Pajamas Media

58 Comments

1. Marc Malone:

What fun writing. I loved it! Literally laughed aloud.

Oct 16, 2008 - 1:50 am 2. Typewriter King:

…Because of the hypocrisy! We’re told democrat politicians- well, I don’t know how to explain their positions without being accused of building a straw man- because they at least aren’t guilty…of the hypocrisy!

I’m not sure how it works. To my knowledge, fellows like this Congressman Mahoney or President Clinton never give us a hint in public that they live non-monogamous lifestyles, so are they not just as guilty of living a life contrary to what they publicly exhibit? Their apologists seem to emphatically argue that no, when they do that ‘family man’ talk in their brochures and biographical ads, there’s some sort of wink that sets them apart. Well, they never kindly spell it out for us.

But we’re fundies, or, what are our non-believer kin?- fundie-lovers, so the explanation isn’t for us to know.

Wonderful writing, Mr Green.

Oct 16, 2008 - 2:01 am 3. SAF:

This is certainly not a man bites dog story. Dem does the dirty, MSM covers it up.

Has it been any different for Obama?

Oct 16, 2008 - 3:29 am 4. The Texas Pundit:

Somebody send Mr. Green a case of Grey Goose… He’s earned it.

Oct 16, 2008 - 4:36 am 5. BMoon:

Republicans clean up their mess (Foley). The Dems shove their crap on the carpet under the couch and then insist that what you are smelling is your own upper lip.

Oct 16, 2008 - 6:15 am 6. Mike Shuster:

I dunno about the supposed cover-up- I’ve seen at least two articles in the NY Times and it’s been featured prominently on big liberal leaning blogs (Matt Yglesias, a couple others I can’t recall right now)

Oct 16, 2008 - 6:25 am 7. Mike Shuster:

also, I think the Mark Foley comparison is off base. With the Foley incident, if you recall, there was a MINOR involved. Of course that’s going to get more coverage. As it should.

Oct 16, 2008 - 6:27 am 8. Bill in NY:

It would be funny, and I would laugh out loud too… if they actually investigated and reported, and then held this guy accountable for his abuse of power and money at other people’s expense (taxpayers)… as it stands, I think I’ll withhold the laughter and just say it’s sickening what politicians and media are allowed to get away with… somehow it seems like laughing at it without there being any consequences, makes you part of a whole culture that “normalizes” the abnormal, and you are part of the problem… in our society, there is no shame anymore, and it’s partly because too many people just want to laugh it off as if it were a stupid Hollywood movie. Stop laughing already, get pissed off, and do something about it.

Oct 16, 2008 - 6:28 am 9. lgkick:

Who cares who slept with whom. Our economy is in such a bad shape and we have two wars on our hands and this is what you are spending your energy and talent to investigate? Democrats are not saints and republicans aren’t either. That’s not the issue, let’s stick to the issue which is to save America from destruction. What are you going to tell your children or grandchildren a few decades from now? That you were writing about sex scandals of a democrat while your country was going down in a depression and was losing two wars?

Oct 16, 2008 - 6:48 am 10. JLS:

A lot of problems with this post.

One – and this is the big one – you accuse ABC of not being curious enough about this story, specifically about where $21,000 came from and what the lawsuit is about, but do you really think that they are withholding that information out of bias, or that they are not doing their best to find that out? Why would they go through all the trouble of doing all the rest of their investigation just to purposefully leave these details out? If it weren’t for their work no one would know anything about this, so please give them due credit. Do you think that the story is over, that no one is working to find those answers? How about you start working your sources and get a handle on things?

Two – Oh, What’s this? – ABC 7 news reported yesterday that he helped the second woman receive $3.4 million in federal grant money! It was on TV, and there is video!
http://www.abc-7.com/articles/article.asp?articleid=22266&z=2

Three – Why should three words representing a news story that broke three days ago in the middle of the biggest economic crisis in generations and an especially dramatic presidential election be expected to provide more Google hits than three words that are apparently used in at least 20 stories a day? Chain-link fences are a staple of scenery in crime and human interest stories, so of course it will come up a ton. Meanwhile, most of those results are actually from local papers, not quite what I would call the MSM.

