New post started here
See my earlier posts here and here for additional info.
Now this is some serious crying from the Washington Times:
The facts of the disgrace of Mark Foley, who was a Republican member of the House from a Florida district until he resigned last week, constitute a disgrace for every Republican member of Congress.
Disgrace for every Republican member of Congress? Oh come on, puhlease. Stop the hysteria. Because ONE Republican turned out to be gay and had a thing for teenage men does not mean you can throw a blanket over the whole party. If that was the case then the blanket could have been thrown over the Democrats many times over since Studds and all the way up to Jefferson.
Red flags emerged in late 2005, perhaps even earlier, in suggestive and wholly inappropriate e-mail messages to underage congressional pages.
I’m sorry, unless they are hiding further emails which we have not seen, the one email that we have seen was not suggestive, nor was it inappropriate. Asking how he was doing and then asking for a picture is none of those things.
Now the IM’s are a different story, but no one inside the Republican party had seen them before this scandal broke.
His aberrant, predatory — and possibly criminal — behavior was an open secret among the pages who were his prey.
Funny, a few pages have come out and said that acted strange while others have come out and denied this fact.
But another page, who asked not to be named told The Palm Beach Post, “The program in no official capacity warned us about it,” and he said that Loraditch had posted an explanation for his comments to ABC on the college social network, Facebook.com.
[…]The other page said most pages are angry at Loraditch’s comments and that the page program did its best to ensure the safety of pages, with strict rules and curfews.
Open secret it was not. But why let facts get in the way when you can screech like a little girl as the Times has done:
The evidence was strong enough long enough ago that the speaker should have relieved Mr. Foley of his committee responsibilities contingent on a full investigation to learn what had taken place, whether any laws had been violated and what action, up to and including prosecution, were warranted by the facts. This never happened.
Wrong once again. The evidence they had was a friendly email to a 16 year old kid who felt uncomfortable about them. This was NOT strong evidence and relieving a member of Congress based on those emails would have been foolish….never would have happened on either side of the aisle.
Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois, the Republican chairman of the House Page Board, said he learned about the Foley e-mail messages “in late 2005.” Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the leader of the Republican majority, said he was informed of the e-mail messages earlier this year. On Friday, Mr. Hastert dissembled, to put it charitably, before conceding that he, too, learned about the e-mail messages sometime earlier this year. Late yesterday afternoon, Mr. Hastert insisted that he learned of the most flagrant instant-message exchange from 2003 only last Friday, when it was reported by ABC News. This is irrelevant. The original e-mail messages were warning enough that a predator
This editorial writer has officially become unhinged. The fact that no one inside the Republican party had seen the IM’s until Friday is irrelevant? Give me a break. The original email was NOT enough evidence to prove anything other then Foley being nice to pages, which was common knowledge it appears.
The question I have is why is it that CREW, and the owner of Blogactive, had this evidence, the IM’s that is, and not tell a soul inside Congress about it for months, maybe even years? Where is the call for the investigation about these two organizations and their obvious lack of worry for the kids?
Mark Levin is on the same page as I am:
Meanwhile, the Democrats hang tough, through thick and thin. They slobber all over Bill Clinton, who actually had sex with a 19-year-old intern and abused his office and women left and right. William Jefferson, a Class-A crook, remains in office with no effort by his party to expel him because in a close election, Nancy Pelosi needs him. West Virginia’s Alan Mollohan has become wealthy in office, apparently helping to funnel money to his favorite causes. Sen. Bob Menendez apparently rented property to a nonprofit agency which he helped to receive federal funds. Cynthia McKinney assaulted a police officer, and she wasn’t expelled. (The voters fired her.) John Murtha was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Abscam scandal, yet is now touted as the future House Democrat leader. And the media’s favorite Republican, John McCain, was caught up in the Keating Five scandal. We have leakers, womanizers, boozers, and anti-Semites in Congress, not to mention Ted Kennedy. And I could go on and on.
Oh yes, I hear we conservatives are better than the liberals, and that we must hold ourselves to a higher standard. But throwing Republican leaders overboard to prove the point without sufficient information is no standard at all. It may make pundits more comfortable and may attract praise from unlikely circles, but it doesn’t make us better than liberals. In fact, it doesn’t make us better people, period. What we need is information. Most of us only learned about the Foley communications last Friday. Demanding Hastert’s head tonight, as I said in an earlier post, is irresponsible. Among other things, we need to know who was aware of these three-year-old instant messages, only to make them public at a time of enormous help to the House Democrats. Clearly Foley wasn’t the only one exploiting these teenagers.
