Posted on 10/03/2006 4:09:22 AM PDT by Taggart_D
The facts of the disgrace of Mark Foley, who was a Republican member of the House from a Florida district until he resigned last week, constitute a disgrace for every Republican member of Congress. Red flags emerged in late 2005, perhaps even earlier, in suggestive and wholly inappropriate e-mail messages to underage congressional pages. His aberrant, predatory -- and possibly criminal -- behavior was an open secret among the pages who were his prey. The evidence was strong enough long enough ago that the speaker should have relieved Mr. Foley of his committee responsibilities contingent on a full investigation to learn what had taken place, whether any laws had been violated and what action, up to and including prosecution, were warranted by the facts. This never happened....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
When it comes to Foley...so what.
He was a fool to resign.
He hasn't done anything that isn't encouraged in the common culture.
Pubbies are wimps. Why back down?
From what I have been able to gather, Hastert "handled" a situation where Foley had send "overly friendly" emails to a former page from Louisiana. The emails were not explicit, just too friendly for the young man's tastes.
Foley was admonished. He hadn't broken any laws, and hadn't done anything bad enough to be removed from office.
So Hastert is guilty of responding to a situation in proportion to the parameters of the situation as he knew them?
If you are disappointed in Hastert, say why. And if it's because of his handling of the Foley debacle - get a grip!
Hastert says he NEVER SAW ANY OF THE E-mails at all. He never asked to look at them, and he accepted somone else's characterization of them.
And in fact on Friday he said he didn't actually remember Reynolds even MENTIONING the e-mails to him at all, AFTER Reynolds had said he had briefed the speaker.
Hastert botched the damage control on Friday. He botched the original investigation. He failed to get the page board to do it's job, which would have innoculated republicans from this scandal because it would have included a democrat.
Is there any particular reason Hastert is entitled to be speaker for life? Why can't he just say that, in hindsight, he missed the opportunity to act on this last year -- point out that Foley has not sent ANY e-mails to anybody SINCE that time, and say for the good of the institution he will term-limit his speakership and step down for the next congress?
Does anybody think Hastert stepping aside would cause MORE people to vote democrat? Does Hastert have a nationwide constituency who would see his removal as a bad thing? I don't see that myself.
I do think Shimkus should remove himself from the page board, for not sharing the information with the other 2 members of the board.
Do you know the family requested that there be no further action taken other than the communication stopped?
They specifically called for no investigation as they didn't want their son pulled into any limelight.
Even if so, then he's too stupid to lead the party...
Because he doesn't have enough leadership ability to persuade sailors to follow him to a whorehouse.
But they DID try to get permission, for MONTHS ON END, and the congress refused.
So they got the 3rd branch of government to agree with the 2nd branch of government that the 1st branch doesn't have the absolute authority to refuse a valid search warrant.
Then Hastert said bad things about the president, things that played into the democrat's constant harping of the president "overstepping his authority". When this wasn't anything like that, because a FEDERAL JUDGE HAD APPROVED THE RAID.
Hastert could have chosen to attack the judiciary, but he didn't, and he hurt his party.
But that's not what this is about, it's about Hastert having an opportunity to at least act on allegations, and having chosen a path that turned out to be the wrong path.
No, it is not irrelevant. There was a big difference between the emails and the IMs.
because he asks underage boys if they are "horny" and for picture of them. If he were a Dem you'd be demanding his head.
whoops....thought this was another foley thread...ignore the previous comment
Yeah, the hypocrisy is unbelievABLE.
I agree with the second part of your statement, but no way should Hastert resign.
Foley didn't "lie" about stopping, at least so far as the evidence goes now. There is no record of ANY inappropriate e-mails or IMs in the last year.
The IMs that surfaced were from 2003. IN fact, you probably could argue that Foley WAS stopped in 2005 by the leadership, and that we are not talking about "protecting children" here because no children were in "danger" after 2005.
We are only talking about finding out what Foley did in the past, and punishing him for it.
I believe in law and order, and the congress has had to little of that as of late.
So, the family gets to decide what's best for future victims? Yeah, that's protecting the kids alright.
Period.
There's really nothing to discuss except firing the FBI agents.
Hastert is a boob. Man, I miss "The Hammer"
INSTANTLY.
As far as Hastert knew it was over. He didn't know about the IM's of a couple of years previously.
Even the FBI didn't dig up the IM's. How was Hastert supposed to know about them?
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