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It looks like 2 different layers/levels of Blackmail may be at work here.

The first level is the Blackmail perpetrated upon Foley's closeted-gay staffer, Fordham, by Rogers and John Aravosis of America’s Blog.

As has been documented by the macsmind blog, "both are gay activists who on many occasions have threatened not only Foley and Fordham with outing, but others as well. These guys are what we call “Political Thugs”, the only thing they don’t use is guns, but they do nearly as much damage. Others call it by it’s real name - blackmail."

The blackmail /"outing threat" letter they sent to Fordham, which is fairly overt in its blackmail intent, has been posted in this thread.

So -- when Brian Ross and others report that an "intermediary" has provided documentation of Foley's misbehavior, and that the documentation was "provided" by a republican staffer, Ross (knowlingly) falsely implies that repubs are leaking the information and that the intermediary and the staffer are both republicans and working in concert.

Whereas -- the truth may well be that the operatives described above extracted that information from Fordham through extortion/threat/blackmail. THEY are the so called "intermediary", and note that Ross conspicuously never offers or clarifies the political affiliation of the "intermediary".

So that's Blackmail Level 1. Now how would Level 2 work?

The intermediary, in the early stages of the blackmailing effort, gets from Fordham some Foley e-mails and starts to contact the pages, and lo and behold discovers among the Foley pages an ambitious and cunning young man, who you have been describing here tonight. The young man is gay, as are the intermediaries. The pieces begin to fall together.

The intermediary begins to see where the endgame can play out as an October surprise.

The intermediary wants to create the impression that Foley's office is performing political favors for the young ex-page.
At the same time, the young ex-page is ambitious and hustling to get a resume building job managing a real campaign.

The intermediary leans on Fordham to "make it happen" and buy the page's silence by getting him the campaign manager job, and it appears that the Foley office has strong links to the Istook office, so that's where the page was placed.

The page may not be fully aware of the leverage that was applied, but knows at a minimum that he has, in the intermediaries, an "angel" that is making good things happen - and in return the page provides further salacious details to the intermediaries, tightening their grip on Fordham and Foley.

Finally, once the ballot is set and Foley is effectively not replaceable on the ballot, the trap is sprung by the intermediary, who goes to Brian Ross at ABC to drop his bomb.

Ross, always ambitious himself, perhaps decides to up the ante by re-framing the story as not just a Foley matter, but a Hastert matter.

But that is creating a problem for his story -- the story is just too big now to stand up to scrutiny, and the pajamahadeen have been roused.

Very good analysis. I keep thinking that Istook was the one responsible for Clinton ending up in Harlem for an office instead of a plush westside office. There is so much at play here. Makes your head spin.

BRAVO!

Very good analysis! You should send this to Rush, Hannity, and Brit for sure.

I despise that liberal worm hack Brian Ross with an absolute passion, this is the kind of thing that he eats up with a spoon. Creep.

Very interesting post!

PKM, super, super important thread! Nopardons was saying we need to get this info out to everyone [and I definitely agree!]

I had already posted to WL-law that he should send that splendid analysis of his out.

What do y'all think...maybe, Tony Snow and perhaps Dick Cheney himself should also get a copy of this?

...or is it just late, and I am nutz and need to go to bed? LOL!