Three – Glenn Greenwald is not Salon.com, and the Mahoney article that you attributed to him was in fact written by Alex Koppelman.

Four – This story took up the entirety of the space between two commercial breaks on the Daily Show last night. It’s just too bad no one watches the Daily Show.

Oct 16, 2008 - 7:04 am 11. JLS:

I can’t count

Oct 16, 2008 - 7:07 am 12. Richard Aubrey:

lgkick.
Nice try at distraction. Didn’t work, but I guess you figured you had to try.
The issue is not the sex scandal–nice try at distraction but it didn’t work although I suppose you figured you had to try–but about the media being in the tank for democrats.
The message got through just dan and finedy despite your brave but ultimately unavailing attempt at distraction.

Got to give you cred for trying, though. You must have known it would make you look silly. But anything for the party, right?

Oct 16, 2008 - 8:07 am 13. wth:

I would like to have a definitive list of all political scandals throughout history. The people I deal with only know of the republican scandals and start looking glassy eyed when I bring up the few Dem scandals I know of (I know I should do my research, I am lazy like most people today). I am not a fan of either party they are both crooks but I hate it when every one can only point to Rep. scandals….

Oct 16, 2008 - 8:24 am 14. tonto:

I don’t know many people voting for McCain. I don’t know many people voting against Obama. I do know quite a few people voting against the MSM, soon to be called the Bradley Effect. Perception is reality to leftist.

Oct 16, 2008 - 8:28 am 15. Dan Tana:

Unfortunately, the Republicans are morons who don’t understand the weapon of political theater.

The House minority leadership should be front and center in front of the cameras demanding a resignation 24/7 and calling in to question Democratic ethics.

The Democrats have mastered the art of Congressional hysteria for political gain; the Republicans need acting lessons or a new political brain.

Oct 16, 2008 - 8:35 am 16. willis:

It’s always just about sex, right Democrats? At least it is with Republicans. For Democrats you have to throw in perjury, suborning perjury, blackmail, running prostitution rings, and probably murder-remember that California Democrat? Oh well, its all the same.

Oct 16, 2008 - 8:39 am 17. jason:

Igkick misses the point.
The point is that a lesser “scandal” with Foley 2 years ago was played as Republican “culture of corruption” and
probably cost the Republicans the House and the Senate.
Now an even bigger scandal is ignored because Mahoney has a D after his name. Same with Acorn fraud, Wright, Ayers, Rezko, Murtha, Cold Cash Jefferson, etc.

Oct 16, 2008 - 8:40 am 18. no, not THAT Glenn:

Stephen, we missed you last night. Get well soon.

Be warned not everyone reacts properly to the ‘quils. DayQuil puts some people (incl me) to sleep and NyQuil does the opposite. It takes all kinds.

Oct 16, 2008 - 9:01 am 19. CosmicConservative:

As I recall, the whole “minor” thing with Foley was proven to be false. His activities were never proven to be with actual minors, only with pages who WERE minors when they were pages. I think all of the actual communication that was found occurred after the pages were no longer minors.

But that just illustrates the point. Even though the “minor” thing was, I believe, debunked, the media still reported it and people still believe it.

The point about how Democrats turned Foley’s (and Craig’s) problems into a larger referendum on the Republican Party as a whole is true. Republicans do suck at political theater. And they do throw their corrupt members over the side. They do both because they believe it is the ethical thing to do.

And what it has gotten them is thrown out of power.

But there is always a silver lining. I just seem to be having trouble finding it this time.

Oct 16, 2008 - 9:11 am 20. sherlock:

The story in the Seattle P-I yesterday mentioned that former Rep. Foley was a Republican, but NEVER GOT AROUND to mentioning the party affiliation of Tim Mahoney! On the next page was a story, twice as large, about Ted Stevens, the P-I’s 874th on him I believe. I guess the P-I was concerned that their readers might have forgotten that Ted is a Republican, because they noted that in the FIRST sentence!

Dear MSM: Die faster, please.

Oct 16, 2008 - 9:18 am 21. edw:

Four – This story took up the entirety of the space between two commercial breaks on the Daily Show last night. It’s just too bad no one watches the Daily Show.

