Anything for that 2 % undecided, anything
clinton wasn't immoral he just had to lie in a climate of false morality. what? he had an accident with someones dress???
It happens...
come on dave! Surely even you think that a man cheating on his wife with a girl almost his daughter's age and then lying to his family and the nation (cuz he happens to be President) is immoral? Don't you?
Now, if reporters had investigated and found nothing, don't you think it was probably the same with Speaker Hasert?
I don't know.... Why don't we ask him?
We should also ask him when was the first time he felt it was appropriate for pages to be warned not to become "too friendly" with Rep. Foley?
We should also ask Rep. Reynolds, and Rep. Shays.
Is it possible to do an actual investigation without being accused of "distortions". Why don't we get the facts before we start making assumptions.
I don't know what to say about someone holding this story- while young kids were supposedly in danger-hoping to release it at the most advantageous POLITICAL moment.
Not as soon as they found out, not as soon as they could corner a cop, but waiting... waiting for the right POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY.
"Burn in hell" comes to mind...
The Democrats know that a sexual scandal, no matter how sick, is the responsibililty of the adult involved.
So the Catholic Church has absolutely no responsibility for moving predatory priests from parish to parish after knowing that these priests were preying on the younger members of the congregation? What a black and white world you live in.
If I know my next door neighbor is running a kiddy porn ring, and do nothing about it, then I should be subject to public ridicule and humiliation. The same should be true of our elected officials.
If Barry agrees with me, then there must be something to it.
Dan Crane was a Republican who was censured by the Congress but retained his seat after having sex with a 17 year old page in 1980. He lost his re-election bid in 1984.
Arnold Schwartzenegger has all but admitted to grouping numerous women against their will when confronted with the women he grouped. He also has run smear campaigns against some of the women he grouped. He is currently seeking re-election as Governor of California.
The whole Franklin S&L scandal, how many resignations over that?
Who else was present at Duke Cunninghams poker/prostitute parties? Have they resigned?
Get off you high horse. Neither political party acts morally. Only some people do.
Barry is not agreeing with you jandrew. He is saying that he finds it just as wrong to sit on a story where you know that children may be in danger for the right political moment.
Dan Crane had to only be censured because that was all they were doing to Gerry Studds at the time and him being gay and all it was all so PC at the time.
Is that all the "sexual scandal" you can come up with with Republicans??
Gee, we are better than I thought.
don't forget richard m nixon.
Was he a democrat?
this is the rightwingers arguement as I see it.
Yes Foley is a bad guy, but so are democrats. Nice.
you guys argue like children.
let's see who can make the longer list of who has more scoundrels in their party.
well as long as it's sex that is the moral boundry. we can forget other criminal efforts.
RWS
what makes barney Frank immoral? I am not aware of the scandal that he was involved in?
I know US politics is a blood sport. I know that damaging information is released when it has a chance to affect things. It happens on both sides.
But this Foley thing has an element of child endangerment to it. Sitting on THAT is wrong. I hope whoever sat on the info is found out and pilloried righteously.
Cory, How old are you?
Cory:
Rep. Franks significant other has a sorid history that includes working as a hustler, and possible ties to a male-prostitution ring for which he allegedly recieved calls while co-habitating with Rep. Fank.
The people of Mass. decided these acts weren't bad enough to get them to vote Republican.
Barry:
Your including Hastert, Reynolds, Shays, and all other Republicans who had knowledge. The page class of 2001 was warned not to get too friendly with Foley, so somebody knew something prior than a few months ago (when the now exposed IM's were written).
The Folrida paper was notified about this and investigated, as RWS indicates. Who is it you are looking to take down with Foley on this one?
Is this going to lead to tighter restrictions on our internet access?
come on dave! Surely even you think that a man cheating on his wife with a girl almost his daughter's age and then lying to his family and the nation (cuz he happens to be President) is immoral? Don't you?
we've had this one all diferent ways in our country. I remember John Major declaring "a new dawn for traditional family values" or whatever in the tory party which opened the floodgates for a whole river full of sleaze- and his own affair didn't even ome out till he was well out of office.
