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You forgot to weave Joe Monahan into your post! You're losing your touch.
You also forgot to mention that wilson was on the house page board from 2001-2005. and that the house page board was created to protect the pages from scumbags like foley. so did wilson ignore foley or just not do her job?
Now how would you suggest that Heather Wilson knew what sort of instant messages were being sent between Foley and a page(s)? Was she supposed to just assume that a gay Congressman would be soliciting young male pages? That's absurd. Maybe she should have been monitoring all electronic communications between Congressional Representatives and Pages. Oh wait, Democrats have been up in arms over the monitoring of communications by terrorists, do you think they would allow the monitoring of Congressional Representatives.
Heather Wilson did just what I would want my representative to do. The moment she was alerted to what was going on, she called for a full criminal investigation and prosecution to the fullest extent of the law of ANYONE who tried to hide information that allowed this to continue. She didn't mince words. She didn't try and work out deals that would be beneficial to Foley - like resigning without prosecution (think Vigil) and continuing to collect a paycheck.
Compare the stark contrast in Wilson's response to the way that Madrid has handled scandal during her watch. Madrid has consistently turned a blind eye to prosecuting scandal and corruption within in her own party. Madrid has failed to prosecute a child predator to the fullest extent of the law. Madrid has made it clear that Party politics trumps all.
Madrid has ignored scandal and corruption and not done her job. You may hate what's going on in Washington, but sending Patricia Madrid will only make it worse, not better.
Mario's making excuses for Heather as usual. Heather sleptwalk through her service on the page board just as she did on the Intelligence Committee. It would be nice for Heather to once and for all say. "hey,the page board was bullshit and I didn't pay attention to what was going on. We probably should have paid more attention." That would be refreshing and honest for once.
Heather has a responsibility to be a legislator. We ask way to much of a congressperson. She is not the president and therefore not responsible for Iraq. She is not a member of the state legislature so she is not responsible for class sizes. She is not Tom Delay keeper so she is not responsible for his problems and she is not Tom Foley's keeper so she is not responsible for his problems.
What she is responsible for is the bigger picture of the federal government. So if you have a problem with the republican's going off the farm and spending to much. Hold her accountable. So if you have a problem with the her voting for tax cuts then hold her accountable.
If you think that she should be responsible for the back up on montano road or the problems at APS then read your constitution.
I guess people think Heather, and everyone else, should have just assumed that a gay man was a predator.
That's the gist of what the Democrats have been saying, which shows just how serious they are about representing the interest of gays.
What I think it comes down to is a political play by Dems that is dependant on believing that the socially conservative Republican base will react with knee-jerk homophobia.
Just like they did when Kerry and Edwards so casually made certain that everyone knew that Mary Cheney was a lesbian. That worked like a charm, didn't it. But, try try again.
Foley is pretty disgusting and that doesn't change if he broke any laws or not. And he may not have. If he did, he should be charged and convicted of whatever laws he broke.
For now he's out of office, and we can be pretty sure that Republicans won't elect him back into office.
As for Madrid. It's called leadership. If she's serious about being tough on on-line predators that would be reflected by her subordinates if she's an effective leader. Her people would know how she felt and know what she expected.
Apparently they didn't have a clue.
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