Whoa! How did John tie it into Bush being Hitler with an IQ 0f 60, or Obama being his own Personal Jesus?

To the point that it’s petty to care about this scandal while there is an economic crisis and two wars (one now, really–read a paper), were the dems not claiming the same calamity was overtaking us in 2006? What a shame that they made such a big deal about Foley, who wasn’t even breaking the law–how petty.

I will grant you that we can’t expect this to be as big a story as the Foley follies, given all the other stuff going on, but I think CNN might find time between reporting important developments on Caylee to squeeze this in a bit.

Oct 16, 2008 - 9:20 am 22. Paul From Hamburg:

I can’t help but wonder what the Democratic Congressional Committee told Mahoney when they were recruiting him to run for Congress: “Just running for congress turns you into a chick magnet. You’ll have a mistress and you won’t have to pay for her with your own money. You can just arrange for a ‘job’ and pay her with your campaign money. Once you get elected, you can give her a job on your staff. When you get tired of her, fire her. You’ll find another woman quickly enough”

Oct 16, 2008 - 9:45 am 23. jaymaster:

Who cares who sleeps with whom?* And who cares about the economy?

We’re in the midst of a blatant, massive, multi-state effort to corrupt our electoral process and steal the Presidential election. And the organization in the middle of the effort, ACORN, had close ties to one of the candidates. Now THERE is a story with serious implications to the very foundation of the country.

See, it’s kinda easy to play the diversion game…

* Unless it involves sexual harassment on the job, trading official appointments for sex, blackmail, illegal payoffs, transfer of campaign funds, etc, etc.

The fact that it involves a politician who based his campaign on restoring honor and integrity to the spot after his predecessor was run out of office on a lesser offence just adds to the irony and political intrigue.

Oct 16, 2008 - 9:59 am 24. apb:

Anyone remember Feinstein’s husband getting hundreds of millions in appropriations while she was head of Defense construction appropriations? How’s that Start-Kist/Pelosi thing working out? Reid’s land deals?

Bueller?

Bueller?

Oct 16, 2008 - 10:37 am 25. Jeanie:

Democrats see themselves as open-minded, accepting of all–which means that they really are okay with Clinton’s shenanigans. They see Republicans as narrow-minded, rigid, judgmental–which means that they take inordinate pleasure in the foibles of Republicans because it “proves” Republicans are hypocrites. Dems can’t be hypocrites because they like the idea that they aren’t judgmental. It’s possible to fail to live up to standards only if you have standards. Republicans have standards and even the Democrats know that’s true.

Oct 16, 2008 - 10:37 am 26. Susan Katz Keating:

Oh, but the Democrats are the “moral” ones, remember? They’re good… they’re above reproach… they’re… hey wait a minute! I think I just blacked out while watching Obama speak…speak…speak…

Oct 16, 2008 - 10:38 am 27. Chris:

At least there’s not a culture of corruption in Congress or anything.

Oct 16, 2008 - 10:41 am 28. PersonFromPorlock:

Remember, the standard is: live boy or dead girl.

Oct 16, 2008 - 10:43 am 29. E. Witherspoon:

I live smack dab in the middle of his district, which is middle class, mostly families, predominantly Christian & Republican. The problem he has are: 1. He ran saying he’d restore family values & dignity to the office.
2. Foley was unbeatable for re-election until his goofy scandal arose shortly before voting date. Mahoney was the fool the Dems put up to lose to Foley. Foley could win against Mahoney today if he wanted.
3. The tape of him bullying & threatening the woman is damning to the max. Very Ugly.
He’s toast. Rooney will prevail.

Oct 16, 2008 - 10:48 am 30. Ken Hahn:

I will have to admit that comparing Mahoney to Foley is a bit of a stretch so let’s compare Foley to Gary Studds and Mahoney to Robert Packwood. Isn’t that better?
So what’s the verdict Studds D censured by the House remains a member for years with close ties to the Democratic leadership. The media ignores the story. Foley, well.. October 2006/ all Foley, all the time. Packwood, hounded out of the Senate and out of public life. Mahoney, protected by the lapdog media until it was impossible to continue. Action of the Democratic leadership? Coverup!
What did Pelosi and Emmanuel know and when did they know it?

