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Audacity of Truth
Flyswatter in Chief:
"He had this fly that was persistently buzzing around him during the interview...he swatted his hand and he said ‘I got the sucker’...it was a, you know, Dirty Harry ‘make my day’ moment."- The NYT's John Harwood, describing Obama's killing of a fly - 6/16/09
Foleygate: The Democrats’ October surprise?
The fallout from Foleygate continues, with House Speaker Denny Hastert calling for a Justice Department investigation (as well as a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation) into the electronic communications between Rep. Mark Foley and House pages, and various liberals (as well as their cohorts in the MSM) trying to insinuate that there was a cover-up in the House regarding Foley’s behavior for several years.
While I’m glad Foley’s resigned as it’s very clear there was some highly inappropriate behavior going on between him and at least one page (and possibly more), there are other questions on this issue that pertain to more than just what he said and who he said it to – mainly, the question of the timing and who leaked the info. Was it leaked now for political purposes? It certainly sounds like it. Macsmind and Flopping Aces have two must-read posts up on this story today, that call into question not just the timing, but also the authenticity of at least one of the emails in question.
Pajamas Media has a lengthy link roundup of stories related to the resignation of Rep. Foley.
Update I: The race is on to replace Foley in Florida’s 16th Congressional district.
Update II: UGH.
Update III: Macsmind is still all over this story and is smelling a setup.
Update IV: Dafydd at Big Lizards is on the same page as Mac, and is flaming mad.
Update V: Check out the following video clips from Hot Air: 1) Of Hastert claiming that the House didn’t know anything about the explicit IMs and asking who knew about them and 2) WH Press Sec. Tony Snow having to clarify remarks the liberal blog Think Progress reported him as saying about the Foley scandal.
Others blogging about this: Malkin, La Shawn Barber, Tom Maguire, Gateway Pundit, Blue Crab Boulevard, Rick Moran
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“Well just a couple of corrections here.You know facts they are a funny way of being ignored by y’all. First Drewsmom, Barney Franks was not running a prostitution ring out of his house. One of his staff was running a prostitution ring out of his office. When Franks found out about it he fired the staffer. ”
“One of his staff”? LOL! Try a male prostitute he hired, who turned around and ran a prostitute ring from Franks’ basement? Franks denied knowing about it, of course, was reprimanded by Congress, and has gone on to get re-elected several times. Don’t lecture about facts unless you actually KNOW them.
“Second, being gay does not mean someone is a child molester. They are two seperate things.”
Wow. What a revelation!
“Thirdly, alcohol has nothing to do with Foley being a molester. Stop giving alcohol a bad name.”
As far as I can tell, Foley seems to be the only one implying this. Pass your message along to him.
“Sister T, I’m telling you this will only be over when Hastert, Reynolds, Boehner, and Shimkus have all resigned their positions of power. But you guys keep trying to defend them. It makes the Democratic Party look really good.”
Don’t need your permission to defend people who at this point I feel are getting too much of the ‘blame’ for this. And as far as making the Dem party “look good” about the only way that would happen is if 98% of Dems resigned from Congress.
GWR – OK I get your point but the Dems previous scandals aren’t the issue to STs post here, “so enough with the they do it too” arguments. And let’s be honest about the CRANE re-election. You’re trying to tell me that Republican voters in that district would rather send a Democrat to congress than simply replace CRANE with another Republican during a Primary challenge? Are you serious here?
But back to the point of my original post: The fact that Foley is gay is as much an issue as his conduct. It’s these supposed “values” issues that are important to the Republican base. Sanity referenced an interesting article upstream in this thread. An excerpt was:
“The reality is that Democrats seem to get away with more” says Chuck Todd, editor in chief of the Hotline, a daily political journal. “They can have an affair and bail [themselves] out. There’s a lower threshold for Republicans. I guess it’s more of a hypocrisy thing” he adds, because such scandals put Republicans at odds with the party’s socially conservative image.
The Republicans run on being the party of morality, so when immorral acts are uncovered, they can and should be tagged as hypocrites. For the Repubs, this includes not only innappropriate sexual conduct but the perps sexual preferece as well. So this scandal is kind of a double-whammy, you might say.
Since Hastert has admitted he knew about problematic IMs at least a year ago, shouldn’t you be calling for Hasterts resignation like Tony Blankley is?
GWR – two other responses to your post
And when forced to, they’ll stage half-hearted faux ‘punishments’ (example: changing Jefferson’s committee assignments – at least until they’re sure no one’s watching).
My point here is that the Dems do what the legally/procedurally can. As I understand it, the whole Rep controlled House can vote for censure or for Jefferson’s removal. Why aren’t the Repubs calling a vote? Instead they come to his defense when the FBI searches his office.
This should be clear, even to you: anyone, from either party, who sat on Foley’s IMs instead of contacting the proper authorities should be out of a job. You can let us know when you’re willing to say the same thing about a Democrat in analogous cases. Till then, we have every reason to treat you as just another partisan troll here.
