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House Democrats are following Republicans on the pork bridge to nowhere.

In order to pass a bill they hope will stop the dying in Iraq, House leaders plan to reward the dying caused by spinach growers.  Their $124 billion bill to fund and end the war includes about $29 billion in pork to help soak up votes.  $25 million of the pork is to compensate spinach farmers for consumer refusal to buy their e-coli contaminated product.

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The House rebuked the president's Iraq strategy with a non-binding resoluton that passed 246-182.

Among the micromanaging members, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes doesn't know Shiite from Sunni.

According to CNN: When asked by CQ National Security Editor Jeff Stein whether al Qaeda
is one or the other of the two major branches of Islam — Sunni or
Shiite — Reyes answered "they are probably both," then ventured
"Predominantly — probably Shiite."

That is wrong. Al Qaeda was founded by Osama bin Laden as a Sunni organization and views Shiites as heretics.

Reyes
could also not answer questions put by Stein about Hezbollah, a Shiite
group on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations that is based in
Southern Lebanon.

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Outraged Democrats plan to use the behavior of Mark Foley  as a campaign club to beat the bushes for Republican voters.

Maybe it's working.  Republican Tom Reynolds is in charge of protecting House seats in the upcoming election.  But he finds himself so far behind in the polls that he had to resort to "human shields" according to Britain's Times Online:

"Mr Reynolds suffered widespread ridicule for holding a press conference
last week where he surrounded himself with young children of
supporters, prompting reporters to complain that in such circumstances
they were unable to ask him about the sexually charged computer
messages. The Democrats muttered about Mr Reynolds using “kids as human
shields”.

On the other hand, too much focus on Foley may not be the best way for the party of gay marriage to attract angry republicans.  Here's Earl Ofari Hutchinson referring to an MSNBC poll in the Huffington Post:

"The poll certainly found voters more ready than ever to punish GOP
candidates for the appalling corruption, arrogance and ineptitude of
the Republican leadership. But the Dems make a colossal mistake if they
think that Foley and the GOP's follies alone will put them over the top."

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Florida Republican Mark Foley took big chances sending raunchy e-mails and lewd text messages to congressional pages.  Maybe he thought he would be protected.  Or maybe we was committing political suicide. He resigned his seat.

On the other hand, he's still following congressional procedure.  He has checked into rehab, giving alcoholism a bad name.

The question now is what did House Speaker Hastert know about Foley's messages and when did he know it.

The Washington Times thinks Hastert is Foley's keeper and he should step down too.  The Wall Street Journal asks why go after Hastert when  Democrat Gerry Studds actually seduced a page 23 years ago and was allowed to remain a member of congress for 13 years after being censured?