How is this in any way relevant to the Repuplican leaderership protect an internet predator in Congress?

Just curious. I recall from a while back how you thought it was worse to take pictures of bombs in civilian houses than to drop them on civilian houses...so I'm wondering how your questions are in any way relevant to the topic at hand.

Thanks!

Wah, the relevance seems, well, obvious. If other folk, like Democrats, knew the particulars of the Internet predation, and sat on it for maximum political advantage, it would indicate that the Democrats, or someone, gives not a flying handshake for the safety of children. It is arguable that Hastert should have done more, but he had no details of the content. Whoever sat on the emails and IMs had full detail. Doing nothing with that knowledge is criminal, morally if not legally.

Thanks!

'Protect a child predator in congress'? Do you think Hastert would vote to make Foley the chairman of a committee just like Pelosi voted to make Gary 'Child Rapist' Stubbs chairman of the committee that he was on? No, wait. They threw Foley out..How long did the Child Rapist Stubbs stay in congress and how long the Pelosi keep voting for him. I want an investigation, maybe by Freeh, no wait Pelosi has blocked that as well. Wonder what she is covering up? Um.....

FACT: GOP staff, working for Republican Speaker Denny Hastert, warned the page class of 2001-2002 to stay away from Foley - five years ago.
FACT: Former chief of staff to GOP Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY), Kirk Fordham, says he warned Hastert's chief of staff of Foley's behavior three years ago. Whether or not you believe Fordham, his testimony is consistent with the other facts showing that the Republicans knew about Foley's behavior long before last week.

FACT: Both Reps. John Boehner, the Republican House Majority Leader, and Tom Reynolds both say they told Dennis Hastert personally about the Foley issue months ago. Hastert says Boehner is lying. So one of the two most powerful Republicans in the House is lying about an investigation into a child sex predator. That deserves a separate investigation right there.

FACT: Hastert's staff was informed of the Foley emails a year ago, but Hastert would like us to believe his staff simply never told him that a member of Congress, a member of his leadership team, was under investigation for preying sexually on young children - children who Hastert was responsible for.

Fact: Foley never rape anyone.

Fact: Nancy Pelosi voted for a known Child Rapist to be chairman of a congressional committee.

Should those getting money from the DCCC send it back because it has been tainted to the inabler of a known chid rapist?

Wah,

An errent bomb landing off the mark is definately bad, and an unfortunate part of war. To knowingly place a kid next to the bomb to get a better or more graphic picture was one of the dumbest things i've seen a photographer do, just wrong.

When a sexual predator is caught, removed from his office, and under investigation to see how far the details go, if one of the details was to have a group know about his mis deeds for months/years and not report it so there could be a bigger bang next to an election (purely political instead of looking out for the welfare of the child/young adult) it is again just wrong. Plain and simple.

Uuuhh CY, Brian Ross has said repeatedly that he received the IMs within 24 hours of posting the initial 'overly friendly' email on the Blotter.

I know you want to divert the focus by attacking the messenger, but at least pay attention will ya?

And now I see that Michelle Malkin has the answers to both your questions:

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/006063.htm

I wonder if you can sneak the questions in at the end of a comment praising the guy's excellent work. I'm gonna try it.

I went with this:

This Foley character is a horrible human being. Kudos to ABC for exposing this creep. It's reporting like this that ABC should be most proud of.

I'm still not clear on which leaders knew about Foley's preying on kids. Can ABC write a timeline? All politicians who knew about this and remained silent should be given the boot!

Also, when did Mr. Ross become aware of the existence of the instant messages between Congressman Foley and House pages? And were these instant messages given to Mr. Ross and the Staff of The Blotter directly by the pages, or were they filtered through an intermediary?

Think it will sneak by?

The people that provided the IMs to Ross were not the victims, so who where they? How many months/years where they sitting on the messages?

The truly sad part, why do some of you not care?

>Gary 'Child Rapist' Stubbs
I can't believe people keep on talking this BS about Stubbs. Can't you just check wikipedia article?

1) Studds was in no way a rapist. He had consensual sex with 17-years page. That was in 1973, and was brought to light in 1983. Foley so far is not proved to be a rapist, neither is he yet proven to be techically criminal. That's not really a point.

