Posted on 10/03/2006 1:28:59 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob
Rep. Mark Foley, a Florida Republican, has resigned abruptly from the House on the revelation by ABC News of “sexual” instant messages to underage male pages. The Democrats in Congress and in the media are trying to hang this albatross around the necks of Republican leaders, and Republicans generally.
There is incompetent reporting, either accidental or deliberate, on this story. Foley sent e-mails to some pages that were not overtly sexual. Almost the entire press has failed to report the differences between e-mails and instant messages. Since most reporters use both methods of communications or can easily get information about them, there’s no excuse for this fault.
E-mails are automatically recorded in the process of being sent. They do NOT go directly from the sender to the receiver. They are saved on servers on computers other than those of the sender and receiver. A competent computer guru can find, recover, and report on contents of e-mails.
Instant messages (IM’s) are quite different. They can only be sent when the sender and recipient are on-line simultaneously. They go directly from sender to receiver. They are NOT recorded anywhere, unless either the sender and/or receiver sets up his “cache,” or temporary local memory, to do that.
The nasty IM’s that have come to light now, and sealed Foley’s fate, were sent more than year ago. Someone, most likely the pages who received them, must have recorded these, and through the blogosphere, made them available to the press. There is no factual support for the insinuation that Speaker Dennis Hastert, or anyone else in Congress except Foley, knew anything about these IM’s before ABC broke this story.
I stop at this point to make clear my opinion of all adults – male or female – who pray on children – male or female. Such alleged “grownups” are monsters who do not belong in Congress, do not belong in public, and do belong in the seventh circle of Hell. That said, the rest of this is about the consequences of the Foley resignation.
Democrats are attempting to portray this as a “moral failure” of the Republican Party and therefore a reason for all voters to vote for them. The Democrat who was running against Foley and is now running against state Rep. Joe Negron (the new Republican nominee), is already running TV ads on that. Let’s examine the record to see whether that claim has any legitimacy.
Gerry Studds (remember him? he was in all the papers) was a Democrat Congressman from Massachusetts. He was not accused of inappropriate communications. He was found to have had sexual relations with a page. By an overwhelming vote, he was censured by the House in 1983. After that, he was reelected repeatedly, with the full support of the Democrat Party.
Barney Frank (he was in all the papers) was a Democrat Congressman from Massachusetts. In 1989 he was found to have kept a male prostitute in his Capitol Hill apartment and to have done legislative favors for him. Frank was strongly censured by the House. He has been repeatedly reelected and is still in the House, with the full support of the Democrat Party.
Wait a minute, you say, Frank had nothing to do with underage boys. Well, in my years in District Court in Baltimore City, I saw more than a few prostitutes and pimps. Since their activities are already illegal, they don’t seek proof of the age of the prostitutes. They provide what the customer wants, male or female, of whatever age.
Then there’s Ted Kennedy, Senator from Massachusetts. Admittedly, his known sexual peccadillo was with an adult female. In 1969 he left Mary Jo Kopechne alive in his sunken car. She drowned while he left the scene to set up his alibi. Kennedy has been repeatedly reelected with the full support of the Democrat Party.
Last but not least, there is William Jefferson Clinton. Surely you’ve heard of him? He had sex in his office with a female subordinate. The manager of your local McDonalds would be fired on the spot if he had sex with a female fry cook at work. Clinton still enjoys the full support of the Democrat Party.
I repeat, I make no brief for Rep. Foley’s conduct. I am delighted that he is out of Congress immediately. However, the Democrat response is not to dump the Member. Instead, it is to wait while the Member hunkers down, and then to support him for reelection. Democrats do worse than what Foley did. They do not resign, nor does their Party ask them to resign.
For the Democrats to seek to make Foley a partisan issue in the 2006 election is the height of hypocrisy. Men who cannot control their own zippers are unfit to be in leadership positions in the federal government. All of them. Republican, Democrat, or independent. No exceptions.
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About the Author: John Armor is a lawyer specializing in constitutional law, who may again be a candidate for Congress in the 11th District of North Carolina. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
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John / Billybob
I am pleased that Rep. Mark Foley is resigning. His actions were inappropriate and his resignation is his confession.
Couldn't agree with you more. Let's just hope the Republocrats fire off some of the same points.
IMHO, the MSM and their DNC cohorts are going to be shown obstructing justice in this before it is over...and to have been doing it for pure political gain...again corrupting our political process.
The question should be did the GOP leadership do the right thing when they sat on the emails several months ago.
I would argue that the behavior of Studds, Frank, Kennedy and Clinton is irrelevant to my question. So is the provenence of the IMs.
We must conclude that Speaker Hastert failed miserably. Failed each and every page and failed the Republican Party.
I gotta disagree with you on that one. Without a crime or formal investigation in place there's probably no such thing as "obstruction of justice."
If there was no evidence that a crime had been committed, and the page in question -- as well as his parents -- refused to pursue any legal action against Foley, then what would you expect the GOP leadership to do any differently?
The dims must be "so very proud" that they had nothing on Foley, so they set him up with the IM stunt. Granted, he is a sick man and I'm glad he resigned, however--he was set up and the dims are trying to take Hastert down, too.
I predict the whole thing will backfire. I understand more today than yesterday about what actually happened. Don't let the dims "win" over this stupid political stunt. They have nothing, they promise nothing, they are clueless. The dims don't dserve to be in a position to govern ever again. I am thoroughly ashamed of them as a party, that they'd stoop this low to regain power in Congress. This has Huey Long-clintooon-Arkancide type politics written all over it.
It's not like they actually "have anything" to offer. They have zip, nada, zilch. The hate-Bush, hate-America and Americans smear party is going to wind up DEAD IN THE WATER on election day. Vote them out!
So help me, God.
Self Ping and BTTT
Umm. Ask questions. Investigators do it all the time. A real investigation may have uncovered the IMs months ago. We'll never know because the Republican leadership bungled the matter when it did nothing.
The emails were "innocuous"? Boy, you've been swilling the Kool-Aid. They were disturbing and creepy.
Turn the tables and accuse Democrats of being homophobic.
True. But did they leave a stain anywhere ?
The Speaker of the House is not an omnipotent, god-like figure. He has no authority to conduct personal investigations of other House members like that.
"all adults – male or female – who pray on children"
That's why praying in school is so wrong...
Sure. Digital ones.
I know that, because of all this being brought to light, Barney Frank will be compelled to resign from Congress in the next few days....../sarcasm
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