I don't hold anyone to my level of morality and crucially I don't think its is anyone's buisness but theirs and if it doesn't affect his ability to do his job it shouldn't be held up by others against him.
i don't intrinsically think it is immoral no, but that is another issue which would require a longer explanation. he lied because of a climate of false morality.
he lied because of a climate of false morality.
but I thought you lot like poluting the climate anyway!
ha ha ha ha ha
>Who is it you are looking to take down with Foley on this one?
Whomever. I'm disgusted with all 535 of them.
cory,
Regarding Barney frank:
G"obie's dream has come true. His accusation that Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) knew that Gobie had operated a prostitution service out of Frank's Capitol Hill apartment became national news after it was first reported Friday by the Washington Times.
Frank, one of two openly gay members of Congress, confirmed Friday that he paid Gobie for sex, hired him with personal funds as an aide and wrote letters on congressional stationery on his behalf to Virginia probation officials"
yeah, so there's that.
source:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/
longterm/tours/scandal/gobie2.htm
And who warned the pages of 2001???? One Republican staff member.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/s...=2514259&
page=1
Yet the Dems on Tv are going on and on about it without mentioning that. Like it was Hastert himself who warned them.
I am SURE that Hastert never heard of the staff member warning the pages:
" "don't get too wrapped up in him being too nice to you and all that kind of stuff."
Wow, I bet that went straight to the top!
*rolls eyes*
Ok, i've read and heard enough.
Hastert's so called press conference -- where he didn't even take questions -- was a smoke screen and amounted to no more than we're not to blame, we were ignorant of the guy's problems.
And that page meeting this afternoon to discuss a plan of action to keep pages safe, kildee (D) was not on the list according to The Note. He was bypassed again.
And now ABC tells us Foley tried to arrange "dinner-dates" with pages.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/
theblot...s_show_fol.html
Foley giving $100,000 to Reynolds in May.
Hastert's website i understand is now doing more headline changes then the National Inquirer.
I'm calling it early, Hastert is done. His back is now to the wall and there's no place to go on this one. In the House the meme was Foley was too fond of pages-- they knew it for near a year, but yet no action was taken to protect them.
The next step is to simply watch the temperature on the Hill rise (as many measure it against a moral-values backdrop). I wonder if Hastert will last out the investigation. The press is even now asking Repb. members whether they stand with Hastert or not.
I don't think Hastert can control this amount of bleeding.
If only issues regarding wether or not the U.S. Government could imprison people based on secret evidence and hold them indefinitely at the whim of the executive branch received this much discussion in our country........ But we were able to get through that issue in less than a week, nothing major there...
sigh...
hey if you want to argue with a british lefty go here it will be very educational for you all.
The only thing Hastert is guilty of is not forseeing what Mark Foley was.
If it is proven that Hastert knew anything beyond the innocuous e-mails and maybe gossip, then I will be the first one to eat crow.
But if he is brought down by a slime machine for someone else's horrid acts then that is just wrong and all involved should be ashamed.
RWS - We are in agreement-- In a sane world hyping this event would be unfair... but ultimately politics is a filthy business.
From my view the situation now has enough inertia behind the Republican House that Hastert cannot control it. He'll be one CNN any minute now to try to put the best face he can on it-- it'll amount to nil, if it was like his press conference.
As you know the art of politics is perception and this game can morph into almost anything, but this is simple for the public, they can understand it and it can be spun so easy with this Republican congress. The Dems sense a kill here and will attempt to drive a wedge between Hastert's moral righteousness and "knowingly" concealed a sexual deviant.
--Thing is, it will sell without solid evidence; the circumstantial evidence will drown him.
The Democrats would love for this to be some sort of a coverup, but it simply isn't
Oh there's a cover up here, but its not Hastert (who is otherwise a complete slime). The coverup is the origins of the supposed IM's and emails.
The email images HERE(which broke the story) don't match the emails CREW was pimping. Now it seems CREW has sanitized their website. The PDF with the email images has been removed.
Doug, who gave what to Reynolds? Are you talking about Mel Reynolds, the democrat congressman who went to jail for having sex with an underage campaign worker? Oh yeah, Clinton pardoned him. Then Jesse Jackson hired him. Nice!