2) All this BS about "Republicans deal with the same things differently" is just sick. That same "page scandal" of 1983 had two people involved, one Republican, one Democrat, both engaging in exaclty the same thing, sex with a 17-year old pages (the only difference is in the Studd's incident happening earlier). Both of them were censured, both of them run for re-election. Crane failed, Studds succeded. There's no difference at all in the way Republicans and Democrats dealed with that situation.
Why didn't Crane resign? How dared he?

It was Foley's own choice to resign, this probably had to do with what _he_ knows about his conduct. There's a big difference between consensual sex ten years ago and continual grooming of the whole page program, which seems to be the case.
The fact that, say, Clinton didn't resign had something to do with the importance of his work. Given the fact that Foley's life work seems to be protecting exploited children, it was quite obvious that staying in the House was just absurd for him. It could mean nothing but more humiliation for and one seat totally lost. So the fact that Foley resigned gives no grounds for bragging about "high morals". His resignation wasn't gracious, BTW. Nor was the finger-pointing that GOP tops engaged into, nor the Hastert's incoherent and self-contradicting ramblings.

Michelle Malkin received email ...

From Jeffrey W. Schneider of ABC News:

We became aware of the IMs only after we reported the first blotter item on the emails between Foley and a former page last Thursday, September 28.

Which depends on the definitions of "We" and "aware". Ross may have been informed there was more to the story beyond the emails if he would provide the opening. In which case that statement would be parse accurate yet evasive. No "We" no "IMs", instead just "Ross" and "more to the story".

Certainly not disproving a planned attack using "evidence" generated by a prank and shared for amusement until exploited by political operatives favorable to Democrats.

Differences Studds vs Crane vs Foley ...

Democrats reelected Studds. Republicans tossed Crane, Foley was asked to resign by Republican leadership.

Nobody asked for Tip O'Neil to resign for not preventing sex between congressmen and pages away from home under House supervision.

Hastert has been asked to resign for not preventing private citizens (ex pages) in their own home engaging in dirty chat with a congressman.

Pretty obvious.

Foxnews also had these emails. Bill O'Reilly flatly states " Fox had these emails early on" So what did they do about it?

Boris,

The Studds/Crane page scandals were uncovered, not covered up, by the investigation ordered by Tip O'Neill after there were anonymous allegations of involvement with pages. O'Neill was praised for his handling of the matter. That's why nobody asked him to resign.

Competence vs incompetence:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/03/AR2006100301109.html

>Democrats reelected Studds. Republicans tossed Crane,
Well, that's voters that tossed Crane. This has nothing to say about the party's policy. That is just a regular thing for incumbents not to be reelected. It's obvious that any such scandal lowers the chances, and in Crane's case it was critical, but that's not a reason to draw far-fetched conclusions about "moral superiority".
>Foley was asked to resign by Republican leadership.
1) Hastert said both that he asked Foley that he did _and_ that he didn't have a chance to. He can't be right in both cases, so he's obviously a liar, and that's not a good quality for a leader.
2) I don't think that Democrats would mind Foley staying. There's just no chance that he could be dangerous to kids in given situation, and having Foley on board would mean that GOP's ship would sink 100%.

It's just a given fact that consensual sex with a legal guy (willing to appear on press conference) that happened 10 years ago is very different in its impact from a number of freaky IMs. None would probably send anyone in jail (the law that _would_ send Foley in jail is dated 2005). But there's no more grace in asking Foley to resign than in refusing to shoot yourself in the head.

>Nobody asked for Tip O'Neil
Tip O'Neil wasn't a speaker when Studds incident happened (1973), so I can't understand why you bring him in.
It's mainly Republicans asking Hastert to resign, Dems don't really mind him staying (it's just more chances for the boat to sink), they merely ask for the full investigation. Given the clumsy way GOP leaders behaved _after_ Foley resigned, it really looks like there _was_ a cover-up or a gross incompetence.

All this talk about GOP being a party of peophile-appeasers is sure dirty, but no more so than the BS about "dhimmocrats", "terrorist-appeasers", "cut-and-runners" etc.

Hold on one second. A Republican congressman is caught having explicit conversations with minors. The highest echelons of Republican leadership knew about it.

And the best you can come up with is, "well, the Democrats are no better"?

