Posted on 10/02/2006 5:41:31 PM PDT by paltz
Since these communications appear to have existed for three years, there should be an investigation into the extent that there are persons who knew or had possession of these messages but did not report them to the appropriate authorities. This is in Hastert's letter to the justice department. It is important to know who may have had the communications and why they were not given to prosecutors before now. Hastert just went out there and said we -- the Republicans -- we did not have these instant messages. We did not know about these instant messages, but somebody did. Who are they? And how did those instant messages end up getting to ABC? Who had these instant messages? Now, again, I had a weekend at a friend's house, a bunch of people around all day and night Saturday discussing this, and I said, "There's so much of this that smells to me."
Aside from what Foley did -- nobody is defending Foley -- the thing that struck me, the similar thing that struck me was, members of Congress have had the National Intelligence Estimate since April. They've known what was in it. All of a sudden one sentence from it gets leaked last Sunday to the New York Times. Voila! We think we've got a brand-new discovery, something that's been covered up. But some diligent whistleblower has finally released it to the New York Times, and nothing was further from the truth. It was known, and it was held in abeyance, and it was used in a dishonest, misleading way in the election cycle, by the media, the New York Times, and whoever it is that fed it to them. Now, this Foley business.
Obviously there are people who have known this. The page knew it. How did the page, who did he talk to? Who did the page talk to and then who did that person then talk to, and who started rubbing their hands together and salivating, and how long ago? You know, Foley is from a safe seat. Foley's reelection was guaranteed. But now, it is assumed the Democrats are going to take the seat, because Foley has resigned and it's said that he needs to get some serious help for alcoholism. Now, you know what Foley could have done. Foley could have said -- as was recently done in Washington, by the way. Foley could have said that what he was doing was mixing some pills while he was consuming his adult beverage, and when he was sending these instant messages to the page he actually thought that he was on his way to vote. But he didn't do that.
Now, it was only last week, maybe two weeks ago, the New York Times ran a story on the glory and the salvation and the wonderfulness of four, what is it, months of sobriety by Patrick Kennedy and how Washington has come together to discover its common humanity to help a fallen comrade regain his sense of balance and put his life back together. Really? Is that what this episode shows? Don't think this episode shows that at all. Now, Hastert -- and he was pretty firm, he was pretty (for him) animated. He made it plain: We didn't have these IMs. We didn't know about these IMs. These instant messages, which are far more explicit than the e-mails that ABC originally released. But he says somebody did. Somebody had 'em, and somebody knew this was going on, and what about all this for-the-children stuff?
Where was the concern for the kid, the pages here, who actually got caught up in all this? It doesn't seem to be that there was any concern. This was seen purely as a political opportunity by the Democrats to take down a sitting member of the House of Representatives as the time became right. Now, the question arises, will this backfire? Republicans seem to be playing this in the correct way on both ends. They've condemned Foley. They say he has no place here. We don't tolerate this, and they're not saying -- unlike Democrats. Democrats do. I am telling you again, Democrats do not find what Foley did with the page repugnant at all.
Democrats celebrate human weakness. Democrats celebrate it; they coddle it. They believe in the imperfection of all of us. They believe that the human is imperfect, and they think they own the compassion issue by embracing all of this imperfection out there, and then they turn their guns on the Republicans who they say are intolerant, when they condemn lawlessness, when they condemn people who engage in things that are wrong, as opposed to right. The very fact that Republicans even discuss the concepts of right and wrong makes them judgmental and rigid and intolerant, racist, sexist, bigot homophobes is the cliché, and so they're taking this and saying, "See? We're the compassionate ones."
It's all smoke and mirrors, but nobody is going to convince me -- and I'm not even talking about how horrible it was that Foley did it. They're trying to say, "Look at how rotten Republicans are." But they're not condemning it. They've defended it. A caller just said, Gerry Studds did more than engage in an exchange of words with the page. He actually went out there and had a little whoopee and the House censured him, and he got reelected from his district. Twice, I think. Barney Frank and so on. You can't convince me the Democrats find any of this behavior repugnant.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We have the audio sound bite from Denny Hastert about a half hour ago. He said this about the instant message exchanges from Mark Foley to a page.
