Cross-posed from Patterns That Connect

For almost a year--no, make that five years, maybe more, the GOP's top leadership hid a sex-scandal from the American people, involving Congressman Mark Foley cyberstalking House pages.  Now, over the past three days, the GOP's top leadership has been involved in a public coverup of that longterm private coverup.  It's not the first example we've seen of a public coverup by the GOP.  Indeed, the seemingly paradoxical notion--a public act of concealment--dates back, in it's current incarnation, to Gerald Ford's Watergate pardon of Richard Nixon, the man who made him President.  But unlike most GOP coverups, this one is about SEX, and for that reason, if no other, it has to be handled extremely delicately.  Like a finicky explosive, it could easily blow up without warning.

Woops!  It already has. But the GOP is still hoping against hope that they can control this thing, somehow, someway. Which means it's a good time for some historical and cultural perspective.