P.S. Why am I not surprised Cory has never heard of the Barney Frank HUGE scandal? His lover claimed he knew all about the prostitution ring BTW. He also used his office to dismiss all his lover's parking tickets. lol.
And now he's a fairly big leader in the democrat party. You know, like ole Teddy Kennedy.
Sean Hannity was going down memory lane today about the response to the Studds scandal when the dems controlled congress. They decided not to investigate. Gee, what a surprise.
It seems CREW just renamed the PDF, so people's links would be busted.
THIS IS THE NEW URL TO IT I found by groping around on their server.
As anyone can see, the the original blogs images HERE don't match with CREW's for some of the emails. One in particular that jumped out begins: "Glad your home safe and sound..."
The Blog's version Has "Glad" capitalized. CREW's has the word "glad" in lower case. The blog version ends in "now?" the CREW version in "now?..."
Obviously someone has retyped, or fabricated one or both of these. Capitalizations don't change all by themselves
How does one get cersured without an investigation first? That would violate due process, which I'm sure wouldn't be stood for in Congress (well, until last week.).
There was an ethics committee investigation, Studds was found in breach, and was censured.
Hannity shouldn't be relied on for accurate information.
Purple:
We still on for 100 bucks? Let me know.
Purple:
Seriously, is your comment about the "ethics" of CREW reporters? Are they MSM now? I heard there were more shiny objects over at Kos agian if you really want to spend your day finding things to attack which don't involve the major events in the real news.
oh, this is gonna definitely be another dem talking point:
Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., says she was not told about suggestive e-mails that a Florida congressman sent to a 16-year-old former Capitol page, even though she is one of three representatives who oversee the page program.
http://www.dailymail.com/story/N...sman's+e-mails/
so they cut out the only woman in the group and the only dem and make it an all republican men's thing regarding foley's emails. and shortly thereafter tom reynolds has a $100,000 donation to the NRCC from Foley.
http://blogs.nydailynews.com/
dai...olds_knew_b.php
What's next? pics of jeff gannon coming and going out of foley's office?
When you conservatives try to play word games and protect GOP pedophiles, you make it look like the entire conservative movement is sick and evil. You should be condemning the rampant pedophilia in the GOP and Christian Right.
http://www.armchairsubversive.com/
One other thing. CREW also has tried to get the House to file ethics complaints about Democrats, but don't let facts get in the way of protecting pedophiles, you right-wing wackjobs.
jandrew, You've given us Marxist and DU website links as verification of your views and now decry Hannity "shouldn't be relied on for accurate information?" I am laughing at you like you wouldn't believe. And I can't stand Hannity, but I hate Marxists and DU even more.
Btw, Doug, you've killed the horse enough. You claim to hate both parties but your behavior here shows you're a liar.
Blake:
You are incorrigable. Your posts of personal attacks on my sources are meaningless, as you fail to point out the context in which they were used as sources.
I provided a Marxist link to a story on an anti-bush rally to show that their estimates on attendance were far less than those who would have benefitted from low attendance.
I don't remember ever providing a link to DU as it is not a site I read much, but it is possible. I sincerely doubt I provided the link for more than fact checking on an opinion, or to a story which contained links to source materials.
Hannity does not provide any sources or links. He seems to be in the Rush/O'Reilly camp of simply spouting a talking point then changing the subject. His talking points don't hold up to research, so he doesn't encourage his listeners to investigate them.
Rely on whoever you want, but at least provide your sources.
something i learned by boston talk radio in the discussion of rep foley's child peodophilia was that the massachusetts advocates of gay marriage also is advocating for the lowering of the age of consent in massachusetts to 14 years old.
Hannity shouldn't be relied on for accuracy? This coming from the "Rostenkowskin only stole a few stamps" jandrew?!!! Bwahahahah....
Jandrew you have no idea what you're talking about. You never do and you never have. But thanks for trying.
Foley should just move to just about any blue state, change his party affiliation and he'll be reelected to anything.
Seriously, is your comment about the "ethics" of CREW reporters?
I would hesitate to call anyone involved with crew a "reporter".
Anyone who fakes or alters emails regarding this incident should be investigated.
One other thing. CREW also has tried to get the House to file ethics complaints about Democrats
Not relevent. If they are faking evidence, that is a bad thing under any circumstances.
