A Vast, Gay Right Wing Conspiracy

That, according to fundamentalist ideologue Tony Perkins on Fox News Sunday just now, is what's really to blame for the Foley scandal.

There's a network of gay staffers who we have to investigate to see if they knew about this and covered it up. ... It's a symptom of a larger problem not only within the party but within the culture.

So the coverup is due to the fact that Republicans allowed closeted gays into the House? What?

More than 50% of the electorate believes Hastert knew and covered up something. I guess Perkins is trying to control damage among his base, who are desperate to instinctually gay bash (they must be experiencing some major cognitive dissonance the past week). But as David Corn just pointed out on ABC This Week, a number of "Velvet Mafia" closeted Republicans have gone public that they brought Foley's folly to the leadership's attention years ago. Nobody obsessively protects their rep like a closeted gay, and somehow I doubt the Roy Cohns of the world are going to gracefully take the fall for this one.

Overall, this spin is pretty weak. I can't see it working on anyone other than, say, certain members of the House passionate for some mysterious reason about cracking down on openly gay gays and child porn.

UPDATE:

It's been amusing watching well known closeted gay Republicans come out this morning to give perfunctory spin. The anxiety in Ken Mehlman's face as he talked about party unity was hilarious. He looked like he'd rather have a big scary vagina dentata in his face than be discussing Foley on Fox News.

UPDATE II (Antid Oto):

From The Daily Show's latest rundown on Foley, a diagram of the conspiracy.



Stewart noted that "The gay staffers network, they control everything, except, apparently, our government's policies toward gays."

YouTube from which I captured the above here.