Posted on 10/01/2006 7:45:10 AM PDT by Dane
Former page: We knew about Foley 'for years' By M.E. SPRENGELMEYER AND AMIE PARNES Scripps Howard News Service October 1, 2006 WASHINGTON — Sexually explicit messages from former Rep. Mark Foley to one former congressional page might be just the tip of the iceberg, the leader of an alumni association for former congressional pages told Scripps Howard News Service on Saturday.
While Foley resigned this week after published reports of "friendly" e-mails to one 16-year-old male page and the pending broadcast of more sexually explicit instant messages, similar graphic messages from him were received by at least three other teenage boys who once worked in the page program, said Matthew Loraditch, a Maryland college senior who runs the U.S. House Page Alumni Association's Internet message board.
Advertisement "I've known about them (messages) for several years now," he said Saturday.
"It was more like, 'Hey, look at this,' " said Loraditch, 21, who served in the page program in the 2001-02 session. "I don't think the people in question felt that uncomfortable. It was more, 'Ooh, look at that creepy guy.'
"It was definitely crossing-the-line stuff. The instant message stuff, and stuff I've seen and heard about, definitely couldn't be misconstrued" as merely "friendly" or innocent, Loraditch said.
Loraditch said during his time on Capitol Hill, Foley was one of the members of Congress who expressed what appeared to be a sincere interest in the young pages, often visiting the areas where they congregate in the corner of the House of Representatives chamber to chat or offer stories and advice.
Loraditch said he and other pages viewed Foley as gregarious and "flaky" at the time, and that he offered several of them, not including Loraditch, his personal e-mail when they were graduating from the program and saying goodbyes.
After Loraditch returned to Maryland and began attending college at Towson University, several male former pages told him they had received Internet messages that were similar to the graphic messages first reported by ABC News last week.
"At the age we were when those things happened, 16 or 17, when you see that kind of stuff, most people our ages know what's going on and know what's happening," Loraditch said. "You're not like a little kid who can be roped into that."
Loraditch said his friends all thought the messages were disturbing, but they did not report them, either because they did not think the messages posed a serious threat or because they might have worried about career consequences.
He added all his friends received the questionable messages only after they had graduated and left the program, when, theoretically, that would not raise the same in-house sexual harassment issues as if they had been sent when the former pages still worked for Congress.
"This all happened after we were outside the protective umbrella of all our supervisors, not when we were there," Loraditch said. "To me, that indicates some sort of thought process going on in Foley's mind."
The case has prompted many congressional leaders to talk about stepped-up vigilance to protect the young men and women who serve as congressional pages, who get an up-close look at Congress while doing messenger-like duties for lawmakers.
Loraditch is a big backer of the program for its one-of-a-kind educational benefits, and he believes none of the supervisors who run the program were aware of any inappropriate messages at the time.
"The supervisors I worked with, if any of them had been told, it would have been dealt with at the time promptly," he said. "All of our supervisors were great people. They love pages. Half of them were former pages, and they've got kids of their own. If they had known about it, it would have been dealt with."
In the wake of the Foley scandal, many pages worry the program could be altered drastically or eliminated in an overreaction intended to protect teenagers.
"The page program is a good program. I firmly believe that the program could not have done anything more to protect the pages," Loraditch said. "It all happened after we left and had done our service."
But they didn't cover up for him. Remember the first e-mails were non-sexually explicit and the page's parents complained that they wanted the e-mails to stop, but didn't want a further investigation.
As soon as the sexually explicit IM's were released, foley was booted, unlike barney frank or gerry studds, both democrats.
He'll have to be first indicted and then convicted.
So, what's Bawney Fwank's opinion about this?
And, what percentage of homosexual congressman have been involved in some sort of sex scandal? This is at least the second one caught soliciting or having sex with minors.
"For sure, but not until he disgraced the GOP."
Yep. A darn shame! If ol Barney Frank had been a republican, the dims would have called for his head!
I have been really busy and only catching small parts of this story on TV in passing.
I don't condone what Foley has done, I think it's sick.
However, from what I've seen and heard on this, the Dims are going crazy. And, of course, blaming it on the GOP leadership. They knew, yea, probably so, and probably know about a lot of others doing stuff like this.
I want to ROTF laughing when I see the Dims (hello, Bawney Fwrank) going nuts over this though. A little hypocritical huh?The Dims are the GAY RIGHTS advocates aren't they?
I heard a CNN reporter on TV yesterday just breathless with excitement over this, saying it is going to sink the GOP chances for reelection, etc. I think I'll email them today and ask if they could get some quotes from Bawney on this (grin)
He's no pedophile. They hit on young kids.
I don't see where he has committed any unlawful act. The age of consent in DC is 16, and apparently none of the pages took him up on his offers anyway.
The FBI would have difficulty getting a search warrant, and in any case he's not so dumb that he wouldn't have chucked his hard drive by now.
They have been behind the curve for more than a year.
They worry about power and prestige, not duty. Part of that is the personal power they can employ against the obscene numbers of assistants and "underlings".
He was targeting young men, not prepubescent boys. He's a garden-variety homosexual, the kind that liberal democrats protect, honor, and defend among their own.
His outing and ouster is good for the Republican Party.
Here is the most important line in this piece in regards to the dems attempt to take out the entire Republican party with this scandal:
"Loraditch said his friends all thought the messages were disturbing, but they did not report them, either because they did not think the messages posed a serious threat or because they might have worried about career consequences."
Now how was the GOP leadership to know about the sexually IM's if these boys never reported it?
Once again, the democrats are hedging their bets on rumor and innuendo instead of issues!
If you read the story foley would contact them when they left the page program and he also used his own AOL account not the House e-mail system. he was doing this under the radar and even the pages siad when they were in DC(where he would be seen by the GOP leadership), that foley's conduct was proper(for lack of a better term).
When Hastert had the smoking gun of evidence of the IM's, foley was immediately booted out, unlike gerry studds or barney frank.
Why do you call Foley a pedophile rather than a homosexual?
It's pretty unlikely the democrats were unaware and they should be held accountable as well. After all, do they care about kids or do they care more about making it an election issue?
I despise him for what he's done...BUT, how dare the 'Rats complain about him hitting on pages, while Clinton hitting on interns was supposedly "his private sex life"? Moreover, the 'Rats push the homosexual agenda every chance they get, and grown men seducing young boys is PART of that agenda. Please don't mistake this comment for condoning what Foley did--but the hypocrisy is just astounding.
Great Post, thank you! I wonder if Loraditch was the same former page who was interviewed this morning on FOX, sure reads the same.
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