January 2007: After sweeping to victory in last November's midterm elections, the Democratic Party regained control of the House and Senate for the first time in more than a decade. Now, only a week into the new Congressional term, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are already up to their ears in scandals that the Republican Party so wisely forecasted in its 2006 campaign advertisements - all of which turned out to be 100-percent true.As predicted by the Republican National Committee, newly elected Tennessee Senator Harold E. Ford Jr., the first African-American Senator from the South since Reconstruction, has already converted his Russell Senate Building office into an East Coast annex of the Playboy Mansion. The scantily clad blonde who winked suggestively and said, "Harold, call me," in last fall's campaign ad has ironically been named Ford's chief mistress, and she has not wasted any time in installing hot tubs, saunas, massage tables, stripper poles and sex swings in his new office. Unfortunately, the controversies facing the Democrats do not end with Senator Ford. Freshman Virginia Senator Jim Webb, as well, has taken heat for his attempts to pass legislation that would make his often-explicit, adult novels required reading for all students in America's public elementary schools. Webb reportedly has no concern that children will be forced to read passages like the following from his book, A Country Such As This: "Two North Vietnamese nurses attended Red in the hospital, flirting with him coyly, until one day when one of them came to him, took off her top [and performed a sexual act]." According to Webb's office, the senator hopes to encourage similar erotic behavior in America's youths.In this sadistic venture, Webb clearly has been in cahoots with Ohio's newly elected Democratic governor, Ted Strickland, who - as everyone who watched his former opponent's ad campaign knows - is a vehement supporter of man-boy love. Specifically, according to gubernatorial loser Ken Blackwell, Strickland once failed to support a resolution condemning sex between adults and children, and this history of vicarious pedophilia has certainly returned to the political forefront. Just yesterday, Strickland introduced legislation that would permit teacher-student sexual relations in Ohio's public schools - as long as the teacher is over the age of 40 and the student under the age of 13. When reached for comment from his bedroom in his parents' basement, Blackwell would only say, "I told ya so."The situation is similar in the House of Representatives, where Pelosi clearly appears to be losing control of her party. Rep. Ron Kind of Wisconsin, whom a Republican opponent accused of "paying for sex" in a campaign ad last fall, has indeed lived up to the GOP's worst fears. Word for word from the ads criticizing him, Kind has already continued spending tax dollars to study "the sex lives of Vietnamese prostitutes," "the masturbation habits of old men," and "to pay teenage girls to watch pornographic movies with probes connected to their genitalia." What's more, Kind has pushed this reckless disregard for common decency even further by using the results of these sex studies to determine why Vietnamese hookers are the best, how many Viagra pills Kind's heart can sustain at once, and how he can get his female interns to start watching porn with him. According to Kind, he is enjoying sticking it to the social conservatives who ran the country since 1994 by paying for sex with government dollars.Of course, a penchant for sexual indecency and an inherent desire to corrupt the virgin minds of America's youth have not been the only criticisms of the new Democratic Congressional leadership. As predicted by an ad sponsored by Indiana Congressman John N. Hostettler, Pelosi has immediately set to work putting in motion "her radical plan to advance the homosexual agenda." In fact, for the past several days, gays and lesbians have been dancing in the streets in response to Pelosi's legislation that not only renamed traditional heterosexual marriage "civil unions," but also allocated federal funds to the production of television shows like "The Gay Bachelor," "A Lesbian Wedding Story" and "Leave It to Beaver."In the Senate as well, Reid has wasted no time in passing a bill that would require all American soldiers in Iraq to "cut and run" home so that they can assist in giving abortions at the country's numerous understaffed family planning clinics. Just as the Republicans predicted in their ad campaign last fall, the Democrats would like nothing more than to undermine the social well-being of America and send us all straight to hell.Let this be a lesson to everyone who doubted the veracity and intent behind the negative ad campaigns of 2006: Mudslinging is the keystone of American democracy, and without it, we are no better than the terrorists.
Joey Falco is a senior American Studies major and Journalism, Ethics, and Democracy minor. He can be reached at jfalco@nd.edu.The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