I agree here, and am willing to say that if a Democrat in congress knew about the IMs/emails/problems here than they should receive just punishment. But I think investigations that no Dems knew because the Repubs tried to sweep it under the Rug. The only only Dem on the Staff Page Committee (or whatever its called) has already said that he was never briefed on these problems. Look at your posts, the knee-jerk reaction here is to blame everything on the Dems. It’s the timing, they (political group and newspaper) waited to hold this info, etc. So what? They are not elected officials. They have a political agenda. It seems to me much more egregious for an elected official, who’s job it is to oversee the conduct of HR reps (Hastert), to cover-up or ignore these warnings than it is for some politically motivated group (or newspaper) to hold on to information for a story. Do you at least agree with this?
tom,
You are shameless and in top spin form. Yes, the people who held the story for maximum political gain need to be prosecuted, convicted, and sent to prison for aiding and abetting this. You see a crime, you report it or be an accessory. It is that simple, except to a partisan, moral relativist like you.
Now, this is a manufactured scandal where the media and the Democraps like you are telling half-truths and only looking for Democrats to gain power.
I think everyone who applauded Gerry Studds molesting of Pages should be removed from Congress immediately, don’t you, tom??? Disagreeing proves without a doubt that you are a hypocrite, first class, tom.
PCD – you’ve just got to get past the Studds incident it seems to be consuming you. Your last statement is histerical (in all senses of the word). And expand yout vocabulary beyond using the word “hypocrite”. It’s getting tiring.
tom,
Either you’re denser than I thought, or spinning like a top, or simply disingenuous.
For starters:
the Dems previous scandals aren’t the issue to STs post here, “so enough with the they do it too” arguments.
No one here is making the “they do it too” argument. If we were, we’d be saying Foley should keep his seat, since that’s what you guys did when Studds was caught with his hoo-hoo where it didn’t belong. So go put your straw man away, OK?
Next:
You’re trying to tell me that Republican voters in that district would rather send a Democrat to congress than simply replace CRANE with another Republican during a Primary challenge? Are you serious here?
What, you’re now challenging the election returns? The scandal broke post-primary, as I recall, and the voters turned their back on Crane. Again, you seem incapable of grasping the point: GOP voters will reject pedophiles and perverts. Democrat voters embrace them. That’s central point I made in the original post. It’s the history and the track record, and no matter how you try to spin it, you have shown nothing in any of your posts to disprove it.
Then we have this:
The Republicans run on being the party of morality, so when immorral acts are uncovered, they can and should be tagged as hypocrites. For the Repubs, this includes not only innappropriate sexual conduct but the perps sexual preferece as well. So this scandal is kind of a double-whammy, you might say.
Basically, this is a backhanded way of saying that the Dems are notmoral creatures, so in your view anything they do is OK – child molesting, rape, perjury, and maybe even murder. You wanted to know how I sleep knowing Tom Delay is a Republican. Maybe you can tell us how you sleep knowing your team finds nothing wrong with those.
Oh yes, and I notice you tried again to slip in the gay-bashing…aren’t you guys supposed to be the tolerant ones?
Further:
Since Hastert has admitted he knew about problematic IMs at least a year ago,
No, he knew about the Emails a year ago. The Emails that the FBI did not find actionable. So, no, given current evidence, I’ll make no such call.
Regarding Jefferson:
the Dems do what the legally/procedurally can. As I understand it, the whole Rep controlled House can vote for censure or for Jefferson’s removal. Why aren’t the Repubs calling a vote? Instead they come to his defense when the FBI searches his office.
What, all the Dems in Congress came down with broken arms at the same time? Why didn’t YOUR guys call for censure or removal – unless they approve? I’ll grant you that Hastert should not have defended Jefferson from the FBI searches – that was plain dumb.
Finally:
It seems to me much more egregious for an elected official, who’s job it is to oversee the conduct of HR reps (Hastert), to cover-up or ignore these warnings than it is for some politically motivated group (or newspaper) to hold on to information for a story. Do you at least agree with this?
There’s no evidence of a cover-up on Hastert’s part, so your question is hypothetical. FBI checked the Emails and did nothing.
If it turns out that Hastert did know about the IMs and did nothing, then he should go.
But also, if a Democrat group knew about them, and endangered other pages by sitting on them, they’re just as negligent.
So let’s sum up the thread, because I’m done with you here.
- You have defended Barney Frank allowing a prostitution ring to be run out of his basement.
- You have defended Studds’, the admitted child molester.
- I’ve invited you to tell us whether there is ANY crime a Democrat might commit that would cause you to call for him to resign. You haven’t been able to specify even one.
In short, you’ve given a marvelous testament to my original point: we want our wrongdoers out of Congress; you want yours to stay. Or maybe go to the White House.
ST – what happened to my response to GWR?
And to my original point about Foley’e “outing” to the public and how that in particular hurts the Rep base.
And let me help GWRs poor recollection of the facts about Crane’s reelection – On July 20, 1983, the House voted for censure, the first time that censure had been imposed for sexual misconduct. Crane, who subsequently apologized for his transgression, lost his bid for reelection in 1984. QWR sez The scandal broke post-primary, as I recall, and the voters turned their back on Crane. Nice try but don’t you think thats an awfully early Rep Primary? And remember, he lost by less than 11K votes,that’s substantial support coming from somewhere. Maybe it was the Dems that tried to re-elect the pedophile here too?
Several comments got stuck in moderation, tom. They’ve been released.