Breaking: Mark Foley Comes Out!

At an afternoon press conference jam-packed with reporters and excuses, the lawyer for ex-Congressman Mark Foley (R-Horny) dropped this unexpected bombshell:

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

OMG!

Mark Foley is gay!?!?



You mean....

this Mark Foley?



This guy?



Maybe my gaydar is busted from all these years in Hollywood but I never would've guessed it.



Whoa...whoa...gimme a minute. So many shocks these last few days...it's a little hard to process it all.

Next, someone's going to suggest the congressman took some kind of undue interest in being around young men.



Lord protect this child...from future revelations.

Outing Bloggers



Allow me to get meta for just a moment. Lately, a few of my compatriots in what I call the "non-Lomblogosphere" have been "outed" by the news media - exposed as real people with lives and careers away from the Internet. A few were even revealed to have done work that related directly to the people and topics they've blogged on. Luckily, I've taken precautions to avoid this kind of conflict. Namely, I have no life and no career. It's a drastic step, but that's the price one pays to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

Still, I have great sympathy for bloggers who've found their private and professional lives the subject of media scrutiny. It seems this kind of thing is the result of the increasing influence of blogs and the fact that many journalists regard us as a threat of some kind. Why? I don't know. I honestly think that blogs may be the best thing to happen to the news media since Gutenberg invented the printing press and Ben Franklin invented the staple-gun. Thanks to blogs, the reporters and columnists who constitute the establishment press have a whole new audience for their work. And while most of that audience is busy composing expletive-filled hate mail, some will be readers and subscribers for many years to come.

Fortunately, a few people in the big media "get it" and are mature enough to handle the kind of intelligent critique blogs and blog-readers provide.

As David Brooks of the New York Times said to me in a recent e-mail:

Thank you very much for your thoughtful response to my recent column on Iraq. By the way, how did you know my wife is double-jointed?

But back to the topic at hand: should bloggers who'd like to remain anonymous expect cooperation from the news media? For my part, I honestly believe that anonymity is critical to what we do. Blogs like this give voice to the voiceless, the powerless and often, the pantless. Without the cover anonymity provides, dialogue on the Net would be as stilted and lifeless as it is on the nation's editorial pages. In fact, I think the editorial pages should take their cues from blogs. It'd be really cool if every Friday the editors of the Washington Post stopped publishing articles on Social Security reform or the future of the Democratic party and instead printed a bunch of cute pictures of their Calico kittens Fransisca and Princess Fluffytoes. That's when we'd know the "blogovolution" was fully in effect.

Until then, this is one blogger steadfastly guarding my identity from both the Old Media and those nasty people at the DMV.

Anonymously yours,

LF

Explaining Myself

On the possible eve of possible indictments, I thought I should take the opportunity to clear up a few things.

My mailbag has been overflowing since I posted my account of the actions that brought me face-to-face with federal prosecutors, and before that, face-to-jowls with Karl Rove and "Scooter" Libby. Many correspondents wrote that my post left far too many unanswered questions, and in fact, prompted a whole slew of new ones. Questions of "why" - "Why did you go to jail rather than reveal your sources, who after all, weren't really your sources?" And questions of "how" - "How can we trust you when you're clearly a total sleaze?" And from our very young readers, questions of "what" - as in "What did you mean when you said that Libby was Rove's 'wingman'?" Ahh, the innocence.

Others offered a broader criticism: that my story reveals how close the nexus between government and media has become in recent years. In the words of one correspondent, if "you and your ilk weren't exactly in bed with the Bush team, you were certainly leaning against the nightstand in a sheer teddy while [Administration officials] gestured for a reach around." Well put.

But perhaps the most poignant response came from a young man who is newly employed in the Washington, DC area:

Dear Mr. Fan,

I am relatively new to the blogosphere but I read your article with mounting interest - interest that quickly became revulsion as the sheer scale of human degradation in our nation's capitol swept over me like a mud bath. Your portrait of so-called "journalists" and high-powered operatives hobnobbing and carousing while our brave men and women fight and die overseas is deeply disturbing. Over all, I found the scenario described so retch-inducing that I actually began to question why I ever got involved with public service in the first place.

Barack Obama

I'm sorry you feel that way, Senator, but glad that you read the blog.

But to the rest of my critics, I can only say this: Don't you people believe in the First Amendment? Or for that matter, democracy?

An important principle is at stake: if reporters are no longer allowed to schmooze with their subjects, how can journalists ever get close enough to perform the time-honored "watchdog" role in case they ever decide to grow some balls? Further, having the trust of your sources is critically important. What's a good way to gain an influential person's trust? Become their willing tool. Of course, people will say this compromises your objectivity. I say there's no better way to prove you lack your own agenda than to advance someone else's.

