The Smear Is On The Other Foot
October 3, 2006
Dear Letter to the Editor [sic]:
I disagree with the editorial board of the Washington Times (“Resign, Mr. Speaker,” Oct. 3, 2006). We are all outraged about Mark Foley’s abhorrent and reprehensible conduct. He preyed on children entrusted to our care and he disgraced our institution.
Mr. Foley lied to his fellow members, he lied to the Clerk of the House, and I believe everyone wishes they knew more and knew it earlier so we would have caught Mr. Foley’s lies and deceit. Those of us in the Republican leadership have done our best to provide an accurate chronology of our recollections and conversations with Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA) regarding Mr. Foley, but one thing is certain: no one in the leadership, including Speaker Hastert, had any knowledge of the warped and sexually explicit instant messages that were revealed by ABC News last Friday. Had Speaker Hastert or anyone else in our leadership known about Mr. Foley’s despicable conduct, I’m confident the Speaker would have moved to expel Mr. Foley immediately and turn him over to the appropriate authorities.
Our congressional pages and their parents deserve a fair and full investigation by the Justice Department, and I’m confident they will get one. We also need to know why these messages surfaced only last week, on the final day of legislative business before the November elections. If this evidence was withheld for political purposes, one can only speculate as to how many additional children may have been endangered before this information was finally revealed.
Sincerely,
John Boehner (R-OH)
House Majority Leader
Yes, indeed – did Democratic or liberal activists intentionally place our nation’s youth at risk by delaying the exposure of a predator for political gain?
Unfair? You bet…sleazy? Hell, yeah…an outrage? Damn right…
…And so is all the b.s. that’s been floating around about Hastert, Tony Snow, Fox News, et al, turning a blind eye to a predator for political gain.
Good for Boehner; railroad the railroaders…
My lord, where to start. Yeah, “railroad the railroaders”. What planet are you living on? You are implying that Democrats had information that Republicans didnt. Really? When the Speaker admits that he never briefed the Democrat on the Page Board about the emails? Sure, that talking point has legs. At least it would if Americans trusted Republicans at this point. The biggest problem you have right now is the combination of the purported deception of the Bush administration in Woodwards book.
Good luck running that one up the flag pole. All anyone is going to remember about Foleygate is this: Republican Pedophiles: 1. Democratic Pedophiles: 0.
The GOP leadership could have referred the matter to the ethics committee, which would be standard practice with potential scandals. However, that would expose the matter (OK, bad choice of words) to a Democrat, so no referral was made. Wouldn’t you call that “evidence … withheld for political purposes?”
Docciavelli, in all seriousness – get bent…you are exactly the kind of scum I have been talking about, those who would try to brand tens of millions of Americans who call themselves Republicans ‘pedophiles’ because of the actions of one man.
Get lost and let the grownups talk…
Peter, I’m a bit exasperated: for three or four days here, I have not once taken up for the actions of Hastert, Boehner, Foley, or anyone else involved with this; if they did wrong, let them pay the consequences.
All I have tried to do – and surely you realize this – is fight off the big smear, so eloquently illustrated by the childish brute Docciavelli here: that Republicans are so blinded by partisanship that they would intentionally ignore child abuse. I mean, let’s get real…Hastert made some mistakes, no doubt, but to say that he is unmoved by a predator is severely overstating things, and – how many times must I say it – it’s a big, fat smear job…
I don’t pretend that the Republicans are the sole practitioners of political sleaze – you only have to go back to the 321 dead Indians in Chicago who voted for JFK in alphabetical order. Foley and Duke Cunningham are scoundrels, and they are the only ones who have to answer for their individual behavior. This does not mean that all Republicans are thieves or pederasts (or thieving pederasts).
