeit disgusting and non-legally predatory activity) and when they knew it. The Republicans will fold. They are on the wrong side of the “For The Children” battle here, aka the Edelman Line. It’s like pissing off the refs – it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do, if you get on the wrong side of the Edelman Line, you must be against children. You bastard! So the Republicans will fold when the Dems start screaming for heads, for emails, for memos and everything else.

3) Like a screen pass or a draw play, this Republican retreat will open up two opportunities. Both are predicated on taking advantage of what the Democrats instinctively do, which is to overplay and overpursue, to blitz like crazy. When the Dems sense the Republicans are retreating, they will demand more and more emails, memos, IM logs, and everything else. The Republicans should keep dropping back, and agree. Then they should attack deep. The deep attack is to call for a broad audit of the page program, to look at all emails and IM’s associated with congressional members and staff, and the pages. Volunteer to let them help pick a panel of senior federal judges to oversee the production of the emails, to screen out any privileged legislative materials. “But we have to do it… for the children.” This will take the Dems aback, knock them on their heels, and force them to react quickly. The Republicans would need to take the high ground immediately – “this is a Congressional problem, not a Dem or Republican problem. Help us help the Children. Please. (“Saaaaave the wooooooorrrrrrlllldd, do they know it’s Christmas time…”) The Dems would realize they were had, they overplayed, and the Republicans could take the offensive. Like the screen pass, this one is dangerous; screen passes are easily picked off and returned for touchdowns. The pickoff here is along with the crooked Dems, we find a couple crooked Republicans here too. Well, maybe that’s not a pickoff, maybe it’s an incomplete pass. The positive to playing it this way is that as long as Foley and a couple friends are the only guys engaging in this behavior, the worst possible result is a broken play for no net loss. Of course if a bunch of gay republican hebephiles are uncovered…

4) The second play is more modest but operates on the same principle. The draw play here is to let the Dems overpursue, produce enough materials on Foley to show what seems to be self-evident – he’s a perv, a creep, seems (possibly) to have not broken the law, and he’s fired. Let that message squirt out like Edgerrin James shooting up the middle on the tailback draw. Let all the Dems run into the backfield and scream – he’ll hopefully be bouncing up the field. Sure, fumbles are always a risk on the draw play. And there’s always the risk that some new heretofore unknown emails or IM’s surface, stopping the play at the line of scrimmage with a lucky hit. But it’s better than dropping back 15 steps, and then getting sacked.

5) Worst comes to worst, there’s always running ads of Barney Frank and Gerry Studs. This is intentional grounding and you still lose 5 yards, but at least it tends to stop the play.

Keep in mind, these possible plays work because the Dems are in a 3-5 set. They have a ton of linebackers in play here – a bunch of Lavar Arringtons. They aren’t doing the ground work to convince people their policies are the best, they don’t know how to finesse this national security issue cornerback style, so they are looking for enormous hits to produce Republican fumbles. The same basic tactics of giving a little and then attacking as the Dems overpursue should work on a number of issues.

The worst thing the Republicans could do at this point is to panic, or to quit.

That appears to be what they are doing.

Keep in mind, I’m giving you my perceptions on this stuff not because I am urging you to vote “R,” but because I think it’s interesting to sit back and try to figure out how they could play it for a win. The Dems scummy tactics of the last couple days almost have me irritated enough to hold my nose and vote “R” in a few weeks, but I’m not quite there yet. There is a real scandal here, and it’s the Republicans putting up with a creep and pervert they knew about for a long time, and the leadership being too stupid to pick up on some pretty blatant signals about what was going on – and buying into the judgment of one gay staffer for the gay congressman that the emails hitting on a 16 year-old weren’t that bad, was catastrophically stupid. I’m sure Andy Sullivan and the staffer would have viewed the emails as being identically harmless, but unfortunately for the Republicans (and for the Democrats) most of their constituents would not feel the same way. I’m not sure the Republicans in Congress are smart enough to be running the country in wartime and it makes me think we need some new Republicans. Unless and until the primaries start going to somebody other than the Party’s annointed ones, we won’t get it, so unseating Republicans in favor of Dems for a couple years may be the best way of doing it. I’m undecided though. Right now, I’m just enjoying the horse race.