Being known as the go-to guy or gal when a high-powered individual wants a certain story in the press, be it "Iraq has WMD" or "Tom Cruise has fertile sperm" increases a reporter's stature and enhances his or her ability to make connections. Conversely, there's a word for press people that fail to make the right connections, and that word is poor. And let's get real here: poor journalists without powerful friends don't break the big stories - factual or not.

Oh sure, it's very nice for men like George Clooney to glamourize an era when media workhorses exposed the truth while smoking themselves to death on camera. But those days are gone and not coming back. That was before 24-hour cable news, the Internet and yoga. And though both took place in the Fifties, it was before M*A*S*H. It was before AfterM*A*S*H. A lot has changed.

But I digress. I also believe that asking journalists to testify about their sources will only encourage more government secrecy. Anonymous leaks were essential in major cases like Watergate and the Pentagon Papers. In fact, it was an anonymous leak that made this whole Plame investigation possible in the first place! So let's not throw the baby out with the wife-smearers.

Despite my closeness to the case, I don't know what the final outcome of this whole drama will be. Will the indictments stop with Rove & Libby, or go even higher up - to Vice President Cheney? Or might they ensnare someone relatively powerless, like the president himself? We'll have to wait and see.

For now, good night and good cuticles.

Freedom Rings

Unbeknownst to his many readers, colleagues and purported friends, Lombaire Fan - the creator and proprietor of this blog - has spent the bulk of the past four months in federal prison.



Mr. Fan's imprisonment stems from his still cloudy role in the Valerie Plame controversy. Now he has been released - and the truth can be revealed at last.

Hello readers,

Yes, I've just been released from prison - and not a minute too soon! I can take the loss of freedom, the isolation, the dreariness but a night bunking with Tom DeLay?! I'm sorry - as Daryl Hall & John Oates once sang, "I can't go for that/No!/No!/No can do!" Truthfully, the timing of Mr. DeLay's indictment(s) couldn't have been better - I now have a six-month head start on hosting dibs for the '06 season of The Apprentice.

Some have suggested that being cooped away for four months should have given me lots of time to blog. But you try being the only guy in the weight room with a laptop. I was also a little out of it when it came to current events; I only got to watch CNN's hurricane coverage because so many of the guys in my cell are such big fans of Anderson Cooper. Anyway, I'm glad to be out, and anxious to clear the air about my role in the CIA leak investigation.

So let me share some of what I told the grand jury:

I first learned the name of Valerie Plame in July 2003, when I attended a cocktail party in honor of political humorist Art Buchwald, a Washington fixture who - as of this writing - has still not died. It was shortly thereafter that I learned the attractive, statuesque blonde I had just spent four minutes chatting up was a) married and b) an undercover CIA operative. It was, as they say, quite a defining moment. My quest for bipartisan action on the DC social scene had put me on the verge of a serious breach of both etiquette and national security, one that could've cost lives - most especially my own. I mean, I've been shot down before but never by someone who may have carried actual ammo. I had finally learned my lesson.

But others in Washington were still in need of comeuppance. Like Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby.


As top advisers to the president and vice-president, Rove and Libby play a lot of hardball politics during the day. But at night, they're all about hardcore partying. The pair are known as one of Washington's great tag-teams; imagine Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, but older, heavier, balder and somehow, even more smug. They may work for different bosses but after hours, they come together for a common cause: scoring. And it really is a team effort: Rove regales his potential conquests with tales of bare-knuckled Texas politics, while Libby buys drinks and notes that Halliburton does a mean job of installing swimming pools.

Now they had a new target in their sights.

"Whoa", said Rove, as he gazed across the room at the shapely secret agent. "Who's that? Daddy of the Grand Old Party's Corporate-Backed Religio-Fascist Propaganda Infrastructure likes."

"Valerie Plame," I answered.

"Hook us up, bro," interjected Libby. "Think she likes poetry? I just whipped off a really pretty verse about aspens turning on the back of this Niger forgery."

I tried to warn them. "Uh, Mr. Rove, Mr Libby, I really think you better back off. I know you two are always on the hunt. But I don't think this woman is fair game."

"Not fair game?! Of course she's fair game!", Rove shouted, as Cokie Roberts' karoake rendition of "Best Of My Love" filled the hall. "I'm the most powerful man in Washington! Getting her to sleep with me should be as easy as.......squashing the Iraqi insurgency!"

"But.....she's a wife and mother", I protested.

Libby smirked. "Oh yeah? Well, so was Sandra Day O'Conner!", he replied, as both broke into hysterics.

"Come on", Rove pleaded. "What's her deal? Donut-bumper?" I assumed the latter phrase was some kind of government code, perhaps a euphemism for women that work in the lower echelons of the federal bureacracy.

"No," I shrugged. "She's an undercover CIA operative. And you see that ambassador guy - the one who looks like a fat Michael Douglas? That's her husband."

A look of disappointment passed across both of their pasty, chowder-stuffed faces. These two were obviously used to getting what they wanted, and now they had to take no for an answer.