As is Bookworm:
Foley’s conduct does not make for a pretty story, but it’s not the story we first believed. Foley looks like a creep and a predator, but not a criminal. The Republican leadership, on the facts I’ve described above, doesn’t looked as if it had facts sufficient to make a reasonable person act. To my partisan mind, the only ones who look really bad are the Soros groups, which sat on emails they now contend show a crime against children, and the Democrats, generally, who have suddenly started calling a large group of their constitutents “perverts.” In other words, this is not really a sex scandal; it’s just politics as usual.
I have been a little bit miffed with the rights reaction to this whole thing from day one. As soon as it was learned the emails and IM’s were to young men many on the right just threw Foley overboard without any hard information. I mean at least wait a few days to see where all this information leads us. Recall the Plame hysteria when it first came out…..Steve Hadley actually RETRACTED the 16 words in the Bush speech when those words were actually true. Instead of heading off the controversy from the beginning our party lent credence to the “scandal”…..Deja Vu?
Carol Platt Liebau is also telling the Right to remain calm, for god’s sakes:
The Democrats are trying to play the same game with Foley as they do with Iraq . . . refusing to recognize that decisions can be made only with the imperfect information that people have at the time. Once all the facts are revealed, Dems like to second guess, but that’s the prerogative only of those who don’t really have to be responsible for anything.
Republicans need to remain calm. Make it clear that we are united in our absolute distaste and repugnance at Foley’s behavior, wait for the facts to come out, and then proceed accordingly.
The timing of this thing stinks to high heaven (see my post here to get the lowdown on the timing) and if the Democrats were indeed only looking out for the children then they would also want to find out who knew what and when…..
UPDATE
Mark Levin makes another valid point, if Foley’s proclivities were a well known secret then why didn’t ANY member of Congress blow the whistle, Dem or Rep?
If Foley’s behavior was an “open secret,” then why didn’t ANY member of Congress raise a loud stink about it? Just because they didn’t hold the title “Speaker” doesn’t mean they couldn’t have acted or spoken out. The point is illogical to me. (And if it was an “open secret,” it seems that precious little information was provided to the Speaker by anyone.) If, for example, it’s an “open secret” that a member of Congress actually molested a page, it’s not solely the Speaker’s responsibility to address it. And if it’s an “open secret,” I assume Nancy Pelosi knew about it. So, I suppose we should damn the entire House. Yes, the Speaker runs the place, or tries to, but every member has a duty to report unethical or criminal activity should they become aware of it.
UPDATE II
The House Majority Leader has issued a response to the hysterical crying from the Times:
Dear Letter to the Editor:
I disagree with the editorial board of the Washington Times (“Resign, Mr. Speaker,” Oct. 3, 2006). We are all outraged about Mark Foley’s abhorrent and reprehensible conduct. He preyed on children entrusted to our care and he disgraced our institution.
Mr. Foley lied to his fellow members, he lied to the Clerk of the House, and I believe everyone wishes they knew more and knew it earlier so we would have caught Mr. Foley’s lies and deceit. Those of us in the Republican leadership have done our best to provide an accurate chronology of our recollections and conversations with Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA) regarding Mr. Foley, but one thing is certain: no one in the leadership, including Speaker Hastert, had any knowledge of the warped and sexually explicit instant messages that were revealed by ABC News last Friday. Had Speaker Hastert or anyone else in our leadership known about Mr. Foley’s despicable conduct, I’m confident the Speaker would have moved to expel Mr. Foley immediately and turn him over to the appropriate authorities.
Our congressional pages and their parents deserve a fair and full investigation by the Justice Department, and I’m confident they will get one. We also need to know why these messages surfaced only last week, on the final day of legislative business before the November elections. If this evidence was withheld for political purposes, one can only speculate as to how many additional children may have been endangered before this information was finally revealed.
UPDATE III 1710hrs PST
Been out most of the afternoon so I missed the update from ABC about the new IM’s. Nothing too surprising here based on the other IM’s we saw, cybersex, talk of alcohol to someone under 21, and other assorted deviant activity.
Former Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) interrupted a vote on the floor of the House in 2003 to engage in Internet sex with a high school student who had served as a congressional page, according to new Internet instant messages provided to ABC News by former pages.