Oct 16, 2008 - 10:49 am 31. bobby b:

“well, I don’t know how to explain their positions without being accused of building a straw man . . . ”
– - -

Ugh. Let’s not even GO there. I’m just going to assume “missionary” and move on.

The larger point here is . . . well, it’s two points, really.

First, the Foley saga is irrelevant to the Mahoney sordidness. “Congressman stalking young boy employees” implicates issues that “adult hetero liason breaks up nastily” misses entirely, especially in the minds of a Dem party leaning more towards a “who you schtupp is your own business” outlook than what we would normally see in a Republican cohort. (Although the huge reliance on nasty anti-gay humor by the Dems in the Foley uncoverup and the airport tales speaks implicit volumes about what the Dems are really all about.)

Second, I’m guessing that the faux outrage/shock/aghastidity shown by the Dems towards Foley and Craig was more theatrical than heartfelt – it wasn’t an “omigawd, ick, he’s a queer!!” sort of visceral reaction so much as it was an “omigawd, what delicious irony – a gay Republican outs himself in a messy and galling way on prime time!!” sort of glee. Can’t really blame them – we set ourselves up through our choices of alliances. “Short jokes” bug the heck out of my sister – she’s short – but don’t bother her husband – he’s tall – at all.

(Oh, and, wasn’t the $121,000 a payment separate and apart from the $50k job?)

Oct 16, 2008 - 11:04 am 32. Charlie (Colorado):

As of a few minutes ago, the Times “People” page doesnt’ include Tim Mahoney at all.

Oct 16, 2008 - 11:10 am 33. sol vason:

Sex and money are NOT scandals for liberal politicians because Democrats screw everybody and they are all thieves.

HOWEVER, if a Democrat Politician refused to let his girl friend have an abortion, or decided to give birth to a downs-syndrome child – that would be a scandal. If a Democrat Politician labelled the war in Afganistan a Holy Crusade on Terrorism that would be a scandal.

But what if someone decided to fight ballot box stuffing by offering free coke for purple fingers?

Oct 16, 2008 - 12:07 pm 34. Democrats Continue Unilateral Politics of Personal Destruction « Chiefly Musing:

[...] This sex-corruption-blackmail scandal getting is ignored by the media. [...]

Oct 16, 2008 - 12:25 pm 35. Bruce E. Hayden:

The relevance of Foley to Mahoney is that the later ran a clean and family values campaign. His campaign was based on the fact that he was clean, esp. as compared to Foley, and the voters apparently believed him.

So, ignoring the sexual harassment and misuse of political funds, etc., the issue is his hypocrisies, and not that he had a little sex on the side. It may also be of interest that he is also likely violating some laws by the way that he is handling this.

Oct 16, 2008 - 12:29 pm 36. bobby b:

. . . “he had a little sex on the side.”
– - –

Again, I think we could just skip over the discussion about their favorite positions. TMI, ‘ya know.

Oct 16, 2008 - 12:48 pm 37. Richard:

This is not that hard. It’s not that the media only reports on Republican scandals. It’s obvious that it only reports on (potential?) homosexual scandals.

It’s anti-gay.

The mainstream media is homophobic.

Nothing else makes sense.

Oct 16, 2008 - 1:13 pm 38. Cent Flo:

Unfortunately, I do know who Tim Mahoney is because he has been my congressman for the last two years. Fortunately, I may be able to forget about him soon.

Oct 16, 2008 - 1:46 pm 39. TBOR:

Democratic sex scandals are way more fun than what passes for Republican sex scandals these days. For starters, there’s actual body-on-body sex involved! John Edwards even has a baby to prove it.

Republicans, though, have to make do with email sex and toilet-stall-shoe-touching sex. Where’s the fun in that?

And I agree with the first commenter – great writing!

Oct 16, 2008 - 2:01 pm 40. Clyde:

Democratic Congressman with TWO affairs? Playa!

Don’t be a playa hatah, peeps! He’s just doing what Democrats do. It’s dog bites man. When a Republican gets caught, he has to resign, because Republicans are supposed to have morals and ethics and stuff. Democrats, however, are moral relativists; they don’t RESIGN; they get RE-ELECTED (see Frank, Barney, who unlike Mark Foley actually had sex with the male pages). As Congressman Mahoney claims, “I didn’t break any laws, and it’s a private matter anyway.” Some might disagree about his relationship with legality vis a vis sexual harassment and abuse of power laws, but that’s his story and he’s sticking to it.

