Posted on 10/01/2006 12:51:29 AM PDT by beyond the sea
(snips) --
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- House Republican leaders mounted an effort to explain their own conduct after the resignation of Rep. Mark Foley and suggested there should be a criminal investigation of Foley's contacts with congressional pages.
A strongly worded statement assailing Foley from the chamber's top three Republicans came as they tried to answer key questions: What did they know and what did they do about it?
Calling the contacts "an obscene breach of trust," the congressmen said in their statement that "[Foley's] immediate resignation must now be followed by the full weight of the criminal justice system."
"The improper communications between Congressman Mark Foley and former House congressional pages is unacceptable and abhorrent," read the statement issued by Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois and Majority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri.
ABC News on Friday evening reported details of three exchanges of instant messages sent in 2003 between teenage male pages and someone using the screen name Maf54, which ABC identified as Foley. The congressman's initials are MAF, and he was born in 1954.
In one of those exchanges, Maf54 advises the teen to "strip down." In another, when the teen says he's wearing a T-shirt and shorts, Maf54 replies, "Love to slip them off of you." And in a third, Maf54 asks, "Do I make you a little horny?" (More details) Democrats suggest cover up
The scandal comes just weeks before the November 7 midterm elections, and Republicans were hurriedly trying to find someone to replace Foley. Foley, 53 and single, had been favored to win re-election in the Republican-leaning district running against Democrat Tim Mahoney.
Democrats sought to take advantage of the bad press.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
"Foley admitted his actions and our condemnation should be complete and unqualified."
You're missing the point. Most here ARE condemning Foley unconditionally and are happy to see him kicked out and humiliated. The point is that after a democrat does the same thing (actually much, much worse since he was actually having sex with the underage kid), they SUPPORT him in a successful re-election campaign. And that is the difference.
Wrong! I posted: "From Powerline Blog." That is all I said. Kindly explain how that is misrepresenting it. In fact I posted a follow-up later on restating it was from Powerline when others believed these were my words.
Time for you to get real.
wrong .............as far as the legal expert said on TV this morning.
We'll see.
Agreed
Foley is to blame, not the leadership.
http://teenadvice.about.com/library/weekly/qanda/blageofconsentchart.htm
What are the expert claiming the violation is?
In order to ACT on the emails beyond telling Foley to cease contact with the individual in question, you would have to believe that gay men who act on their attraction to underage males are functioning under a sick compulsion which they cannot control.
For Hastert to take this position without supporting evidence of other pages or more extensive contact with one page would have been a political death sentence for him.
Even if it's true.
All of our political leaders have adopted the "blue eyes-brown eyes" model for thinking about male homosexuality. They are not open to argument or persuasion on the subject.
For Hastert to step out from this consensus and to go beyond a "no contact" order would have meant that he was treating a gay man differently than he would have treated a normal man in identical circumstances.
This, in turn, would mean that Hastert was self-identifying as a dissenter from orthodoxy on the matter of human sexuality, and a) he probably isn't a dissenter, also b) if he is, he isn't willing to commit political suicide over it.
I totally agree with you, but I've been studying the media for about five decades. The old liberal media is going to love this for five weeks, and unfortunately the citizens aren't that bright. And Leno, Letterman, etc. are going to have a ball with this NIGHTLY.
Perhaps so, but not as friendly as actually having sex with a minor. This issue is at the same time significant (because of what could have followed) and trivial (because of what actually happened). If Hastert was told of improper email messages, the most he should have done is to tell Foley to stop. If the messages were unlawful, there are other avenues for pursuing it.
I've seen adults flirt with kids of the opposite sex. It is creepy, but I don't think it is unlawful. Am I correct in saying that Foley did not have sex with a minor? Is there anything illegal about the messages he sent?
Let's just say, by you posting that, you look like you advocate the BELIEF that Foley's emails were just "overly friendly",
Right?
Do you think they were merely "overly friendly"?
Let the Democrats have the racists (Byrd), the girl murderers (Kennedy) the drug addled poseurs (Kennedy, the other one) the sexual deviants, (Frank) the traitors (Kerry, Rockefeller, Leahy) the crooks (Abscam Murtha), the insane (Dean) and the fellow travelers (Pelosi, Feinstein, Nadler, Boxer, Waxman, etc. etc. etc.)
The new symbol of the DemocRATS is the cesspool, stinking and full of excrement.
Studds is remembered chiefly for his role in the 1983 Congressional page sex scandal, when he and Representative Dan Crane were censured by the House of Representatives for separate sexual relationships with a minor – in Studds's case, a 1973 relationship with a 17-year-old male congressional page.
During the course of the House Ethics Committee's investigation, Studds publicly acknowledged his homosexuality, a disclosure that, according to a Washington Post article, "apparently was not news to many of his constituents." Studds stated in an address to the House, "It is not a simple task for any of us to meet adequately the obligations of either public or private life, let alone both, but these challenges are made substantially more complex when one is, as I am, both an elected public official and gay."
As the House read their censure of him, Studds turned his back and ignored them. Later, at a press conference with the former page standing beside him, the two stated that what had happened between them was nobody's business but their own.
-From Wikipedia
When he found out about the explicit IM's last Friday, foley was booted.
I'm familiar with the Republicans' explanations of their early reactions to reports of the emails.
I am just worried about HOW that reaction is going to be betrayed by the media, and how the less-than-well informed citizenry is going to absorb this. I think I know.
Now....... Now, I have to go outside and work in the fresh air. This subject is making me feel filthy..
IM's?
Instant messages.
:-)
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