However, there is a culture of ethical laxity in the GOP leadership which make it hard to argue that this case is an isolated instance, and it also extends well beyond Jack Abramoff’s status as a frequent visitor to the White House or Tom Delay’s indictment. One of the first things the Congress did was gut the existing procedure for investigating scandals:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/01/05/MNGRJAL8V81.DTL
Moreover, when faced with a public outcry after Abramoff was convicted, they did nothing to restrain the influence of lobbyists. However, by effectively eliminating Congressional oversight (and hence taking Democrats out of the loop) and enabling a lax ethical culture, the GOP leadership should be accountable for its sins of omission.
Well, God forbid I get too out in front in defending this Republican congress, because I have not been a fan…I have long felt the House GOP leadership was pretty awful, and I don’t harbor any love for Hastert, et al…
Your criticisms are all fine and valid, and I have no argument with them (except to say that this seems to happen whenever either party is in power, so maybe it says something about the nature of political power itself more than Republicans or Democrats)…
It’s absolutely the nature of political power — Democrats are no saintlier than Republicans (well, maybe a little) — I think that when one party has power for too long, the retention of power becomes the entire raison d’etre and the agenda which got them elected in the first place gets forgotten — however that is hardly an earth-shattering revelation.
any body know if the ‘bill bradley’ writing for pajamas media is the same bill bradley as the senator?
http://billbradley.pajamasmedia.com/2006/10/03/troubled_democrats.php
If it is…why is he writing for a conservative blog?
occam suggests that it is someone else.
I tend to agree with Peter on the “Power Corrupts” theme. The only way for the GOP to find it’s way back to it’s Reaganesque roots (i.e. small government) may be a thorough shellacking at the polls. At this point, neither branch of Congress seems to be listening to their base’s increasingly shrill cries of discontent. May be the only way to truly get their attention here.
I concur with the gop in need of a shellacking.
They need their heads handed to them. completely gutless, empty suits.
Don’t even get me started on the dems, but at least they aren’t out there stabbing their own base in the back.
peter, you are judging the gop based on the IMs.
It is absolutely dishonest to conclude that they had them.
Nope, not the Senator. Here’s more than you ever wanted to know:
Your guide is Bill Bradley, a third generation Californian, award-winning columnist and political analyst, and former advisor and operative in dozens of Democratic campaigns ranging from the city council to the White House. The LA Weekly political writer is the longtime publisher of the New West Notes newsletter, which has a California elections forecasting rate of over 90 percent over the past decade-and-a-half. Now NWN and Bradley’s work for the LA Weekly, America’s largest metropolitan weekly newspaper, is available through NewWestNotes.com.
Bradley’s coverage and analysis of the California recall and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s unprecedented campaign for governor brought him plaudits and controversy. His take on the former action superstar’s newfound political career was very unpopular with many old Democratic friends until Schwarzenegger’s somewhat bipartisan nature became more apparent to others, but Slate magazine declared Bradley “the guy who was right from the start on the California recall.”
In a long 2002 profile, Bradley had predicted that Schwarzenegger would be the next governor of California. In 2003, he was alone among journalists in reporting that the former Mr. Universe fully intended to run for governor in the recall election and was working through various obstacles to a candidacy, and has engaged in a frank exchange of views with the movie star-turned-governor. Yet more than a year and a half before Schwarzenegger’s 2005 special election debacle, he forecast that the then-historically popular governor was riding for a fall. Bradley publicly predicted that Schwarzenegger’s intervention in the 2004 legislative races would fail across the board and that he would lose all four of his initiatives in the 2005 California special election.
Notwithstanding his Democratic background, Bradley has also been registered independent, Reform (to help the would-be centrist party qualify), Green (to help the party qualify and promote an environmental ethic), and Republican, to support John McCain in the 2000 presidential primaries.
A co-founder of the California state capital’s weekly newspaper, the Sacramento News & Review, Bradley has written for many state, national, and international publications, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, New Republic, American Prospect, The Nation, California Business, Salon, International Herald Tribune, The Economist, Le Monde, Excelsior, South China Morning Post, Chuokoron, and Newsweek Japan. He is a frequent guest analyst on various media outlets, including Pacifica Radio and Fox News.