Way to go, party of personal responsibility.

once again Bloggers (at least good ones) are transparent and the MSM is not.

The Stubbs sex was 17 year old was not consensual. He drugged the 17 year old with something in his drink. At the time there was no laws against date rape, which was what Stubbie did...and Pelosi knew,yes Jeremy, knew, that Stubbie was a Child Rapist and she voted for him. What do you think about her Jeremy?

Writing "Democrats reelected Studds" it should have been obvious that the Democrats referred to were voters. That was the point. Democrat voters are not as concerned with "sexual morality".

The point about Tip was that his leadership allowed the sexual contact to occurr under his watch. Hastert has no business policeing what private citizens (ex pages) are chatting with congressmen about. So the question is not that Tip FOUND OUT WHAT WAS HAPPENENING RIGHT UNDER HIS NOSE (BFD) it's that Hastert's investigation came up dead ended because there wasn't evidence to proceed.

If your point is that all "competent" investigations immediately uncover the whole truth, then you're welcome to it. My point is that comparing what Tip and Hastert failed to prevent, Hastert wins, Tip loses.

What do you think about her Jeremy?

Pelosi? I don't think much of her. Despite your approach to the matter, not all of us see this as a partisan issue. IOW, just because I criticize Foley and his party's actions doesn't mean I support Democratic... anything.

I just think it's interesting that if a Republican makes a mistake that outrages the public, the first and ongoing reaction is to somehow tie it to Democrats. As if that changes anything! Sounds like an exercise in misdirection to me.

So what's your point? That Republicans and Democrats are equally immoral? For Christ's sake, Americans already KNOW that. You can calm down and take a breather already.

FACT: GOP staff, working for Republican Speaker Denny Hastert, warned the page class of 2001-2002 to stay away from Foley - five years ago.

Actually, that "fact" was rebutted by the aide on whom the story was based:

...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.

Loraditch's Facebook.com statement said: "I have received several heated responses from my fellow pages about media involvement in the current situation. I want to respond with a few points and thoughts.

"Firstly, as to the ABC "Warned" story, while I may have inadvertently used the word, "warned," in communication, I can assure you it was not intended. The fact of the matter is in an informal situation a supervisor mentioned that Foley was a bit odd or flaky and did not connote by tone or otherwise that he should be avoided.

Clear? I encourage the commenter to compare his "warned the page class of 2001-2002 to stay away from Foley" with "did not connote by tone or otherwise that he should be avoided".

Brian Ross hyped his story - gee.

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2006/10/abc_news_versus.html

Foley was asked to resign by Republican leadership.

Not ture. He resigned before they got to it...despite House leadership knowing about it for years.

Bringing up a story from before most of the current pages were born is a joke defense, not to mention the "child date rape" allegation by comrade Boris in this thread.

I just find this whole story quite illuminating about who is so ridiculously partisan that instead of admitted their own party puts politics over responsiblity (which is evident from the fact that Reynolds knew of this behavior and still pushed Foley to run again) and who actually has some sort of ethical standards they hold their representatives accountable for.

Nikolay's post above covers everything else.

Keep on spinning though, if that's your bag. The problem for ya'll, however, is that the spinning has turned into digging. The question now is how long it will take the (R)'s to realize that.

Oh, and this story has also exposed GOPTV (a.k.a Fox "News") for the propagandists many of us have long theorized them to be.

Also, it should be noted that the tite of this post is now utterly and completely false.

It should probably be updated...if whoever runs this site has the slightest bit of journalistic integrity.

The title stays, not for the least reason that it is still accurate. The ABC News blog "The Blotter" did in fact censor my comments asking these questions not once, but twice. That essential fact has not changed.

It was only after Michelle Malkin put me in touch with the senior vice president for communications that I got an answer.

Not that "wah" will have the integrity to admit he is wrong, or course.

I see...so...despite ANSWERING your accusatory questions, they are still "censoring" you by not posting questions that have already been answered prominently on their page?

So...you're mad at them for not muddying the water further? Is that the long and short of it?

There's a certain concept in various disciplines called a "signal to noise" ratio. The idea is to keep useful information prominent, and useless information to a minimum. Your questions are noise, and it's really not "censoring" to keep already answered questions from clogging up the works.

