Posted on 10/07/2006 10:23:43 PM PDT by Prospero
Soon, with hints before the coming Congressional election and mounting gale force in the weeks following after November 7, the real and full story will inevitably surface about former Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) and the nature of his relationships with House Pages, former House Pages, the outers and the outed.
His resignation and disappearance into the modern confessional of Rehab would lead everyone to assume that this story is all wrapped up with a ribbon, with definitive “timelines” appearing to show, with no shifting of shadow, that the present Republican leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives is, at the very minimum, guilty of setting aside the welfare of children in their care for the sake of desperate political expediency.
But so much about this story fails the “smell test” I’m already convinced that much of what we are being told amounts to a fraud being perpetrated on the American voter. It’s even possible Mark Foley is a co-conspirator, choosing his own plan of escape and revenge in cooperation with Democrat racketeers who’ve been planning this admittedly brilliant deceitful plan for more than a year.
As with the Mapes-Rather superscript forgeries of 2004, there is clear test of the power of Old Media pitted against the combined investigatory power of hundreds of thousands of Internet detectives in a spin battle ultimately lost by the “Pajama Brigade” and leading to the disgrace and fall of Dan Rather. This time, however, a patient Internet brigade of progressive Democrats has patiently weaved together the spin a far more sordid tale and passed the ball on to the Old Media, before disappearing into the universe of dead links and erased servers.
The Pajama Brigade on FreeRepublic that utterly astounded CBS with its almost instantaneous destruction of validity of forged documents both Mapes and Rather wanted so badly to believe is, this time, instead, rattled and confused. Like following the trail of a Clinton Banking scandal ten years after the fact, the snippets of information about sources and the technical quality of electronic documents and the nasty and unspeakable nature of a story involving “children” makes pattern recognition hard to undertake.
There’s been enough weirdness about the story for some activists to cry “foul,” but the political expediency at this hour making it necessary for Speaker Hastert and other Republicans to make apologies and the quick denial of “conspiracy” as “fiction” by ABC and others seeking “justice” has combined to make would-be midnight Internet investigators hesitate. Still, in all, they have uncovered bits here and personalities and trails there, enough to convince me of an elaborate dirty trick.
Along with a lot of other people, I was once a House Page. It was a profound experience, thirty years ago, when my classmates and me were high and mighty and off the leash, both inside the Chamber and in our unsupervised apartments, admittedly at a time when the drinking age was eighteen and social awareness of predatory adults was not nearly so keen as today.
Abuses and real criminal behavior were uncovered from time before and since I was a Page almost two decades ago, and along with criminal penalties for a handful of adults and former pages and cloakroom attendants came badly needed reforms that saved the Page program from elimination. Former roommates from my time as a Page have had their own children go through the program in recent years, and the new system that included a badly needed dorm and adults accountable for misbehavior has apparently worked quite well since that time. Whether the advent of instant and ephemeral chat rooms and consumer Email or a laxity in responsible adult behavior has left cracks in the system, one has only to examine the electronic fog around any given American high school in the early 21st Century to make a fair comparison.
Suffice it to say, like all the others who are peeking behind the curtain to reluctantly examine the Saga of Mark Foley, I not buying.
With capitol page “alumni” websites and cited Internet bulletin boards suddenly disappearing or the cited “messages” come from former pages on convenient college sabbaticals in Africa, or the ones strangely “lawyering up” or at least one page involved who was formally under the patronage of Nancy Pelosi or the pedigree and bonafides of the interest group “exposing” this story to ABC or the book deal or the atmosphere of a well-played private sting or the sexual McCarthyism of those now threatening to “out” gay Republicans, claiming like Tailgunner Joe to have a “list” or whether anyone remembers forgotten connections between Foley and Jack Abramoff still under a microscope or whether the same electronic documents unveiled by ABC and that same “interest group” have differing dates, redactions, and headers, there is plenty of reason to suspect more than just the “timing” of the Foley Affair as suspect.
Whether or not there was a conspiracy to trash the good name of Denny Hastert, if true, the perpetrators have clearly learned a lot from the Mapes-Rather affair. If true, they’ve based their actions on electronic media this time, as easy to cut and paste and delete as can be conceived. They’ve laid down a far more sophisticated subterfuge than Mapes in ’04, and a far more sophisticated challenge and prepared play designed not challenge the conservative activists to uncover before time runs out, but a brilliant play designed to skunk the Pajama Brigade outright, and subsequently defeating their methods and morale when the truth finally gets woven together a month or so before Speaker Pelosi accepts the gavel from then-former Speaker Hastert.
Freepers, you are being played, with the truth sacrificed and you not only have to hold your nose to pick the only alternative available to the Moonbat Caucus taking over the nation’s purse strings. You are now being laughed at, and challenged to pull the threads together in one place, instead of the scattered responses to the postings of the stories the MSM is drip, drip, dripping out, thereby setting the terms for the discussion.