Bradley has been a senior advisor to a number of Democratic presidential and gubernatorial campaigns and to the California Democratic Party, earned a Telly Award, was chief consultant to legislative committees on long-range policy and science & technology issues, special advisor to the industrial innovation commission, and served as a Los Angeles county energy commissioner.
As a consultant and producer, he has moonlighted on a number of Hollywood projects from thriller to action to comedy-drama and, among other things, was consulting producer of the NBC drama series Mister Sterling and a producer of See Arnold Run, the cable movie drama depicting Schwarzenegger’s seemingly carefree but calculated 1970s bodybuilding dominance and 2003 rise to the governorship.
He was assistant to the chairman of Regis McKenna Inc., Silicon Valley’s premier marketing and public relations firm, where he worked with the industry’s top marketing/PR guru and with the CEOs of Apple and Intel. He was also an organizer for the United Farm Workers, working with the union’s legendary co-founders.
A California Newspaper Publishers Award-winning political columnist, Bradley is a former high school and college athlete and served as a VISTA Volunteer and in the U.S. Navy.
Bradley earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley with postgrad studies at the University of Southern California and Stanford University.
He is a member of the Screen Actors Guild, the American Legion, Mensa, and other high IQ societies.
Yes, mtl makes a distinction that is being intentionally blurred (as we have seen conclusively) by the Democrats: between the IMs and the emails…and therein lies all the difference…
I just caught the drudge link to more IMs.
This pretty much tells me what needs to be known. If the house gop leaders had access to this stuff, Foley would have been gone.
It also proves that they didn’t have the stuff, becuase they would have released it all at once. The thing that is starting to come into focus, beyond what a sick f**k Foley is:
We have a ton of gay interns, saving their IM interchanges, and releasing them to the media in dribs and drabs. IT is at a point now, where once these pages intersect with a democrat, there will be a great engulfing flame of ‘how long did you know?’
No investigation goes anywhere, until the ‘kids’, who are now adults, are named. Then the race will be on…to prove who knew what. If tradesports had the odds, it would be a democratic operative had this and sat on it-72%, the gop leadship had access-28%. The gop is sitting on a very good hand right now.
If it was oct 28th, it would be curtains for the gop.
Trust me. someone didn’t realize how big this would get, thought it would be clever and played the gambit. It also shows that it wasn’t a high ranking democrat who was behind it. The 503 c that is out there, will produce the intersection of story implosion.
Here’s a very good article on this subject by Brent Bozell.
best line yet to be used:
“If the democratic party had their way, Foley and these pages could have gotten married.”
Why is abcnews using “Maf51″, which was foley’s screen name, but not the other party’s tag?
I doubt his screen name was ‘teen’? Something is really stinky, becuase someone is editting it.
The source to abc news?
or abc news themselves? actually it would have to be abc news, bewcuase there is no way they publish what could turnout to be rathergate style material. They do know the screen nmae and are refusing to release. Wonder why?
what if his screen name was something like:
‘bj machine’?
‘mesohornee’?
mtl, trying to keep up is making my head spin. Throw all the bums out on both sides of the aisle.
Not to defend Foley, since he is simply incompatible with the conservative platform, but what if the emails are legit and IMs made up?
Anyone can ‘create’ files and historical trail — just ask Michelle Malkin about that 2005 bikini she was wearing back in ’92. Better yet, ask Dum Rather about ‘fake but accurate’.
Until we have a name & backstory (actual harddrive and files would be nice — for the digital artifacts), there’s no there there, just inneuendo & allegations.
abc wouldn’t print them for fear of having a cbs news fiasco-only ten fold. The have to have some sort of verifcation
They have them. I do wonder why they withheld so much from the intial story though…
and if they have crossed the threshold of realization that they cannot keep playing coy with the info, for fear of the appearance of the ultimate gotcha journalism.
I don’t read in very much dem coordination, but just enough to give it their stink. If abc just got the im’s it would appear that they are being used as a tool, and they may come to find it harmful to their rep. The story is isolated at abc, but the impact is not. I have a feeling that there are journos who are satrting to question their own company and its handling of this.