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."
what does bttt mean? It's bothered me for a long time that I can't figure it out. Thanks.
Bump to the top
Maybe we'll see some "surprises." LOL
Bulloney. Hassert knew about this and hoped it would blow over. This is politics as usual. Only this time it blew up in their faces. I'm no supporter of Pelosi. I think she is the typical San Francisco liberal but this is likely to tip the election in the Democratic favor and that is the upshot of this fiasco. Foley was known for years all the way back to 1996 and nothing was done about it and these reports were swept under the rug.
What is amusing is listening to LIBERALS act mortified by it. I wonder why they defended Clinton when he was getting blow jobs from an intern? As far as we know Foley ONLY sent disgusting emails to pages who actually seemed to enjoy talking to him which is more than a little sickening if you read them. But these same LIBERALS came out in front of the country and swore that we were all interested in Clinton's 'sex life' (yeah right!) and should 'get a life' and leave poor Clinton and 'his family' alone.
What a bunch of a hypocrites!
No - read #16 again. The D.C. Age of Consent Law is more general: "The age of 16 is woven as a thread which pervades the entire body of D. C. law relating to sexual offenses of various kinds. .."
Funny should bring that up. I had a "debate" with a leftist friend last night on this same topic. She had lectured me on the teacher case you referred to, telling me that it was the student's dream come true and not likely to have the damage my outrage warranted. When it comes to Foley, with older kids and so far what amounts to just talk, she is appalled at the Republicans for covering this up. Go figure, huh?
Can somebody please put together a list of acronyms, words, etc that are used here? Lotsa work, but it would be much appreciated. I've been reading Free Republic for a few years (~ 2-3?) and I STILL haven't figured out what "ping" means!
Thanks!
I say get a court order and confiscate his computers. If filled with child porn then arrest the perv........
Not sure the House leadership knew about the IM's.
Hard to imagine voters across this country voting Democrat because one "R" Congressmen turned out to be a homo who likes 16 year-olds.
Can you document the House leadership's knowledge of the IM's?
Bump to the top
Ping is when you wish to draw the attention of other posters to an article by putting their names into the To: line.
Oh yeah --- their self righteousness is over whelming and Barney the pimp factory is still in Congress.
Bump to the top is when you reply to a thread without commenting simply to get it back into the Latest Posts section of the forum for people to see it who might not have earlier.
You are entirely wrong. They only knew he wrote mildly inappropriate e-mails to pages after they returned home. They were told that the parents just wanted the e-mails to stop and did not want to file a complaint. No one new about the sexually explicite IMs until the other day and then they immediately came down on him. In other words, Foley didn't make any advances on the pages while they were pages, he waited until they returned home before making his moves.
Isn't that a typical lib response? All of a sudden the GOP is the party of perverts. JMJ.
It keeps the thread active and sometimes just a way to bookmark it so you can return later where you left off. There is a thread here somewhere that lists all of this.
Five years??? There was an article posted here, yesterday, that claimed the presstitute had exposed Foley ten years ago, but no one paid much attention.
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