Oct 16, 2008 - 2:08 pm 41. Clyde:

Oops, my bad, that was Gerry Studds who had sex with the male pages and got re-elected. Frank’s lover ran a gay prostitution ring out of his house. Sorry for the confusion!

Oct 16, 2008 - 2:11 pm 42. Faith+1:

Someone mentioned that Foley’s scandal involved minors. Actually, no, it didn’t. He actually did nothing illegal and not with minors. I’ll give you it was creepy and I, for one, was glad to see him go, but wasn’t illegal. Just unethical.

Oct 16, 2008 - 2:27 pm 43. Freeedom is just another word:

I hope his wife divorces him for everything he has, including all future earnings.

Oct 16, 2008 - 5:53 pm 44. Joe:

Rank hypocrisy knows no party, or better said, knows them all. Chris Ortloff, a New York state legislator for 20 years, was recently arrested in an internet sting for using the Internet to set up a meeting for sex with underage girls. At the time of his arrest he was a member of the State Parole Board.

Ortloff has been a strong proponent of legislation aimed at cracking down on sex offenders. He supported creation of a registry for sex offenders, unrehabilitated offenders, monitoring devices for offenders on parole and mandatory life sentence for the worst sex crimes.
This was Ortloff in a story from July of 1995.
“When a convicted sex offender is released, this type of crime has almost no remediation, it has a higher recidivism rate, they tend to do it, and do it again.”

How many politicians, in an attempt to hide their deviant sexuality, are pushing to “crack down on sex offenders” ? Ortloff is not the only one. Mark Foley was instrumental in the writing of and passage of the Adam Walsh Act.
While most politicians calling for cracking down on sex offenders are not the rank hypocrites that Foley and Ortloff are, in most cases they are well-intentioned but sadly misinformed. There are many misconceptions about sex offenders.
One misconception is that recidivism of sex offenders is high.The California Coalition on Sexual Offending has complied many of the appropriate recidivism studies. From a DOJ study, we find that 5.3% of 9,691 sex offenders released from prison in 1994 were rearrested for a sex offense within 3 years of release from prison (Table 41). Among 19,287 registered offenders in the state of New York as of March 31, 2005, of those who had been on the registry for 8 years, only 8 % had been rearrested for a new registerable sex offense. (Table One, page 3)

Oct 16, 2008 - 9:33 pm 45. Pinkie Ann LeBrainne:

I lived in the Houston TX area when the Mark Foley story broke. For a solid week, Mark Foley led the local network news four times a day, and he was an obscure Republican (never, EVER, forget that he was a Republican) representative from a district in FLORIDA, which was really important in Houston. Foley was certainly a low-life, but all he did was play internet footsie with House pages. When the story broke that he may have been set up by a House page, the story immediately died. Hmmmm.

Oct 16, 2008 - 11:03 pm 46. Hmm, What’s Worth Reporting Today? « Tai-Chi Policy:

[...] October 17, 2008 Posted by taoist in Bias, Politics, The Media. trackback Ooh, a Florida representative involved in a big juicy sex scandal? With hush money? Oh wait, it’s a Democrat. Ignore [...]

Oct 16, 2008 - 11:24 pm 47. Bob Michigan:

I just don’t accept the premise of this article. I knew about this scandal well before I read this, I think it was pretty well covered.

I just think that scandal after scandal we are getting to the point where it just isn’t big news anymore.

That’s the story, and it’s just sad.

Oct 17, 2008 - 7:27 am 48. Bandit:

Today, we only have a couple of middle-age folks who, judging by the scanty photographic evidence, were lucky to be having sex even with each other

wtf? Not that I would know but I heard ugly people need lovin’ too.

