Protection racket?

Republicans are often bellowing about family values and offering to protect us, the unwashed masses, from the evildoers that wish to prey on us.

Apparently the offer does not extend to protecting us, the unwashed masses, from the republican lawmakers and sympathizers themselves. That is too bad when you consider the conduct of the following men:

James Dale Guckert (a.k.a Jeff Gannon) was given whitehouse press credentials to ask softball-questions. He, it seems, "... had previously worked as a $200-an-hour gay prostitute who advertised himself on a series of websites with names such as hotmilitary stud.com" (Source).

Ted Arthur Haggard, former evengelical preacher, seems to have solicited a male prostitute and dabbled with drugs (Source). He was exposed by Mike Jones because..."This was a man who talked to Bush once a week. This was a man who actively campaigned against gay marriage. And he could not even abide by his own marriage vows." (Source)

U.S. Representative Mark Foley, crusader against child exploitation, whom "resigned from Congress on September 29, 2006 after allegations surfaced that he had sent suggestive emails and sexually explicit instant messages to teenaged boys who had formerly served as Congressional pages" (Source)

U.S. Senator David Bruce Vitter "In early July 2007, Vitter's phone number was included in a published list of phone records of Pamela Martin and Associates, a company owned and run by Deborah Jeane Palfrey, also known as the "D.C. Madam", which is accused by the U.S. government of being a prostitution service." (Source)

Florida Representative Bob Allen, was arrested on the afternoon of July 11, 2007 at Veterans Memorial Park in Titusville, Florida for solicitation of prostitution. According to published news reports, Allen "offer[ed] to perform oral sex for $20.00" on an African-American male undercover officer inside a public restroom. (Source)

I think the next time a republican town-square moralist comes to defend our purity from corruption that we ought to keep in mind the lessons implicit in the above stories.

To wit, Mitt Romney is the current golden boy of virtue even though he belongs to an organization that was officially racist until June 6, 1978 (Source) and has (like the Catholic church) provided a safe-haven for child molesters (Source).

Here is a look at one of Mitt's latest ads. Could he be another wolf in grandma's bed?