Posted on 10/05/2006 5:59:56 AM PDT by Quilla
It had all the earmarks of a classic Democratic Party plan to depress Republican turnout. Take a barely disguised homosexual Republican Congressman, add salacious electronic messages that included masturbation, sex and other lurid flourishes, push the story to their eager and willing accomplices in the media right before an election, and as quick as you can say LBJ an instant scandal is created.
The only problem, it seems, is that in today’s world of media, with data available to the whole world that was heretofore available only to a select few, the plan didn’t work out quite the way they had expected. Enterprising bloggers have done the elemental detective work and discovered that the entire incident is nearly exactly the opposite of what was first reported.
Rather than a case of a pedophile Congressman stalking young men in the corridors of power, it instead turns out to be a case of a closeted homosexual nurturing a relationship with a young man, and making sexual advances once he became an adult. A relationship by the way that the young man, if he felt threatened or chose not to continue, could have ended at any time.
An older homosexual man seeking a relationship with a young man? Who would have thought such a thing would ever happen?
Rather than the Pedophile Politician script we were first being fed, we now know that the real story is far less than we have been lead to believe.
As it turns out, although the young man in question was indeed a Page, was indeed befriended by Congressman Foley and did have sexual discussions with him. But it seems everything was perfectly legal, if nevertheless repellant to many, including a good chunk of the GOP base whose turnout is vital in the forthcoming election. As a signatory of a Bill outlawing Internet sex between adults and minors, Foley was perfectly aware of the legal boundaries and seems to have taken great care to not cross that fine line until the young man became a legal adult.
While angry values voters fulminate over Hastert’s failure to do something before the IMs came to light, all I can remember is the Democrats’ mantra.
That the troglodyte Republicans were obsessed by sex between consenting adults.
That homosexuals in close working relationships with young people, especially young men, is a good and healthy thing.
That some forms of sex, aren’t sex.
That what two consenting adults do or say behind closed doors is their business.
That intercepting and reading electronic communications between anyone in the US, especially those between two citizens, is never to be tolerated.
And most of all, never be judgmental.
So in the end, what do we end up with?
A pedophile that wasn’t.
A child that was actually an adult.
The disclosure of personal electronic communications of a highly personal nature between two consenting adults revealed.
A sex scandal between a couple who never had sex.
That Democrat Congressmen can have sex with 17 year olds and get re-elected, but Republicans that talk about sex are forced to resign.
ABC news is made to look like a fool, hyping a story beyond the facts at hand.
Along with the infamous Texas Air National Guard documents of 2002, this latest attempt by the Democrats is not going according to plan, and I suspect it will have the same result at the Polls in November. Almost four weeks are left to digest the affair. Much remains to be discovered, but one thing is clear.
It is, without a doubt, the worst October Surprise, EVER.
Those homophobic Democrat bastards!!
YES!! Go on offense!! *Ahem*...
American Thinker nails this issue. You know this has backfired when all the news this morning is "Can this hurt the GOP?", and it is the THIRD story they present. There may be more October surprises, but this first one riled up the GOP base. Dems have NOTHING but scandal to run on, and this one was LAME. I cannot wait to vote!!
I did a search. If you copy and paste this article's title in FR's search window, this will be the only thread returned. Apparently the comma has something to do with it. My apologies, your highness. ;-)
IIRC, Rove promised an October Surprise that the Democrats wouldn't like. Hope he can keep his promise.
Republican Congressman Patrick Henry has demanded that nancy pelosi and rahm emanuel sign sworn statements that they did not know of these IM's, and had nothing to do with their release. Republican leaders have signed such a document. emanuel and pelosi REFUSED TO SIGN ANY STATEMENT DENYING INVOLVEMENT IN THIS MATTER!!!
LLS
I wonder though if that is the Murtha sting tapes?
How many October Suprises have to blow up in the Democrat's face before they quit? Will they ever learn?
I notice it always takes them a good 2 to 3 days to catch up with FR. But, then again, having some good freepers outside the ABC doors with posters and signs asking questions (ala Rathergate) could speed the process up.
No problem. That's why I said just put in a word. If you put in the entire title, you will miss people who can't spell or use different punctuation.
But that's my point. Of course they will give it no traction, which means that the whole thing vanishes as quickly as it arrived, and meanwhile, the Dems have made no inroads whatsoever on the national security issue held by the GOP.
KLBJ in Austin is reporting that the teen was 18. They have it out. Of course, the liberal Ed Clements is being liberal as usual.
Maybe ABC's bias is the REAL scandal here.
Interesting... The dems know this how?
Also, ABC *MUST* produce their evidence to demonstrate the "underage" side of things now. This may include names, due to their obvious falsehood or distortion based on the thus-far produced IMs.
I'm curious if ABC actually has ANY more IMs.
"lready Posted:
Worst October Surprise Ever
Search is our friend. Type in a word, hit a button, easy as pie."
You know I really get tired of the bandwidth police here at FR. I am in the Mountain Time Zone, so I appreciate seeing great posts like this, and would miss them is someone did not repost them. I hardle think the FR is suffering because of a few important reposts now and then.
It does get tiring. I searched via several key words for a thread yesterday. Didn't find a thing so I posted a thread. It was amazing how many came out of the woodwork to say it was already being discussed. Well, then put in the keywords so we can find it. I think the moderators are pretty good about letting a certain amount of duplicates over a period of time.
The problem with this "October Surprise" is that it was waaaaaaayyyyy too early in October. I don't think they anticipated all the questions and research that would come with it. Unless they have another shoe to drop the weekend before the election, I agree this is turning out to be a pretty weak surprise. (And a few days ago, I thought it was gonna be effective.)
"I think the moderators are pretty good about letting a certain amount of duplicates over a period of time."
And I am glad they do.
"... freepers outside the ABC doors with posters and signs asking questions (ala Rathergate) could speed the process up"
Ya know..if I were an ABC/Disney shareholder, I'd be screaming for someone's head consequent to this sterling example of media malpractice....
LoL!
It just splits up the conversation, so it's harder to get everybody's opinion. We have to follow two threads to see if someone says something useful in either of them. We see people repeating incorrect stuff because the freepers who know the truth are on the other thread. We see freepers spending time making points that are already made on the other thread.
If all you want to do is make somehing pop back up, there are ways to make that happen. If the people who run FR WANTED people to do this, you could just repost the headline and put the link to the other thread in the header. But if you do that, it will be deleted -- which I think shows how the owners feel.
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