Oct 17, 2008 - 7:35 am 49. sonya:

Obama the Marxist Messiah
Proof is in the Public Record.
“The public record is our only proof,” says former Naval Intelligence Officer Marion Valentine.
“In 1963, while serving in Navy Intelligence (1958-1967), I read the FBI file on Frank Marshall Davis. He had outlined the Communist plan to take over America from within, by installing educators at all levels of our educational system, gaining control of the media, getting Liberal judges appointed, recruiting, training and backing people to be elected to public office.
“I have researched every piece of legislation I can find that the Liberal Democrats have passed since the early sixties, and if you will research for yourself, you will find that they have been slowly moving this country toward Socialism.
“When Obama announced he was running for President as an unknown with only one major speech at the DNC (that the DNC and MSM made so much fuss over), he aroused my old intel suspicions. So I started researching.
“I have not found any evidence to convince me he is a Muslim, bur I did find his radical associations were unusual. I found Frank Marshall Davis, who had fled from Chicago to Hawaii when Obama was 12 years old, was Obama’s mentor from then till Davis died in 1987.
“Davis put Obama in touch with the Socialist Party in Chicago (called the New Party) which Ayers is also a member of, (emphasis added) therefore the first “Planned” contact with Ayers. The New Party helped launch and finance Obama’s political career. Obama…selected, trained, groomed and scripted to become the “puppet” leader of the United Socialist States of America.

Oct 17, 2008 - 8:02 am 50. Jeff:

Should we be surprised that the liberal mainstream media is turning its back on the Mahoney scandal? They have been brushing Obama’s leftist illuminati indiscretions under the rug for the past 20 months, so why should this be any different?

Oct 17, 2008 - 10:17 am 51. kevin c:

hate TO TELL ME MAHONEY AND HIS COMMIE MEDIA PALS-MR MAHONEY,YOUVE BEEN FOUND OUT. AND YOUR NO BUBBA CLINTON. MR MAHONEY,MIGHT AS WELL QUIT NOW,BECAUSE YOU ARE GOING TO LOSE. BETTER HOPE MISTRESSES TWO AND THREE DONT HAVE ANY BLUE DRESSES THEY HAVENT SENT TO THE CLEANERS.

Oct 17, 2008 - 10:50 am 52. kevin c:

oh by the way MIKE SHUSTER-IT WAS LATER FOUND OUT THE YOUNG MAN INVOLVED WAS 21 YRS OLD,BESIDES A SICKENING EMAIL DOESNT COMPARE TO THE ACTUAL ACT. MASTERBATION IS NOT A CRIME,RAPE IS.

Oct 17, 2008 - 10:52 am 53. MNotaro:

Once again, here we are with another lefty illuminati caught with his hand in the cookie jar and another ethics investigation being conducted—hmmm, wonder who is paying for that? And a left wing media who isn’t telling anyone about it too? GREAT!

Oct 17, 2008 - 3:27 pm 54. kls:

I heard a lot about it. It was all over the Daily Show, for one thing, and there have been other mainstream news report about it, as well. The guy is a disgusing lout, but I’m afraid the implications of this really are less interesting than what Foley was doing– people were enthralled with the facts in that case because it involved a young, male, page (e.g., a subordinate working for Congress and congressmen, kind of like an intern). There was NO shortage of coverage for the most famous intern scandal of our time, which involved worse conduct but not the super-sensational aspect of it involving someone of the same sex who was apparently underage….

Oct 17, 2008 - 4:06 pm 55. dst1964:

Sure, the economy is only what matters now right…that is only the case when it’s a Dem that gets caught in illegal activity. Doesn’t matter that the guy runs on family values platform…doesn’t matter that he replaced a guy who was scum because he was scum…who cares if he is scum right? This is ridiculous. The story is a week old and nobody has barely heard of it because of the bias in the mainstream media. This country is going socialist and all they can talk about is Obama planning his big victory party…and how this “Messiah” is going to change the world! He’ll change the world alright. We are going to be paying for every lazy person in america to sit on their asldkfja and collect money from hard working people like myself….and the idiots who don’t see this are blind! They think this economy is bad? Look when Jimmy Carter was president….Interest rates of 21%, double-digit unemployment, the world viewed us as week….God help us when this scam artist gets elected. I don’t care if a bunch of people on Wall Street lost money. I feel bad for those who have lost money in their savings, but those are the breaks folks. When you risk your money, you risk your money. It will come back…but it takes time. This economy is not the worst ever. It has been great but now is down. That is the way economic cycles work. When people realize that we are paying for you to sit on your couch and complain I don’t give you enough by spreading the wealth, I guess America will wake up. It will be in another 4 years that we will be throwing the leftists out. The problem is that they will have all of their welfare programs in full bore and it is almost impossible to stop them. Scary!