BTW, you "censored" ABC's response by leaving out this part.

As for responding to reader's questions, we have received tens of thousands of comments on these stories. We would like to respond to every question, but as I'm sure you can appreciate, that is not always possible.

You were wrong to attack the messenger, and your questions were unfounded (and answered). Admit that (in the title bar) and I'll be happy to let you keep playing the victim.

>Writing "Democrats reelected Studds" it should have
>been obvious that the Democrats referred to were
>voters. That was the point. Democrat voters are not
>as concerned with "sexual morality".
First, that's their business. There could be many things said about people who managed to re-elect Bush after his much graver offences. But that's just democracy.
Second, even this thing about "voters morality" doesn't have enough ground. The only thing common between Crane and Studds is that they commited the same misdeed. The fact that Crane was not re-elected doesn't prove anything about voters' morality, just as the fact of some black congressman being or not being re-elected would not say that voters are "pro-affirmative action" or "racist". It's mainly about him strong or not strong on issues.

>The point about Tip was that his leadership
>allowed the sexual contact to occurr under his
>watch.
I still don't understand why you can't check your facts. O'Neill was the speaker from 1977. Studds had relations with page in 1973. Do you think it makes sense to make Tip responsible for things that happened 4 years before his watch started?

>If your point is that all "competent"
>investigations immediately uncover the whole
>truth, then you're welcome to it.
No, my point is that, given the the number of contradictions and self-contradictions in what GOP's leaders said, it just looks like the investigation is needed.
If some of the Republicans feel that Hastert has to resign -- that's their right to say so. In this situation most of the sensible Democrats just enjoy the show while Republicans throw dirt at each other. There's quite a bit of Shadenfreude in Dem's feelings, but given the demonization and ridiculous accusations they've suffered from Reps, you can't really blame them.

How the fact that instead of stating sensible position on this subject Republican leaders started a blame-game and did quite a lot of ridiculous things is the Democrat's fault, is beyond me.

The name of the speaker is somewhat irrelevant to the point. Studds date raped a page and other than Studds himself coming in for a "censure" reprimand, there was no call for the Democrat speaker of the House to take responsibility or resign.

Democrat voters don't seem to mind sleazy behavior, Kennedy, Studds, Frank, Clinton. You can claim it's just issues, but then so what, others say it's that morality is a bigger "issue" with Republicans. The evidence is the evidence and denial aint a river in Eqypt.

>The name of the speaker is somewhat irrelevant to the point.
How do you mean? The Studd story was brought to light in 1983. You're talking about punishing a speaker, when the one who _could_ theoretically be made responsible for this had already resigned 6 years earlier. Would you put a dead man in jail, would you?

>Studds date raped a page
Do you have any responsible sources for this? It looks like an urban myth. The sources I've read only talk about him having sex with that page.

>there was no call for the Democrat speaker of the
>House to take responsibility or resign.
What the Democrat party did to Studds was _exactly_ what the Republican party did to Crane, who commited _exactly_ the same offence. Do you really want to say that the Republican party's conduct has _nothing_ to do with Republican values???

All this stuff about "sleazy Kennedy" is just irellevant. The parties are different and "morality" means different things to them. So what. You may think that Bush and Nixon are more "moral" than Kennedy and Clinton, but that's just your opinion.

punishing a speaker, when the one who _could_ theoretically be made responsible for this had already resigned 6 years earlier

So what you're saying is that there was no Democrat speaker of the House when Studds date raped the page? Or that because they were unaware of it, like Hastert was unaware, they bear no responsibility.

Still seems to me that letting that kind of activity occur between congressmen and pages under your care at the time, as opposed to policing chat between private citizens (ex pages) in their own home and the elected representive of a district, is completely higher level of responsibility.

My point is not that the Democrat speaker of the house should have been punished for lax oversight, but that applying some new ridiculous standard of responsibility to Hastert is ridiculously ridiculous. Want to supply some evidence that policing sex chat between private citizens (ex pages) in their own home and the elected representive of another district has ever been a legitimate concern for a full scale investigation? The sexual aspect of the case and the risk of unfair damage to reputation would incline some people to be cautious about openly investigating flimsy suspicion based on witheld evidence claimed to be neither criminal nor sexual.

