One October surprise came early, on September 29, courtesy of the senior bloodhound at ABC News, Brian Ross. Ross seems to be under the misapprehension that reporters owe no fealty to the Bush Administration and its cronies. To Ross, fair and balanced means reporting what's news, regardless of party affiliations. Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) might not agree with Ross' approach, but then we've found it to be very painful, being hoisted on one's own petard.
Foley resigned in disgrace late on September 29 after Ross revealed a series of e-mails — pretty racy, sexually explicit e-mails in which phrases like "strip down," "do I make you horny?" and "your mother didn't see, did she?" were just the tip of the, um, iceberg — between Foley and some underage Congressional pages.
One sex scandal is much like the next, generally. Saved by the Bell's Screech was the scandal du jour the night before. But Screech isn't a sitting Republican Congressman from Florida who helped George Bush in the 2000 contested vote count, and Screech was with two women in his purloined porn tape (albeit doing things we've barely heard of). And they were of age.
The biggest problem for Foley (because it isn't like the page scandals haven't happened before, with boys and girls, and no one else resigned in disgrace the same day as the revelations) wasn't really the e-mails. It was that petard, courtesy of Ross connecting the dots.
Foley was chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. He introduced a bill in 2002 to outlaw websites featuring sexually suggestive images of pre-pubescents, asserting, "These websites are nothing more than a fix for pedophiles." Which apparently he knew first-hand, so to speak.
Foley hadn't stopped there. Just like any seriously confused closet case in need of outing, Foley had made child porn his personal issue. In June 2003, when he discovered that teenagers were allowed to go to a nudist camp at Lake Como in Land O' Lakes, Florida, Foley questioned the legality of underage kids at such a camp.
Foley certainly had his supporters. Bush approved the changes Foley proposed in sex-offender laws. Videotape abounds of Foley with former Attorney General John "please cover up those naked statues!" Ashcroft, who was bent on ferreting out every pervert in America and charging them with something.
ABCNews.com has the Foley e-mails in all their sadly lurid detail. He used his own initials and birthdate in his e-mails, which does make one wonder if he wanted to be caught. That's what happens on L&O: SVU all the time. Because of the nature of Foley's e-mails, he could actually be prosecuted under the very legislation he crafted and face many years in prison.
On September 30, Ross revealed the coup de grace about Foley: Republican leadership had been aware of the e-mails and complaints about Foley, but had done nothing. Unsurprisingly, Democrats (who tend only to get caught with sex partners of either gender who are over the age of consent; Foley should have paid closer attention to his fellow Rep. Barney Frank) announced after this second bombshell that they will be seeking a thorough investigation.
Since Foley ran unopposed in the last election and had been re-elected handily in the two previous elections, his seat in the House had been a lock. Not any more.
Mighty real
Meanwhile, back on reality TV, Harry Hamlin was eliminated on Dancing with the Stars (to which we can only say, what took so long?); a second Latino, Cecelia, was eliminated on Survivor: Eugenics (the tribes are now mixed, but the seeds of outrage have been sown, and all the white people are still there!); and the mix-n-match gay couple on The Amazing Race, Tom and Jerry — oops, Terry — came in fourth, which means they are very much still in the game.
The game is increasingly homophobic, however. We let Mary's statement that she'd "never met any gay people before — I like them!" go because it was kind of sweet and she's clearly a bit of a flake. But Ron's "they're okay as long as they stay away from my kids" comments are getting old, fast.
Speaking of homophobia, where are the queer characters this season? Yes, we know, there are four new gay characters (two on the same show), four! Rosie joined The View (or hijacked it; plus, she did a straight nude sex scene on Nip/Tuck). And Oprah took a cross-country road trip with her pal Gayle. We did love one of Gayle's comments this week as the two were registering at a teepee motel in the Southwest. When the clerk asks if they want their own rooms, Gayle laughs and says yes. "We're not a couple. Despite what you've heard."
But canceling Rosie's formidable dyke presence is former queer-for-a-day Anne Heche as the only woman in a show about rampant heterosexuality, Men in Trees. And what happened to the storyline of Laura Innes, the token queer on ER?
The new queers on the block include Jonathan LaPaglia as a DA and dad on ABC's irritating family soap/drama Brothers and Sisters . The show was created by Jon Robin Baitz, who's queer, but then, Friends was created by a gay man, too, and remained stalwartly heterosexual from the second season til the finish. We wish we could recommend this sudser, but it just hasn't clicked for us. Lots of big-name talent, including Sally Field and Calista Flockhart (the latter as a wholly unlikable right-wing radio host), but it's sound and fury signifying Grey's Anatomy wannabes.
Over on CBS, The Class is enjoyable enough with its prissy closet case Perry Pearl (Sam Harris) and straight-acting out-queer, Kyle (the hunky Sean MacGuire). It's difficult not to see Will & Grace reprised in these two, although Perry is married (but named his daughter Oprah: "I'm a fan!") and Kyle is happily coupled with a man, not a Grace. And the show is funny, but then so was W&G.
The fourth new queer character didn't fair so well. Apparently there is a Cheers curse as well as a Seinfeld curse, because Ted Danson can't seem to find a good show to save his (bless him!) liberal soul. ABC's tiresome Help Me, Help You needs help. Too reminiscent of Danson's last show, Becker, it's a comedy about mentally ill people.
Not funny, you say? Right you are. The queer character in HM, HY is like Perry on The Class, a closeted, married gay man. Everyone knows it but him. Sigh.
There are more queers appearing on Oprah (Jim McGreevey, gay housewives, closeted husbands, queer teens) than on prime time. Craig Ferguson and Jimmy Kimmel have regular gay bits on late night. We loved Kimmel's burlesque of Oprah and Gayle's road-trip with Steadman and Jim McGreevey as "best friends" on a road trip sudsing up the car together in black short-shorts and wife-beaters. And we can't get enough of Ferguson's "Bernie Slash" entertainment editor. Luke's gayness continues to fire up the front-burner on As the World Turns, plus Bianca is returning yet again to All My Children, later this month.
So what's with the networks and prime time? It's 2006 — can't we do better than three closet cases and one out hottie? And where did all the lesbians go? Did Rosie eat them?
Of course, there's that pinnacle of perversities, ABC's Boston Legal, which manages to get every polymorphous angle in every week, shibboleths be damned. James Spader and William Shatner remain the best gay couple on TV. There are few shows we love as much. But why doesn't the fabulous Studio 60 have a queer character? It's not like the show isn't about TV. Of course, West Wing, which it is modeled on — and perfectly, we might add — had no queer characters, either. And that was Washington. Go figure.
Finally, we know this TV moment has been deconstructed ad nauseum, but: We really did like seeing the Clinton vs. Wallace smackdown on FOX last week. As Cokie Roberts noted over on ABC, it does tend to give credence to the "vast right-wing conspiracy" theories when one day Chris Wallace is going after Bill, and the next, Jerry Falwell is calling Hillary the Devil. What actually gives the theories credence, however, is when FOX files an injunction against YouTube to pull the plug on the replay, citing "copyright infringement." Stay tuned.