(insert obligatory pic of Gomer)
Posted on 10/04/2006 2:56:10 PM PDT by blogblogginaway
ABCNews.com brought Mark Foley's boy-chasing to national attention, but it wasn't the first website to flog the story. That dubious honor belongs to StopSexPredators, a pseudo-vigilante blog filled with plagiarized, hastily-assembled posts, which no one seems to have heard of, visited, or linked to before last week—and whose operator has a suspiciously savvy grasp of the news cycle. In other words, a blog whose sole raison d'etre seems to have been to get the Foley ball rolling.
If its time/date stamps are to be trusted (like most free blogware, Blogger allows its users to backdate posts), the pervert-outing anony-site was set up on July 28 as a "clearing house for the public to report sex predators and as a resource for concerned citizens."
One early post, headlined The Sickening Six, naming and shaming the "kinds of sick people who hunt minors for their own sick purposes," is basically an amalgam of plagiarized entries from Crimelibrary, Wikipedia, and Answers.com. (Click here, here, and here, for examples.)
After running just six posts over the summer, the site picked up steam on September 21 when its author wrote, "the blog has been noticed and some shocking emails have been received!!!!" and posted four emails purportedly from "interns" outraged by the heretofore unmentioned Foley and his penchant for teenage boys.
(Of course, if these emails are legit, it means the "interns" somehow stumbled upon the blog, despite the fact that it had not yet been linked to by any other sites, and was virtually indetectible to Google, which ranks sites according to the number of incoming links.)
One "intern" wrote:
"...I came to Washington because I care about the future of America. I wanted to be around good and decent men like President George Bush. Instead, I feel like a piece of meat. The worst part of it for me is there appear to be plenty of my fellow interns who don't mind Foley's particular 'path to power.'"
Three days later, the blogger posted the now infamous "Emails from Congressman Foley to 16 Year Old Page!!!!", claiming they'd been sent in by a reader (despite the fact that they appeared to be scans of faxed printouts). Persons unknown then seeded the link to various political sites—including Wonkette, which promptly dismissed them as fakes. ABC, of course, took them more seriously.
Whoever promoted the story on DailyKos did so only 12 minutes after the fateful post went live at 11:06 a.m.:
Six minutes later, the same person, again writing under the handle WHinternNOW posted the following:
Back on Sept. 5, however, that very same WHinternNOW posted a suspiciously more informed-sounding take on the congressman:
Whoever is behind the blog hasn't responded to emails from Radar or any other outlets, and seems to have lost interest in the site.
"I'm thrilled that so many folks are looking at this simple blog...." the author wrote on October 2, the last day the site was updated. "If you have any ideas that I should post, please let me know. I'm happy to pass along information about the current situation, but would much prefer to keep marching toward the large goal or stopping sex predators. I don't think we'll see it in the Congress anytime soon, so let's focus our energy elsewhere."
What, leaving the party so soon?
Yeah, something is beginning to smell about Foley's Follies, making 3-day old fish smell like roses in comparison.
The MKJ theory:
The DUmmies, Kosomites, and other radical left 'Rats and their fellow travelers had this information on Foley for a a long time, and they attempted to let it ooze into the news with this absurd blog gambit, which all leads to the 'Rat attempt at their own lil 'October Surprise'.
The most disgusting part of this business, beyond Foley's perversions, is how the above 'Rats (whoever they may be, and may they soon be revealed) thought it more important to save up this information to exploit politically at the most opportune time for them, leaving minors at risk in the meantime.
Surprise surprise suprise....
(insert obligatory pic of Gomer)
PJ, check this out.
Gee, the blog forced Foley to behave like a predatory scumbag? Wow.
There were signs of concern among Republicans, as well. Sen. John McCain of Arizona called for a group of former senators and others to investigate how the House handled the affair.
"We need to move forward quickly and we need to reach conclusions and recommendations about who is responsible," McCain said during a campaign speech for Sen. Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island. "I think it needs to be addressed by people who are credible."
McPain isn't helping.......
bookmark
(insert obligatory pic of Gomer)
When did the instant messages come into play?
ROFLLL!!!
But the pretend-conservative act is being carried onto a whole new playing field, one that has become wildly influential over the past few years and one that does not stand to be instantly recognized as a fake. That playing field is the blogosphere, which is then used in conjunction with massive e-mailings to “spread the word” (as one e-mailer insisted I do to my readers/e-mail list) to other conservatives.The premise is that a blog is established in order to generate credibility, and then that credibility is used to attack Republicans. In this case, the blog was supposed to be for "concerned citizens" to report sexual predators. Then the smear appears on the blog, and the blog is then passed to the MSM as "news."The concept is the same: the blog or e-mail claims, first, that the said writer has been a conservative for years and that they have “had it with Republicans.” They then point to an issue that conservatives would likely be upset about such as excessive spending, immigration, or the expansion of government. Their supposed rage over the issue has convinced them to either not show up to vote in 2006, or, in order to really show Republicans, vote for the Democrat instead.
The blogs and e-mails are convincing in their wording and could incite the sort of reaction that occurred following the Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme Court. Of course, any liberal could read Free Republic and find out what’s irritating conservatives this week, grab a handful of phrases, and toss it on their “I’m a conservative but voting for a Democratic because of (insert issue here)” blog. After tossing in a few posts about the evils of Hillary Clinton and abortion, the blog is now being run by a bona-fide “conservative.” A few e-mails and link connections later, the message of conservatives voting against Republicans is spread.
-PJ
Yeah. I linked to it early this AM. Check the tail end of the morst recent DUFU thread. I am getting a creepy feeling that the author of this Blog is someone we both know of a sordid bent.
I can't remember the post or thread...but a Freeper connected the dots to Jason Leopold
Johnny Mac thinks former Senators are credible? LOL
He needs to zip it.
Foley's behavior was bizarre and reprehensible. We don't need to defend what he did. Whether he actually attempted to have sexual contact with this or any other page, we don't know.
Where in the name of God did you see THAT asserted?
This has nothing to do with Foley's behavior. What is has to do with is the fact that some democrats had prior knowledge of exactly what Foley was doing, and kept it secret for months, at least, in order to maximize the political fallout. That, in itself, is a crime. Not to mention morally bankrupt.
We know this
What we don't know is the NAME of the owner of the blog
Someone needs to tell McLoser there is already a FBI investigation going on
What does he want .. Congress to investigate themselves??
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