Posted on 10/02/2006 7:54:48 AM PDT by areafiftyone
While the MSM echoes liberal talking points on the Mark Foley scandal, asking what did Republicans know and when did they know it, a curious detail was left out. The editors of the St. Petersburg Times in Florida reveal that the media has also knew about this story for quite some time, but did nothing about it.
In November of last year, we were given copies of an email exchange Foley had with a former page from Louisiana. Other news organizations later got them,too. The conversation in those emails was friendly chit-chat. Foley asked the boy about how he had come through Hurricane Katrina and about the boy's upcoming birthday. In one of those emails, Foley casually asked the teen to send him a "pic" of himself. Also among those emails was the page's exchange with a congressional staffer in the office of Rep. Alexander, who had been the teen's sponsor in the page program. The teen shared his exchange he'd had with Foley and asked the staffer if she thought Foley was out of bounds.
There was nothing overtly sexual in the emails, but we assigned two reporters to find out more. We found the Louisiana page and talked with him. He told us Foley's request for a photo made him uncomfortable so he never responded, but both he and his parents made clear we could not use his name if we wrote a story. We also found another page who was willing to go on the record, but his experience with Foley was different. He said Foley did send a few emails but never said anything in them that he found inappropriate. We tried to find other pages but had no luck. We spoke with Rep. Alexander, who said the boy's family didn't want it pursued, and Foley, who insisted he was merely trying to be friendly and never wanted to make the page uncomfortable.
So, what we had was a set of emails between Foley and a teenager, who wouldn't go on the record about how those emails made him feel. As we said in today's paper, our policy is that we don't make accusations against people using unnamed sources. And given the seriousness of what would be implied in a story, it was critical that we have complete confidence in our sourcing. After much discussion among top editors at the paper, we concluded that the information we had on Foley last November didn't meet our standard for publication. Evidently, other news organizations felt the same way.
Everyone from the St. Petersburg Times to the Palm Beach Post to Roll Call to the Washington Post had the emails that were released by ABC this past Thursday, and none of them went with the story. It seems rather odd now that those same reporters are asking Hastert and others, what did you know and when did you know it?
Well, perhaps it's time to ask the media "what did you know, and when did you know it?"
The reason why the media kept quiet about it is that they knew Foley was blackmailable by the Democrats. Only Foley's depraved stupidity forced him to be outed and leave in disgrace.
The media was waiting to get as close to the elections as possible. Foley should have been outed a long time ago. This give the GOP very little time to pick a replacement.
The Dems don't need to wield any tools from their bag of dirty tricks, you Republicans are quite adept at screwing yourselves.
From the accounts I've read .. the libs in the media sat on this story, said nothing and only brought it out because of the elections
I agree the Republicans can be sleezy and disgusting too and Foley is a sleezebag who needs more than rehab - he could use jail time. But the media knew of this story a while back. Coinky Dink that this comes out as close to the election as possible? I THINK NOT. Especially with ABC.
Guess what? My friends, we have forgery.
Foleygate! Altered Images! What's Going On Here?
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2006/10/foleygate-altered-images-whats-going.html
Could it be the dims used a Republican pervert that they had long known about, waited to surprise King Karl with their own "October Surprise" - nah, they wouldn't use a gay man's indescretions to get a little gay bashing in, as they are the party that stands up for guys like Foley.
I guess the first thing that one HAS to notice in this "page" scandal is that there were absolutely no impressions given that Foley was/is/may be a homosexual.
Bump for an answer.
Jeeze we need to make up a Foley File for all the posts!
You probably are right, though I hate to mention this chickenhawk ( Original definition before the Left stole it: "An older male homosexual who preys on young boys..." ) any more than necessary.
There really are times I wish we could fumigate DC...
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