>when Studds date raped the page?
I asked for reliable sources.
>they bear no responsibility.
There are people that want Hastert to resign. The speaker "responsible" for Studds incident had already resigned when the story broke, so he could not resign. You can't make the man resign who's already resigned, just as you can't kill a dead man.

All this has nothing to do with the fact that all that talk about "double standards" in Studds case is total BS, because standards were exactly the same for Democrats and Republicans at that time.
The standards have now changed with time. Would you say that because you could be racist 50 ago, it's OK to be racist now?

>Hastert is ridiculously ridiculous.
The thing is about covering up or being irresponsible. The fact Hastert said he's innocent doesn't make him so. He obviously lied numerous times in the past week.

>policing sex chat between private citizens (ex pages)
OK, now you seem to know the whole story, and you seem to be not only sure that Hastert has done nothing wrong, but that Foley's totaly innocent as well (like, because Drudge broke this or that story). Well, that's your opinion.

The only thing I wanted to say: stop yelling about Studds, there are no "double standards" to be found there. And there nothing to back this rape allegations.

Like, I've _heard_ that 9/11 was an inside job, and that Bush is the biggest terrorist of them all, and that bin Laden is on his payroll. That makes just as much sense as your allegations.

FACT:...

FACT: Nancy Pelosi is up to her eyeballs in this now.

The speaker "responsible" for Studds incident had already resigned when the story broke

Since I haven't called on anybody to resign whatever point you think you're making is pointless. When the story broke is not relevent to whatever responsibility he might have had for allowing sexual activity to occur between congressmen and pages under his care as opposed to policing chat between private citizens (ex pages) in their own home. Said chat not claimed to be "innocent" or "ethical" just private between an adult congressman and a party not under the care of the speaker of the House.

My opinion, Hastert is less responsible for that than the Studds speaker.

BTW if I ever need help in the construction of straw dummies I will certainly be contacting you by IM.

So, no proof for this "date rape" story.

>My opinion, Hastert is less responsible for that than the Studds speaker.
Man, the thing that Hastert is certainly responsible for is many lies he's produced on this story.
They even have this legend claiming "as soon as we've learned about explicit messages, we demanded that Foley resign", when he in fact resigned _three hours_ before those messages were released by ABC.
Hastert has obviously proven that he's full of shit on this, telling contradicting stories every other day. The idea that he in no way, by default, could be responsible for the harrasment of pages (like it's "a private matter"; if somebody has a chance to stop the harrasment, it is his duty to do this; no difference -- pages/ex-pages) is absurd, and you can't find out if he "did the right thing" or not without the investigation.

Hastert has obviously proven that he's full of shit on this, telling contradicting stories every other day.

Sorta like that "date rape" thing huh. Perception is not (always) reality. My perception of the Studds example is "date rape". Bet my perception is more accurate than yours.

Nikolay

The page Studds had sex with said he was a reluctant when he was in Studd's apartment. Studds then went on a vacation to Portugal with the page and had sex with him every two to three days. Again the page said he wished he didn't. Studds plied the page with alcohol when the page was underage to drink. Studds was 36 having sex with a 17-year old subordinant.
As far as we know, Foley's only offense so far was e-mailing (or IM'ing) while gay. And plying pages with ice cream. Studds could have advised Foley: "liquor is quicker."
The party that thinks it is bad to intercept al Qaeda phone calls thinks Hastert and Republican leadership should be all over a gay for "overly friendly" communications with former pages? The same party that supports gay Scout Masters, gay teachers, and gay Big Brothers thinks Republican leaders should know better than to let a gay politician communicate electronically with a former (over 18 years old) page?
It is already clear that at least one Democrat knew of the worst IM's over a year ago, and sat on the information until time for an October Surprise. Scoring political points was more important than preventing Foley scoring with a page.
That Democrat, the one who waited a year to spring the surprise, is the one who deserves the chop, not Hastert.