ABC News now has obtained 52 separate instant message exchanges, which former pages say were sent by Foley, using the screen name Maf54, to two different boys under the age of 18.
Yes, we all know and agree Foley was a perv….he needed to resign, as he did immediately, unlike Studds, unlike Reynolds. But for the Democrats to come out and say that based on the emails in which nothing sexual was discussed Hastert should of started an investigation is just plain ludicrous. Hindsight is always 20/20 but come on. Knowing what they knew then, mainly that a few emails were sent that made a page uncomfortable but nothing sexual was said nor discussed who in the world would have started an investigation? Not a Dem nor a Rep would have.
Now if anyone knew of these IM’s that would be a different matter but there has not been any claim nor evidence suggesting this.
Democratic hitjob prior to the election.
UPDATE IV 2030hrs PST
Dick Morris stated on Fox News about an hour ago that a respected reporter told him that she has proof that a senior democrat member of congress knew about the IMs months ago.
Trying to get video as I type….
What will this do to Pelosi’s shrill cries of “protecting the children”?
UPDATE V 2045hrs PST
Right Wing News has found that a entry that initially described the Stubbs affair as so:
“On July 20, 1983, Gerry was censured for having an affair 10 years earlier with a male page. He…turned his back] as the charges against him were read. The anti-gay crew had worked hard to demonize him (as they would [[Barney Frank]] several years later over allegations of a male prostitute having clients in Frank’s apartment). Gerry held a press conference with the page and admitted to a relationship. They each firmly stated that what had gone on in their bedroom was their business, and absolutely no one else’s.”
Has now been edited to take out any reference to the “anti-gay crew”
That’s right, folks. According to the people at the Daily Kos before the Foley scandal, criticizing a Congressman for having sex with a 17 year old page was nothing but the, “anti-gay crew (working) hard to demonize him.”
Now today, the very same liberals who have that morally bankrupt view are insisting that people like Dennis Hastert resign for not figuring out sooner, with no hard evidence whatsoever, that Foley was another Studds.
No hypocrisy here.
Other’s Blogging:
- Wizbang
- Rightwinged
- Confederate Yankee
- Macsmind
- GOPBloggers
- Riehl World View
- Ankle Biting Pundits
- Don Surber
- Capitol Briefs
- Rightwing Nuthouse
- Newsbusters
- Redstate
- The Strata-Sphere
- Right Wing News
- Hot Air
- Save The GOP
- The Real Ugly American
- The Absurd Report
- IMAO
- A Blog For All
- Cold Fury
- Gothamist
- The American Mind
- Sigmund, Carl, & Alfred
- JustOneMinute
- Patterico’s Pontifications
- Gateway Pundit
- Wizbang
I have been a little bit miffed with the rights reaction to this whole thing from day one. As soon as it was learned the emails and IM’s were to young men many on the right just threw Foley overboard without any hard information. I mean at least wait a few days to see where all this information leads us. Recall the Plame hysteria when it first came out…..Steve Hadley actually RETRACTED the 16 words in the Bush speech when those words were actually true. Instead of heading off the controversy from the beginning our party lent credence to the “scandal”…..Deja Vu?

See author page
Those in charge of protecting children for real like this A$$hat are making statments like this:
“Governor Rendell, do you see any need for any changes in state public schools in terms of security?”
RENDELL: You can make all the changes you want, but you can never stop a random act of violence by a person who is intent on killing themselves. It’s the same thing as protecting the president of the United States. You can have 50 Secret Service agents there, but if someone is willing to swap their life for the president’s, they’re going to get a point-blank shot at the president.”
…..
Governor Rendell, a Democrat, has already conceded that we cannot win the war on terror OR the savagery on our kids at home. How many more “random acts of violence” is it going to take before this jerk wakes the hell up??? Rendell dismisses this as a “random act of violence” unworthy of his efforts to stop it??!!
Incredible!
Carol
As usual, we have the HYPOCRITICAL Dems making ASSES out of themselves yet again.
If they want to hold members of Congress to the kind of standard where expulsion for something like “overly-friendly” emails, where is their outcry for the resignation of the TRAITOROUS Sen. Jay Rockefeller for his spilling our secrets to Iraq? Or the EXPULSION of Chuckie Schumer for his aides role in digging up credit reports of black Republicans?
The childish hypocracy of such buffoons really rubs me the wrong way!
Flopping Aces » Blog Archive » Foleygate Has Begun
[…] I’ve closed out this post and begun a new one here. […]