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
Excuse me, name ONE THING I have said that is hyporcritical. Please, I'd love to see it.
You're full of gas.
Are you even vaguely aware of the definition of "hypocritical"?
Another example of politics before principle.
By the time the republican piece together this sordid affair the voting will have commenced. I have never seen so much crap flung against the wall so close to the election. The dems are moving full bore and taking no prisoners. This is savage warfare and the republicans had better step up and get into the trenches and set gentleymen notions aside. We are watching the dems destroy Foley (he brought it on himself) and Hastert, possible Bohner, and perhaps others. They will repeat lies, half lies, and inuendo as truth until the public get sick to death of all of it. The dems desparation is being made a republican desparation. While lies are taveling around the world, the truth is lacing up its shoestrings. I swear, Hastert looks like a blind man groping around in the dark. These republicans had better get ready for much more ugliness and be ready to respond. They need to go on offense. The stakes are too high. Of course, if we become them, what difference does it make.
Have you been paying attention? The House leadership only knew about some innocuous, though annoying e-mails from several years ago. There was nothing about them to cause Foley to resign. These IMs that were actually sexually explicit were from three years ago, but the House leadership did NOT know about them until they were announced by the press last week. When those were made public, I think the House leaders had a sit down with Mr. Foley, after which Foley resigned.
Don't go blaming the Republicans for this because you'll be falling right into the trap the Democrats want. They fed this story to ABC, which printed it, purposely blurring the lines between the e-mails and IMs so that people would blame the Republican leaders for allowing this man to stay in his office. It WASN'T the Republicans who had the IMs, but someone did. Hastert has started the ball rolling to find out exactly WHO had them and gave them to ABC.
Go read your posts and then come back and tell me WHY you are blaming everyone in the GOP and making claims that someone in a leadership position HAD to know.
That's exactly what Hastert did in calling for a full scale investigation by the AG.
would Foley have even resigned if he were a "D"? of course not. Stubbs and Frank didn't.
this story just broke, and you are calling for "justice". the investigation into whether it was a crime has just started. do you think we could at least have an investigation, a grand jury, and a trial first?
I didn't see anywhere in the transcript where this kid told Foley to stop the messages. The kid chose to continue the IM conversation. Why?
If you live through the resultant ass whipping you can return home and vote third-party.
It is very possible that it is the Democrats who are responsible for the cover up, not the Republicans.
Can I get the purple Koolaid concession for this lot?
Conspiracy theories are the lifeblood of liberalism.
OR
Was it simply copied and pasted into a document or email and sent off to someone?...Who was it sent to?...and how did it eventually get to ABC?
I don't think that it's going to take months to uncover who is behind this and WHY it happened now. Oh, the MSM will ignore it all, but talk radio and FNC won't.
Yes, it's time for the GOPers to take off the white gloves and fight back and to fight offensively.
You already own it...but you have drunk it all.
Just for once, I would like the entire Republican caucus close ranks and get in behind someone the Left is trying to bully. They can simply say, get out of this,....we will police our own, but we will not allow inuendo and character asssination be used by gunslingers shooting from the hip trying to take down another republican. The republicans forced Foley out. If there are others that acted with indiscretion, rest assurred we will police our own. But it needs to be done as a block. Otherwise the left will pick of republicans one, by ,one.
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