Oct 18, 2008 - 6:47 am 56. Preston:

http://www.mahoney.house.gov/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

Give him a call and tell him what you think!

Oct 18, 2008 - 6:48 am 57. General:

Bishop reminds Catholics to remember Judgment Day in the voting booth

Bishop Robert HermanSt. Louis, Oct 18, 2008 / 08:03 am (CNA).- Bishop Robert J. Herman, the administrator of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, has written a column reminding Catholics that their vote will be a decision weighed on the Day of Judgment. He urged Catholics not to treat the unborn as the neglectful rich man treated Lazarus in the biblical parable.

“Judgment Day is on its way,” the bishop wrote in the St. Louis Review. “We cannot stop it. We don’t know when it will come, but just as surely as the sun rises daily, the Son of Man will come when we least expect.”

“For many, this coming election may very well be judgment day, for this election will measure us,” he continued, referencing Christ’s words of judgment in Matthew 10:32-33:

“Everyone who acknowledges Me before others, I will acknowledge before My heavenly Father. But whoever denies Me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.”

Bishop Herman asked the faithful to consider what kind of witness they give to God when they enter the voting booth on Election Day.

“The decision I make in the voting booth will reflect my value system. If I value the good of the economy and my current lifestyle more than I do the right to life itself, then I am in trouble,” the bishop wrote.

He cited Pope John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Christifideles laici, which said outcry on human rights is “false and illusory” if the right to life is not defended to the maximum.

“The right of our children to be protected from destruction is greater than my right to a thriving economy,” Bishop Herman continued.

“My desire for a good economy cannot justify my voting to remove all current restrictions on abortion. My desire to end the war in Iraq cannot justify my voting to remove all current restrictions on abortion.”

Bishop Herman looked to the spiritual dimension as well.

“Those 47 million children our nation destroyed are still living. We have destroyed their bodies, but their souls are still alive. When our Lord comes again, they may very well be there to judge us. Even worse, Jesus tells us that whatever we do to the least of our brethren, we do to Him. We would truly shudder if we heard the words, ‘I was in my mother’s womb but you took my life!’

“It is quite possible that we might see these children, but, depending upon the choices we have made, we may very well be separated from them by a great chasm which cannot be crossed, much as the rich man who ignored Lazarus, the poor man, during his lifetime here on earth but was separated from him after death.”

Bishop Herman said the “deepest problem” with many Catholics is that they have become accustomed to rationalizing away a “life of sinful actions” headed in the wrong direction.

“My goal is not to engage you in some political party way but to engage you with our Savior and His teachings. We need to constantly challenge our accustomed behaviors in the light of the Gospel,” he wrote.

He said the issues of the coming election could help people learn about the teachings of the Catholic Church and to use the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

“When we do this, both we and the heavens will be filled with joy!” he asserted.

“Judgment Day is on its way,” he repeated, encouraging people to pray the family Rosary daily between now and Election Day.

In a previous column for the St. Louis Review, Bishop Herman urged Catholics not to put politics ahead of the Fifth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.”

“Save our children!” he wrote. “More than anything else, this election is about saving our children or killing our children. This life issue is the overriding issue facing each of us in this coming election. All other issues, including the economy, have to take second place to the issue of life.”

Oct 18, 2008 - 3:51 pm 58. Joe.J:

On Tuesday, November 11th at 10 p ET Melissa Francis examines the world of high-end prostitution in the CNBC Original “Dirty Money: The Business of High-End Prostitution”. In every city in America sex is for sale and much of it operates in plain view. But, there’s one corner of the trade protected like none other… the business of high-end prostitution where clients can spend hundred of thousands of dollars each year. It’s a secret world with rules and practices that will change everything you think you know about the buying and selling of sex. Join Melissa as she ventures into this secret world.

For web extras visit http://dirtymoney.cnbc.com.

Nov 3, 2008 - 8:58 am

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