The difference between the Studds situation and the Foley situation is that the fact that Studds had sex with a 17 year old page only came to light after the fact. I have not seen any evidence that there were any warnings in advance to the House leadership. Studds was censured, but he was re-elected by his district. For whatever reason, the voters in his district decided to overlook what he did. The Democratic House leadership had no say in that. It also seems to me that House committee and sub-committee chairmanships used to be awarded strictly by seniority and the vote was a mere formality. So the criticism that Studds was selected by the democrats as a committee chair should be viewed from that perspective. They decided not to change the existing rules just to deprive Studds of the chairmanship he was otherwise entitled to. They did make changes in the page program to reduce the chance that a similar incident could occur again.

Hastert is being criticized for not thoroughly investigating what was going on when he received warnings that should have alerted him to the fact that Foley might be having inappropriate contact with pages. By not investigating, he failed to protect the pages.

The first report of this that I saw included only the "overly friendly" e-mails asking for a picture, etc. My reaction at that time was that it seemed kind of creepy and to suspect that there might be something more to it. I was not at all surprised more explicit IM's turned up. Apparently, others, including several news outlets, saw those e-mails and decided there wasn't enough to them to run a story. It was only after ABC decided to run the story about the e-mails that the explicit IM's turned up. However, given that the House leadership has a responsibility to protect the pages who have been sent to Washington and placed in their care, I think those "overly friendly" e-mails should have been enough notice to Hastert to do more of an investigation than was done.

Also, I have not seen any evidence that anyone connected with the Democratic Party had these e-mails and sat on them for political advantage. I have seen reports that an outfit called CREW had the "overly friendly" e-mails and submitted them to the FBI in July, not exactly sitting on them. There were also reports that some guy who gets his kicks outing closeted gay politicians and staffers was reporting that Foley was hitting on younger men. That is not the same as preying on pages who are 16-17. I recognize that right wingers would desperately like to pin this on the Democrats. It looks like this story may be enough to tip the House and even the Senate to Democratic control. However, there is no there there, at least not yet.

One element to this whole issue is a phenomena...
Things happen so fast with the Internet... blog pages, transferring messages with email etc...
Now we have to piece together what happened after the fact, very difficult, i.e. apparently the IM's only came to the public from "other" pages, AFTER the big story broke? or did they.
The speed at which things can "happen" with the Internet is NOT at the same pace the mainstream medida and politicians attack each other.

Foley's career is over in 1 event in less than 48 hours. But many things have happened behind that.
emails, posts, data transfers.

Most of America will not pay attention and find out that IM's may have been kept for "politcal" reasons.

The mainstream media will always follow the frenzy, nevermind finding the factual details first.

Our party is better than your party.
Some here have questioned the relevance of bring in Studds, Clinton to recent discussion...
Well can the Dems on this blog HONESTLY say that all of the attention by media, Pelosi, Dean, etc..
has been on the pages? -or- Foley is a creep, Foley is a Republican, Republicans are creeps?
If Pelosi is so concerned, why not allow the wide net investigation of the pages?
Any Dems here even question the timing of 1-3 year old emails coming out 30 days out of an election?

What us Cons think that stinks: Using Foley's situation to attack ALL Republicans.
And before you repsond with "you guys did that to Clinton" Here's my response.
Clinton wagged that finger at all of us "I did not have sexual relations with that woman", then he lied under oath.
Different from Foley being asked to resign IMMEDIATELY by his party leadership.

In your defense I don't think the dem party helped Clinton cover up at the time, BUT your party sure defends him now.

Most of America will not pay attention and find out that IM's may have been kept for "politcal" reasons.

No. Most Americans don't CARE about the stupid, superficial sniping between Reps and Dems. And if you think Americans aren't sophisticated enough to realize there are political overtones to this, you're wrong. Most Americans simply don't care about the politics because it's irrelevant to their values, which is what this is about (unless your game is oneupmanship for a major party).

What us Cons think that stinks: Using Foley's situation to attack ALL Republicans.

Finally, some honesty.

I happen to believe that there is cause to attack the GOP en masse, but you still make a very good point. You should be making THAT argument instead of making this about Democratic perversions. That just looks like misdirection and it looks dishonest, overly partisan, and blustery.