Jandrew, What supposed sources do you want me to provide? I never claimed to give any. And btw, I said I hated Hannity and rarely listen to him. I am indifferent to this story right now because all the facts haven't come out. I can only be grateful thet Foley is gone.
Every conservative blog (including this one) I've read has condemned Foley and if the House leadership knew about his perverted behavior and didn't act on it, they should be forced to resgin. Can I get any clearer than that, jandrew and Doug?
It's incorrigible, not "incorrigable", jandrew. I hate being your teacher but your repeated bungling of the Engllish language is embarrasing. Go here to ensure you spell properly:
http://dictionary.reference.com/
Tom,
Gerry Studds has SEX with an underage page and he was re-elected five time in YOUR PARTY.
So save the "protecting a pedophile" talking point.
We don't protect them and we don't re-elect them.
Doug missed the point above, I think. If the overly friendly emails were responsibly investigated, why did two of the three steering committee members NOT know about it? Shouldn't they have been kept in the loop? Or was it because they were a) a woman from WV and b) a Dem? Occam's razor says they were kept out of the loop intentionally. (The potential reprecussions of telling them were less (to the R leadership, personally) than not telling them. But the potential reprecussions to the R party were greater if they were told. Therefore the logic of party politics, not the logic of personal accountability held sway.)
You see? This is what is driving me crazy! This is what they are so indignant over! Yet their own have sex with underage pages (Studds), pay a prostitute and then have that prostitute run a brothel out of his apartment (Frank) and another have sex with an underage girl (Reynolds) and another seduce an intern at the WHite House (Clinton) and WHERE WAS THEIR INDIGNATION????? This was ACTUAL sex folks.
Yet, someone not telling everyone on a committe about e-mails that were NOT sexual in nature is THE WORST OF THE WORST.
I can't take it. The hypocrisy is killing me.
At least you spelled hypocrisy right, RWS. And you're not even a lawyer!
Sorry Sparkel,
What Foley did was wrong and most likely illegal however what is truly unforgivable is that apparent the GOP leadership knew Foley had issues with pages for 5 years or more and did nothing.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/
theblot...ngs_about_.html
I don't know about Occums Razor but Hastert's actions remind me of Sgt Schultz from Hogans Heroes. He too was always careful to know nothing, absolutely nothing!
OMG! The same thing over and over. "Pages were warned in 2001" BY ONE STAFFER and what he said was nothing alarming! Which is why they aren't reporting the quote I suppose. Better to have people use their imaginiations and think the staffer said "Foley is a pedophile..BEWARE!"
The "sick e-mail" is the one I have linked and referred to. Nothing sexual. Even the parents of the page thought there was nothing sexual in it. But dont let that get in the way of a good story.
why can't we just focus on the one who actually did something wrong here? FOLEY.
Oh no, why do that? there is no political gain there cuz the Republicans agree.
But then if it was your guy, you would be standing on the lawn behind him in full support. Or giving him a pardon for having sex with a minor or re-electing him 5 time after having had actual sex with a minor.
You guys make me sick.
The horses have long since left the barn, but when I first heard about this story on Conservative blogs there was indeed almost universal condemnation. That condemnation was quickly followed with "they did it too" comments about the Democrats. You could say it was anticipation for the swarm to follow, which it did, of course, but I think that at that point it was out of line. I think it would have made more sense to hold fire till that point, because it gave the impression that the Right was trying to blunt the issue.
Having said that, the volume with which the Left did paint the whole Republican party for this was astounding. It was immediate, and it was very confirming.
Hannity was also reading quotes by then speaker Tom Foley about how this was a personal matter for Barney Frank and he was such a great congressman, etc. etc.!!!
The difference in our parties is again IMMEASURABLE!!!!!
The democrats are the scum of the earth. They can do ANYTHING and get reelected. ANYTHING!!!
Paul you must be soooo proud of your disgusting party.
Tom M, everyone sees through the democrats. My husband has a friend from work who is not even political and he heard something about the democrats fury over this and he said something like "What the hell? After all the democrat sex scandals they are outraged over this???
That's how a lot of people are going to react.
