I’ve been ill lately with some sort of flu-like virus and have been lax in everything including my blog reading. I checked Bloglines this morning and there were 245 posts. Thankfully, most of them were news feeds and, frankly, am a bit tired of the news lately. I’m becoming more convinced that maybe something IS in the water.

Anyway, I ran across something today in the ever-shocking [yawn] Mark Foley ’scandal’ that caused me to add a new category to the blog. It’s called “duh”.

First, let’s talk about what Foley has done. Holding up a vote to go have cyber sex? Hilariously inappropriate! Why has Saturday Night Live not done this as a skit?

“And, now, members of Congress, let us pass this historic bill that will forever change the face of health care…”

“Oh, hold up! I got to slowly text message someone under age to get off. Can you give me about 20? I’m not used to typing ‘I’ve got a legislative branch you can tour with your lips and tongue, baby’ into my cell phone.”

Next, he checks himself into a treatment center. Boring! That’s the oldest escape plan in the world. Or as Mateo said today, “Yeah, and Robin Williams checked himself into treatment for alcoholism. We all know he went in to escape the shame of making RV.”

Then the horrible truth comes out that Foley was molested by a clergyman when he was a teen. Could this get anymore cliche? Don’t sit there in front of your screen being all shocked. You were thinking it. Yes, it is horrible that someone who devotes their life to piety would do that, but let me make this abundantly clear: this is not an excuse. In fact, there are no excuses. Swallow your pride and get help. He knew what he was doing was improper otherwise why try to hide it? In fact, it turns out, he didn’t do such a great job at that either. Pages were warned about his behavior — starting as early as 2001.

By the way, the age of consent in D.C. is 16. Think about all the possibilities with that. A government official’s job is quite hard and some obviously need a pretty, young thing to release the pressure.

And we get to the quote that caused the creation of the Duh series from Foley’s lawyer, David Roth:

Mark Foley wants you to know he is a gay man.

Everyone with me now: “DUUUUUH.”

One more note, Foley during the Clinton scandal said the former President had a “sad sexual addiction.” I love hypocrisy. It makes me giggle.

Listening to: Trapped In The Drive Thru - “Weird Al” Yankovic (which is a parody of R. Kelly’s “Trapped In The Closet”. iTunes knows what’s going on.)