American Newsreel

As more and more news surfaces in the death of Virginia Commonwealth University freshman Taylor Behl (left), the more sordid the tale becomes.

Behl, just 17 and less than two-weeks into her college adventure, disappeared on Labor Day and most of the suspicion falls on a 38-year-old wannabe photographer who preyed on young college students. Ben Fawley, by all accounts, drew young, impressionable women into his world of goth, skulls, deviant art and sex. Fawley was also one of those “teen model” photographers who put photos of teenage girls in provacative poses on so-called “model” web sites (one of those sites, One Model Place, has removed Fawley has one of its “members”). Behl met him when she first visited the VCU campus in Richmond.

From most accounts, Behl was no babe in the woods. She had traveled internationally, attended 15 different schools before graduating from James Madison High in Vienna, Virginia, and was a streetwise kid. Yet, on the night she disappeared, she had dinner with friends and then dropped by Fawley’s apartment for some casual sex before heading back to her dorm.

But her roommate was “entertaining” a young man in the dorm room and asked Taylor to leave them alone for a while, so Behl grabbed her car keys and some cash and headed out the door, never to be seen alive again. Her body was found in a shallow grave 75 miles from Richmond on land photographed by Fawley.

When police searched Fawley’s apartment they found graphic pictures of sex with children on his computer and jailed him on child pornography charges. Sources say police are close to charging him with Behl’s murder.

Behl’s mother says her daughter was smart and level-headed. Yet how many level-headed, smart 17-year-olds end up in the sack with a 38-year-old man they hardly know? Fawley said their affair began shortly after she arrived in Richmond. Would she still be alive if her roommate, another VCU freshman, had not been banging her boyfriend in their dorm room on the night she disappeared?

By admitting a sexual relationship with 17-year-old Behl, Fawley confessed to statutory rape, a class one misdemeanor and punishable with up to one year in jail and a $2,500.00 fine. If he murdered Behl, the statutory rape charge will seem trivial.

It’s no surprise that college students screw around. Hell, for some, the sex started in junior high. But even a confirmed hedonist like myself is surprised that VCU allowed freshmen, many of whom are still under the age of consent, to “entertain” others in their dorm rooms.

Taylor Behl’s murderer must be caught and punished but it’s starting to look like the monster who killed her is not the only one at fault here.

Tom DeLay, the Republican Party’s chief crook in Congress, may be out of his job as Majority Leader while he fights multiple indictments for criminal activity, but his replacement is just as shady when it comes to deals.

As the Associated Press reports today:

Tom DeLay deliberately raised more money than he needed to throw parties at the 2000 presidential convention, then diverted some of the excess to longtime ally Roy Blunt through a series of donations that benefited both men’s causes.

When the financial carousel stopped, DeLay’s private charity, the consulting firm that employed DeLay’s wife and the Missouri campaign of Blunt’s son all ended up with money, according to campaign documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

Blount is the interim House Majority Leader. Replacing one crook with another won’t solve any of the Republicans’ many ethical problems. It just shows how corrupt the party of the elephant really is.

The guessing game is on in Washington. Who, the game seeks to know, will be the next Republican to fall from grace in a scandal, indictment or just plain political stupidity?

New indictments handed down against scandal-scarred former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay only fuels speculation that time is running out for others. Karl Rove and others inside the Bush White House top the list for future defendants because of their role in outing covert CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Longtime political observers say Republican arrogance created the feeding frenzy that has prosecutors high and low looking for ways to bring down the smug and powerful.

If so, it is a lesson in humility long overdue. The party leadership in Washington is domianted by zealots who think God annoited them to run roughshod over the law, the Constitution and anything else that stood in the way of an extremist political agenda.

But Washington is a town ruled by karma and what is happening today to the GOP is just another case of some good old fashioned karma comin’ down.

Or, as Willie Nelson sang:

It’s just a little old-fashioned karma comin’ down
Just a little old-fashioned justice goin’ ’round
A little bit of sowin’
And a little bit of reapin’
A little bit of laughin’
And a little bit of weepin’
Just a little old-fashioned karma comin’ down

Hyprocrisy is not a word in Tom DeLay’s vocabulary. Although the indicted former House Majority Leader is, without a doubt, the most partisan political opportunist in Congress, he lashed back over the weekend by claiming the DA who indicted him is a “unabashed partisan zealot.”

Hmmm. A lot of people in Washington have called DeLay that for years. Tom DeLay is, and always has been, an unabashed partisan zealot, using political power as a hammer (which earned him his nickname) and selling both power and influence to line his pockets and the bank accounts of his friends.

DeLay is a crook, an unabashed criminal who flaunts his illegal ways as some sort of devine right. That’s why he can’t believe that anyone would actually have the gall to prosecute him for his many crimes.

Hyprocrisy often breeds denial. DeLay excels at both.