That's what I thought. The breakdown at the 2004 Election was 37-37-26. Yet this "poll" has it 36-25-35
I don't think anyone is doubting that Foley is guilty of hitting on underage boys. The conspiracy part comes in when where:
A. Hastert is told there were inappropriate e-mails (he is not given their content but is told they were not sexually explicit). Hastert warns Foley. This is the set up.
B. The e-mails appear and everyone sees that they are suggestive and creepy (enough to make one realize something is wrong) but not sexually explicit.
C. Then, sexually explicit messages from Foley suddenly appear. Steps B. and C. are the one-two punch.
The Democrats are trying to make it look like the Republicans knew the full extent of Foley's problems. The media are confusing the non-explicit e-mails (the content of which Hastert did not even have when he warned Foley) with the explicit messages. It looks very much like someone had copies of the explicit messages and held them for perhaps years until they could be used, and now there is a coordinated release of information to the media and a carefully orchestrated Democrat "outrage" over misconduct.
It could be that it is just a coincidence that the release of this information happened with the timing it did, but it is more plausible that this crisis has been managed all along.
Do you really think Hastert knew all along that Foley was im'ing "underage" pages and asking them the size of their intimate parts?
Hastert knew that Foley was sending the e-mails which were creepy but not pornographic and Foley was told to stop. The porn e-mails were from 3 years ago, not 3 weeks ago.
I'm not so sure Foley was the one even sending the e-mails. When confronted by Hastert he didn't admit sending them, but said, "I could have."
I really wonder whether a 54 year old running for Senate on the Republican ticket from Florida would not know how to spell "Pensacola." (I could easily believe that someone brought up in the age of "creative spelling" and "Spellcheck" would be that ignorant.)
I am sure that Foley's "trusted aides" -- men in their twenties and thirties -- had his password and didn't mind passing the time between events trolling for sex on the Internet.
If Hastert told Foley to stop and he did stop, and the im's in question precede his being told to stop, where is Hastert's liability?
Denny Hastert could not have credibly told Foley to resign on the basis of the e-mails to which he was privy, he did the right thing (telling him it was unacceptable and to stop).
It would be nice if all Republican representatives were paragons of virtue (as surely all of us Freepers are) but those attracted to the power of politics are often not of the Mother Teresa variety.
I read something this week that I had not been aware of previously. We all know that Foley's name has to remain on the ticket in the Nov. election. What I didn't realize was that the deadline for changing a name on the ticket was Thursday, the day before the Foley story broke. Just another well-orchestrated move by the Dems.
You've been pushing the "get rid of Hastert" line for days...go to DU where they want to hear that. Hastert is NOT resposible for this mess....period.
Bump
Amen!! The MSM and the Dems are counting on us being as gullible as ER Doc.
Good and productive purpose vanity post. Thanks for the ping, Just my thoughts.
This is all going to backfire on the Rats
Thanks for the ping
Excellent post! One quick thought:
You write:
"You are now being laughed at, and challenged to pull the threads together in one place, instead of the scattered responses to the postings of the stories the MSM is drip, drip, dripping out, thereby setting the terms for the discussion."
You have a good point...but, I say no to this at this point...let the dem 'operatives' and those behind this elaborate political dirty trick.....drive themselves crazy trying to follow everything.....lol!
The FBI has the important information from all of the Pajama Brigade now. Who ever is calling for us to put it all in one place....just want to know what we have!!
THE FBI KNOWS WHAT WE HAVE...THAT IS THE IMPORTANT THING!
Excellent post however and worthy of serious thought.
Great point.
An aging alcoholic "closeted" homosexual who has numerous job-related details to keep track of and who has multiple assistants would make a perfect dupe.
Amen and, preach on brother!!!!
Hastert is being treated as, It's all Bush's fault.
I disagree with those wanting Haster to resign, not many facts out yet to make such hasty judgements.
I did hear Hastert in an interview with Gallagher on his radio show last Thursday. The man sounded very convincing to me but, who am I ?
Lets all step back and, not be too judgemental until more facts of this fiasco come out.
Interesting thought. Thanks.
We can blame Republicans and Democrats for their inaction.
How about the gay community inside the halls of congress...did they know and wanted to protect Foley?
Wonder if a Google search on Kirk Fordham's writing might find a similar pattern of misspelling typos?
Has Foley even admitted that the AOL account was his? If Fordham had access to Foley's personal credit card, he could have opened the account without Foley even realizing it. Although the AOL billing line on his monthly credit card statement would be hard too miss.
The Katsaros familt COULD be the Keystone.
Put down the pipe.
It is unlikely to wrap up and leak to the public domain prior to the elections.
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