Sorta like that "date rape" thing huh. Perception is not (always) reality. My perception of the Studds example is "date rape". Bet my perception is more accurate than yours.
Well, the fact that Hastert is lying is not "perception", it is objective reality. If you say one thing one day, and another thing that directly contradicts the first another day, then you've lied at least once. If you say that some thing happened, which doesn't just fit well-established timeline, then you've lied. This doesn't prove that you're guilty of other, serious things, but it gives a reason for investegation.
>The party that thinks it is bad to intercept al
>Qaeda phone
Well, that's not true. The thing was about breaking the law, not protecting the terrorists. Let's say, imagine that somebody establishes the lynch law in some state, like, "hang all the drug-dealers". Do you think it would be fair to say that if you oppose this, than you're "against punishing the criminals"?

>calls thinks Hastert and Republican leadership
>should be all over a gay for "overly friendly"
>communications with former pages?
Not "all over", but to go beyond "- Foley, are you doing the right thing? - Yes, I am. - Good".

>It is already clear that at least one Democrat
>knew of the worst IM's over a year ago
Are you sure it's clear? I've seen something like that on the blogs constructing wildest conspiracies (leading directly to Pelosi, of course), but it seems that the only proof for that is that someone of the "outing" crew says he had _both_ e-mails to Lousiana page and his reaction to them. I.e., the last item on ABC's blotter. That some people mix this with IMs means that they are living in the conspiracy dream.

>Different from Foley being asked to resign
>IMMEDIATELY by his party leadership.
Well, that's one of the examples of what's the problem. The leadership couldn't ask Foley to immediately resign, because he had already resigned three hours before those IMs were made public, which is, according to their legend, the first time they've learned about those "explicit IMs". Why would they lie on such trivial thing is another question.

>BUT your party sure defends him now
Well, there's many people saying that Foley was a victim of those pages.

But Shimkus and Hastert didn't take the logical next steps. The communications that Shimkus and Hastert knew about were serious enough to ask Foley to cease contact with the former page. But the Republicans didn't pursue the matter any further and didn't inform the Democratic member of the House Page Board about the matter. That lack of action is indefensible.

This blog's wingnuts are even weirder than those at JimRob's FReeper site...if that's possible.

For Jeremy:
Here is a further thread on the argument that we Cons are irked(some insensed) that Foley must be some black mark on the Republican party. Let's look at "typical" Democrat voters. After Gary Studds was caught and had to be censured i.e. woould not resign, he was re-elected.
After Bill Clinton was caught , would not resign..
I'll bet there would be millions that would vote for him.
Yet Republicans will toss you out of the party in second. But none would be re-elected anyway.

I'd love to see the typical Dem voter get less hypocritcal.

For David:
I agree with you in part that it appears the action is indefensible. But all of the facts aren't in yet are they? And what does that show, bad judgement?
I'd say yes, bad judgement.
But the first set of emails did prompt Hastert to tell Foley to knock it off. But for arguments sake,
I'd concede it was not the best action. Again though,
once the second set of IM's come in, crap hits the fan, he was tossed out of the Rep party.
Can you name an instance when Dems have done same?

What kills me about the Dems defense here is that there was nothing to "investigate" from the "over friendly" emails. What do you do - every time a congresscritter asks an ex-page for a picture investigate it?

For those of you claiming Hastert lied - let's look a little more closely. First off - the claim "Hastert said one thing one day and another the next." OK. So did Fordham. He said that he was "shocked" to hear the allegations and had never known. Next thing he said he warned the Leadership three years earlier. One of those things was a lie. Which one? And both Hastert and Palmer say that Fordham is lying. So which do we believe? Don't just assume one is lying based on their statements. Investigate who is.

As for Pelosi - it was reported by Morris that a reporter from the Pittsburgh Tribune had told him that a "senior democrat" had the IMs a year before. We still haven't seen who, but I'm anxiously awaiting the results.

And the other thing is - what is the deal with the IMs? They were not turned over by the pages involved - who were of age and private citizens at the time. So who had them? This was reportedly done using AIM - but from that time period AIM did not have an automatic logging function (as of 2004's release it still did not - I think it is version 5.5.32). To save a chat session you had to manually save it using the "Save" function and it was saved to a rtf format file. No header information was saved with it. Just the text. So - given that we have heard that the thing was a prank - who can prove it different? Ross - who now has 3 more anonymous accusers garnered via the ABC tip-line (online and anonymous)? Where is their evidence?

