Grrrrr.

So I was almost finished typing my first big blog entry on the pertinent yet little discussed issue of "Does America need to bring back the draft?" when the stupid computer just shut off and I lost everything. So instead of trying to retype it all I'm going to ramble a little.

My favorite newspaper headline lately was related to the Rep. Mark Foley scandal. It was in the Washington Post, and paraphrased, it said "Hastert wants anyone connected to cover-up of Foley scandal to resign." Um, excuse me, Dennis? Uh, that would be you. yeah, you. I guess he meant just staff members, not any important people like a Speaker of the House or whatever.

I spent a semester in Washington DC (no, not as a Congressional page or a White House intern), and I remember my teacher warning our class against interning with certain Congressmen. Unfortunately, I can't remember if Foley was one of them, though I think he liked his men a little younger than college age. The only warning I can remember by name was Rick Santorum (R-PA). My teacher warned females against interning with this senator, and basically told us we would be treated like dirt, totally disrespected, and not given any kind of work to do. If you don't know, Santorum has built his reputation on being a champion of family values and is one of the most far-right Christians in the US Senate. He is against any kind of abortion rights, contraception, and privacy rights even in marriages, he is for teaching intelligent design in schools, he thinks society is founded upon children and marriage and that's why homosexuality is wrong, he says WMDs have been found in Iraq, and the clincher- he thinks anyone who didn't evacuate New Orleans during Katrina should be penalized. I guess it makes sense he would hold with other mainstream ideas like -females should not be in the workplace, females are too weak and fragile to answer constituents' mail or make photocopies, and any female who tries to have a job in his office should be shunned until they see the error of their ways and return home to start making babies (after they get married, of course).

Fortunately, Santorum is up for reelection this year and it's looking very likely that he is going to lose to Democrat Bob Casey. I was always surprised that a moderate state like Pennsylvania would vote for such a conservative Senator. Let's see if neighboring Ohio also ditches conservative senator Mike DeWine in favor of the progressive Sherrod Brown. I think Bob Casey has a stronger chance of winning Pennsylvania than Sherrod Brown does of winning Ohio, but Brown is running a surprisingly competitive race, especially for someone who is as liberal as he is. Not that being liberal should be liability. It would serve Harold Ford Jr well to be a little more liberal. He is running for US Senate in Tennessee, not a liberal stronghold. Yet he is conservative on so many issues that there is little to motivate liberal voters to come out and vote for him, especially when his opponent Bob Corker is a fairly moderate Republican. I understand that he needs to try to win as many moderate voters as possible, but he also needs to win every single liberal vote in the state to win. And right now those liberal voters are wondering why they should support a candidate who's going to vote yes on torture bills, and continually refuse to clarify his position on abortion.

Oh well, never a dull moment in politics.