The democrats just keep stepping in their own filth and showing what they're all about. And again, the stench of their desperation is overwhelming.
The "sick e-mail" is the one I have linked and referred to. Nothing sexual. Even the parents of the page thought there was nothing sexual in it. But dont let that get in the way of a good story.
The article didn't say the parents found nothing sexual about it - it says they didn't want it pursued. I think you are giving Foley too much credit here. If my child were to get emails like that from a person of authority, (yes the emails - not the internet messages) I would be concerned.
So have you read what Michelle has to say about this? What do you think?
http://michellemalkin.com/archiv...ives/
006033.htm
I don't disagree with you, Jill, about the Democratic Party. The MSM are willing and active partners in the charade that allows hypocrisy to go undiscovered, lies to simmer with the sometimes corrections coming on page Z27. No sooner will they defend aberrant behavior on their side, only to demand an investigation with the slightest whiff of innuendo on the other. I'm with you.
Although I am not a Republican, I generally identify and vote that way most of the time. My point was that when this broke, the the "they too" should not have been brought out until after the broad brush emerged from the opposition. It dulled the point of the argument, and made it seem like we were trying to water down the outrage.
Of course we were angry at the guy. Of course we did not defend him for his twisted actions. Of course we knew that the dems and the left would sling the crap wide. Of course they are completely ignoring the fact that no one, I have read anyway, has actually stood up for this wreck.
We should have held fire until that moment, though. I think that jandrew knows full well that we are condemming this guy. I think he knows that we are better on this than his side. It doesn't matter, because he likes to throw the crap anyway, just to see who he can steam off with it. If we kept this to Foley, until the first broad-brush smear, the argument would have had more impact.
Gene, thanks for the link. Malkin pretty much summed up my thoughts, and better than I could. I do think it is okay, at least on this level, to bring up the "them too" defense, but only after we got the tarred treatment.
Malkin went overboard, I think, in the takedown of the farewell speach from Foley. I didn't see how she came to some of her conclusions based on what he said. It doesn't change the fact that he's twisted, and needs to deal with his demons.
Gene,
THe news story I read said that the parents assured the Clerk of the houst that there was nothing sexual in the e-mails.
I did read Michelle. Guess what? I don't always agree with her. I didn't with Cindy Sheehan and I don't with immigration and I don't here.
RWS,
I don't want to sound like a lefty apologist for Islam's tactics by pulling the "we're better than this" gambit, I'm just saying we should not have launched the "Them too" defense until they slung the crap enough to be noticed.
a dc rightwing smackdown:
http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed...02008-
9058r.htm
Purple:
Define "evidence". Under my understanding of the word, it means documents, testimony and other items which are used during a trial in a court of law.
btw, are we on for $100 or no? Let me know soon please.
The hyperventilating coming from the right side of the blogosphere reminds me of the Ports Deal - they all piled on that one, too, jumping to conclusions and accepting false information from mainstream media as fact without checking for themselves. They, of all people, should have known better. All of it really irked me. Malkin, Captain's Quarter's etc. - usually my faves - they are as guilty as any of them for knee-jerk reactions.
I can see it coming. The mainstream media will work quickly to paint republicans into a corner by feining astonishment over anyone who doesn't want to jump on the bandwagon to oust Hastert.
Unless we find out really quickly who has been sitting on the grotesque e-mails for the past 3 years, we can count on chicken republicans distancing themselves from scandal by throwing Hastert under the bus.
Christine
Christine,
Where is your 3 year time-line coming from? The e-mails and IM's which were revealed were sent to pages from the class of 2004- 2005 after they returned home, no?
Do you know something we don't?
Time to prohibit minors from serving as pages. We keep them away from dangerous machinery; it's time we put Congress in that category.
What needs to be done? For starters the House leadership (from both parties) needs to demand that each member of the House issue a public on the record statement of what they knew about Rep. Foleys actions towards Pages and what they did about it. Will most of them lie through their teeth? Yeah probably but at least we will have their deceit on the record. If 16 year olds knew this guys reputation its a bit difficult to believe that members of Congress or their staffs were so blissfuly ignorant. Maybe we need more off the record interviews with Pages. It might be amazing the things we learn about our members of Congress.
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