And all that is beyond the point of what should the Leadership have "investigated". If you start investigating innocuous emails where does it end? This is a non-event. Foley was scum - but did nothing illegal. He resigned. Good riddance and issue should be closed. Done deal. But the fact is that the Dems decided to release this 30 days before the election in an effort to bolster their chances. They did not do this to protect the pages. How ridiculous and self-serving is that?

Dear apologists for the GOP:

1) This is a scandal not because of what Foley did. It's a scandal because the House leadership, be they staffer's or members, appear to have known and not taken action. The Studds case is not relevant. It is however being used to try to muddy the waters for the weak minded because it involves pages and sex. He was found out and censured. If a majority of voters in his district saw fit to re-elect him, obviously they weren't that bothered by it. As with Clinton, that's really what so infuriates the hard Right. Believe it or not, most people in this country find the biblical world view damn scary. And we don't need or want the GOP to save us. Judge not lest thou be judged. And both personal and collective hypocrisy lie at the core of the Foley flap.
2) When you are in power you get to claim credit for accomplishments. You also get blamed for what goes wrong. Together, this means you are accoutable and held responsible. The GOP has worked tirelessly to construct the myth that despite controlling the executive and legislative branches for nearly six years they are the helpless victims of attacks from the Democrats coordinating with their sympathizers in the mainstream media. Utter bullshit dittoheads! When you're in power the media's going to monitor and play beck seat driver with your every decision because the exercise of power is damn newsworthy. It doesn't matter what party is in power. Either would have every decision scrutinized from head to toe (remember how the press piled on "Hillarycare, Whitewater, and Monicagate despite their alleged left wing bias). In contrast, the party out of power gets a pass in comparative terms because by virtue of their being out of power they're in the shadows, accountable and responsible for nothing other than their words and votes which almost always fail to carry the day. And that's especially true since comity died and hyper-polarizarion set in, greatly reducing the political status of the minority party . So, if the GOP lacks the spine to govern anymore, as their constant whining about the media suggests, maybe it would be good for America if they no longer do come January. Divided government is the institutional cure for the over-zealous abuses of both the left and right. We sure could have used it during the LBJ years, and the similar look-the-other way oversight of this borrow and spend executive leads rational people to yearn for the founders' cure.

Sign me: A stalwart member of the party of Goldwater and Reagan who calls those in power today the real RINOs.

Dear apologists for the GOP:

1) This is a scandal not because of what Foley did. It's a scandal because the House leadership, be they staffer's or members, appear to have known and not taken action. The Studds case is not relevant. It is however being used to try to muddy the waters for the weak minded because it involves pages and sex. He was found out and censured. If a majority of voters in his district saw fit to re-elect him, obviously they weren't that bothered by it. As with Clinton, that's really what so infuriates the hard Right. Believe it or not, most people in this country find the biblical world view damn scary. And we don't need or want the GOP to save us. Judge not lest thou be judged. And both personal and collective hypocrisy lie at the core of the Foley flap.
2) When you are in power you get to claim credit for accomplishments. You also get blamed for what goes wrong. Together, this means you are accoutable and held responsible. The GOP has worked tirelessly to construct the myth that despite controlling the executive and legislative branches for nearly six years they are the helpless victims of attacks from the Democrats coordinating with their sympathizers in the mainstream media. Utter bullshit dittoheads! When you're in power the media's going to monitor and play beck seat driver with your every decision because the exercise of power is damn newsworthy. It doesn't matter what party is in power. Either would have every decision scrutinized from head to toe (remember how the press piled on "Hillarycare, Whitewater, and Monicagate despite their alleged left wing bias). In contrast, the party out of power gets a pass in comparative terms because by virtue of their being out of power they're in the shadows, accountable and responsible for nothing other than their words and votes which almost always fail to carry the day. And that's especially true since comity died and hyper-polarizarion set in, greatly reducing the political status of the minority party . So, if the GOP lacks the spine to govern anymore, as their constant whining about the media suggests, maybe it would be good for America if they no longer do come January. Divided government is the institutional cure for the over-zealous abuses of both the left and right. We sure could have used it during the LBJ years, and the similar look-the-other way oversight of this borrow and spend executive leads rational people to yearn for the founders' cure.

Sign me: A stalwart member of the party of Goldwater and Reagan who calls those in power today the real RINOs.