HASTERT: Anyone who had knowledge of these instant messages should have turned them over to authorities immediately so that kids could be protected. I repeat again, the Republican leaders of the House did not have them. We have all said so and on the record. But someone did have them.
RUSH: That's right.
HASTERT: And the ethics committee, the justice department, the news media, and anyone who can should help us find out.
RUSH: News media. Ha-ha.
HASTERT: Yesterday I sent a letter to the attorney general requesting that he investigate to what extent any federal laws were violated by Congressman Foley and also to find out who might have known about the sexually explicit instant messages. I was pleased to read in the newspaper this morning that the FBI has begun to investigate.
RUSH: All right. All right. So now we know that Hastert didn't know about the instant messages, but somebody did -- and since their strategic release, remember, the release of these instant messages was not to protect this kid, not to protect the page or any other page. The release of all this was not to clean up Washington. The release of all this was not to make sure that some predator pedophile was running around loose; got caught and sent out of town. That was not the purpose of this. This was a strategic release to help the Democrats during the election. So I, El Rushbo, America's real anchorman, want to know when the Democrats knew about the instant messages. They may have known about this before Hastert and the Republicans. It would appear so. So the question is, when did Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats know about the instant messages? That needs to be the question that needs to be asked. All these jerks out there suggesting that Hastert and everybody else resign are missing the point. The real question here is who had these instant messages, for how long, and who coordinated their release in a strategic way with Brian Ross at ABC?
END TRANSCRIPT
I think the feds will find out shortly.
Speaking of which, whatever happened with that Plame leak thing again? ;)
"Now, you know what Foley could have done. Foley could have said -- as was recently done in Washington, by the way. Foley could have said that what he was doing was mixing some pills while he was consuming his adult beverage, and when he was sending these instant messages to the page he actually thought that he was on his way to vote. But he didn't do that."
LOL...funniest line of the day!
I am not optimistic. these "leak" investigations always dead-end when it reaches some Dem or the MSM.
and you know they will never put pressure on the kid or his parents to reveal their connections - that would be "unfair" after all, to go after the victim.
By all means, let's have an investigation. Drag some reporters before congress and if they won't tell what they know throw 'em in jail.
you know that will not happen.
OReily is too clueless on this.
I saw a few seconds of him. He did not distinguish between emails and IMs.
OReily has no competition other than test patterns on CNN and MSNBC. Until the others wake up and use human beings they will continue to be 5th and 6th in a three man race.
about which aspect of it? we are talking about the political aspect of it here. what Foley did was wrong, he's resigned now, there is no allegation or evidence of any actual sexual molestation here (so far). what do you want to happen? you want the House GOP leadership to drag Foley onto the Capitol steps and stone him?
Yes, there were at least two different young men. One was an older teen, who had left the program before he began receiving the e-mails, and those are the ones that the Republican leaders knew about. They were annoying to the young man, but were not sexual. Nothing about them was illegal in any way.
The other was a younger teen, but I'm not sure if he was still in the program when Foley started sending him IMs. What I didn't know until today was that these IMs are three years old. I thought they were something that were more recent. Hastert did the right thing to come right back on the Democrats, making it plain that the House leadership did NOT know about the IMs and rightly questioning who DID, and who has been sitting on them for three years waiting for the opportune time to use them.
It wasn't just wrong, it was illegal per legislation he himself co-sponsored.
What I want to see happen is people take responsibility for their actions. Resigning AFTER you've been caught isn't taking responsibility, it is merely accepting it. Of course the Dems played politics with this - it was a gift from Republican stupidity. And yes I believe someone in a leadership position knew about his issues and ignored it fearing a scandal. Gee, not unlike bishops who knew and did nothing.
Exactly!
if its illegal, DOJ will deal with it. we don't have some kind of "instant justice" system in this country.
O'Reilly is CLUELESS about a whole variety of things.
You said: "If it comes out that the Dems sat on this for years, for calculated political advantage, that will be news. "
New it may be, but "reported news" you can guarantee it won't be.
Foley was made to resign, as soon as this hit the fan. Dems don't do that. Stop being a cut off your nose to spite your facer.
Shall I assume that you'd have the same position if Foley had a D after his name?
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