"Aww, fuck," Rove grumpily exclaimed. "I guess now I'm going home with Harriet." I still have no idea if "going home with Harriet" is another euphemism or a reference to an actual woman who works within the White House. [Editors' note: As previously stated, Lombaire Fan has had inconsistent access to Internet, print and television news)

Libby ruffled his papers. "I guess I'll have to save this poem for someone else."

Just weeks later, I would receive my first subpoena.

Next: Why I Decided To Come Clean

Guest Post

Today's special guest blogger is a longtime journalistic hero of mine, Carlton Abner. Eighty-seven-years young, Carlton - once called "the dean of the Washington press corps" - recently retired from the White House beat after sixty years covering presidents. But as you'll see here, his grasp of national politics is as strong as ever. - L.F.

When Americans huddled around their television and radio sets Thursday evening, many probably wondered why their favorite Westerns, domestic comedies and quiz shows were being preempted by a nighttime presidential address. After all, the Republic seems to be at point of relative contentment, what with the Russians at bay and the economy humming along nicely. Thanks to his congressional majority and big win over anti-war firebrand John Fitzgerald Kerry, the popular Bush could afford to rest on his laurels. Instead, this humble man from the Texas plains has devoted himself to the most important mission of our times: healing the lingering wounds of the War Between The States.

In his stirring call for Southern Reconstruction and an end to racial inequality, Bush has gone Lincoln one better. Moving far beyond the Emancipation Proclamation, he is asking us to invite the Negro into our homes, churches, businesses, and football stadiums in a spirit of brotherhood that I think will soon become synonymous with the Bush era. If there's a political motive in all of this, I don't see it. Due to the recently-passed 22nd Amendment, the many Negro citizens helped by his program won't be able to express their gratitude in a subsequent re-election campaign. The South, of course, remains solidly Democratic, even if the party nominates a liberal like New York's Senator, Harry Rodham Clinton. So it can only be with an eye toward history, not the polls, that the president proposes this ambitious rebuilding of the former Confederacy.



He is helped, of course, by bipartisan support. Just over his shoulder, sitting atop a black horse was none other than the founder of the Democratic party, Andrew Jackson. What a coup for Bush to win heavyweight backing from one of the opposition party's elder statesmen. And it speaks well of the president's sense of confidence that he was not afraid to share the spotlight with such a towering figure. If none other than Ol' Hickory himself is lining up behind the president, I'm sure we can expect many more endorsements in the days ahead. Perhaps the jazz musicians Mr. Bush alluded to in the conclusion of his address will begin whistlestopping through the Gulf Coast in support of this new legislation. With Count Basie and Duke Ellington on-board, the Bush bandwagon could kick up so much noise in Dixie that even the dead would rise up and dance a jitterbug to the president's new tune.

If there's anything the Administration lacks, it's a clever, memorable slogn that would sum up his plans and their hoped-for effect. Since the president's team is stocked with veterans - like PT Commander Bush himself - I suggest something martial, like "the War on Poverty."

C.A.

Stripped Throat

Well, the most closely guarded secret of the late twentieth century is now out - Hal Holbrook is still alive! And so too is the man he played in the 1976 blockbuster All The President's Men. By now you've all heard that former FBI Deputy W. Mark Felt - or as his friends call him, "Deep Throat" - has finally stepped out of the shadows to bravely acknowledge that his family needs money. He did so in the perfume-scented pages of Vanity Fair, though he still declined to pose in Vera Wang. Nonetheless, this is a major revelation that has turned Washington upside down. Suddenly, everyone is called back to an era when investigative journalists were dogged and unflinching, corrupt government officials were held to account, and Robert Redford's face was forty percent less craggy. "Memor-ies" -- wait, that was a different film.

Longtime Watergate-watchers always had Felt high on the list of possible Woodward & Bernstein sources. But firming up that guess was something of a challenge. After all, what man his age hasn't been known to leak?

Now Felt himself has made it official, and a vaunted Washington guessing-game has come to an end. It was all a bit anti-climactic. Like many others, I had been anxious to learn the truth about "Deep Throat" ever since childhood, when I got slapped for asking at the dinner table. It became a fun pastime - watching hours of repetitive cable documentaries on the Nixon years just to figure out which aging GOP hack was secretly a man of honor. This week, the answer came back: none of them. For fans of surprise, that's somewhat disappointing. On the other hand, we have further assurance that "the system still works" and major stories are continuing to be uncovered by fashion and entertainment mags.

There is still room for doubt though. As many of his critics have charged, Mark Felt is not a hero. In fact, he's been known to embellish his role in history a time or two, to the great embarrassment of a certain major publication.

Here's the Washington Post front-page header for June 11, 2002:



And for June 4, 1997:




Of course, not all these stories are the kind Mr. Felt would want to leak out:




So is there a reason Woodward, Bernstein and the Post allowed themselves to be scooped? Is "Deep Throat" really "Deep Throat"? Will we ever know the truth? I'll tell you in thirty years.