I wonder:

1. Who knew about all this awful stuff...when did they know...what did they do about it? Why are not the bad hammered with alacrity? Justice delayed is justice denied.

2. Whole separate, in a way, issue: Why does all the dirt surface just before elections? Why don't voters "scream" at those who accuse....why didn't you bring all this up when it happened? This, by the way, is about all manner of things...not just child abuse...which is very awful, all by itself.

Posted by tad at October 3, 2006 10:27 AM

You said: (Repubs & Dems) "have trouble dealing with the sexual predation of Foley"

Dems have trouble with glorifying and defending sexual predation..period.

1983, Rep. Gerry Studds sex with a male teenage page -- He continued to represent his district until his retirement in 1996.

1989, Rep. Barney Frank (one of my favorites), is caught living with male prostitute who is running a gay sex-for-hire ring out of Frank's apartment. Frank, is also fixxing up to 33 parking tickets for the pimp. Today Frank is an honored Democratic member of Congress, much in demand as a speaker and "conscience of the party."

2001, Clinton commutes Rep. Mel Reynolds prison sentence for having sex with a 16-year-old campaign volunteer and campaign spending violations.

Foley's mistake was not being a Democrat. He would be running the Ethics Committee by now.

Posted by dog at October 3, 2006 11:38 AM

I was going to point out the Studds fiasco. Not only did he continue to serve, he was quite self-rightous about his affair.

Posted by DADvocate at October 3, 2006 11:59 AM

It seem that our government has become so corrupt (both sides of the isle) that the only way to fix it is to not re-elect anyone, which of course will nevr happen, given the McCain-Feingold Incumbants Protection Act. The only other possibility is that if terrorists really do light off a nuke, that they do it in Washington D.C. when Congress is in full session. Hey, I can fantasize, can't I?

Posted by Vulgorilla at October 3, 2006 02:25 PM

I understand that the emails/IMs were shopped to several different medias, before they were used by ABC. So I want to know, which media knew what, when, and why THEY didn't report it or do something???

Posted by Debbie at October 3, 2006 03:03 PM

I think we need more time to sort out the sequence of events -- actions and inactions -- before we definitively assign responsibility. I suspect there will be more than enough blame to assign to the Republican Congressional leadership as well as to those who may have withheld information for political reasons, endangering other pages and interns by their delay.

Coming on the heels of his defense of Congressional impunity in the case of Rep Jefferson, Speaker Hastert is going to face an unhill battle against a presumption of complicity.

The trap we must never fall into is that of defending the indefensible because of the intersection of these events with politics.

This event is like a poison gas attack; charging into the scene of attack too soon exposes one to the risk of being overcome by the fumes. There will be plenty of time for the postmortems once the air has cleared, I'm afraid.

Posted by civil truth at October 3, 2006 03:18 PM

Not reporting a sexual predator is enabling.

The entire story disgusts me--all aspects of it.

Posted by Always On Watch at October 3, 2006 06:59 PM

In breaches of ethics, the greatest responsibility lies with those closest to the offender. If ethical failure is not addressed head-on and promptly, the breach of confidence becomes general. That's just the way it is.

Posted by Jassalasca Jape at October 3, 2006 08:22 PM

Why did I know that you could never acknowledge a bad actor in the Republican parth, without justifying it by bringing up Clinton? You know what? Clinton lusted after a FEMALE!

Posted by James S Melbert at October 4, 2006 07:46 AM

James, you must be a homophobe.

All of the sudden homophobe's are coming out of the liberal closet. Democratic Strategeist Bob Beckel: Fact That Mark Foley Was Gay Should Have “Raised Questions� About More Innocuous Emails…Likens Gay Man Around Boys To Notorious Bank Robber Willie Sutton Hanging Around Banks

More about leftist homophobes at One Cosmos

Posted by DADvocate at October 4, 2006 08:00 AM

James, apparantly you have some serious reading and comprehension problems. What part of what I said:

Didn't they allow a dispicable behavior to continue in order to score political points?
While what Foley did was indeed dispicable, he isn't the only one here.

What does a being a sexual preditor have to do whether the object is male or female? Don't tell my that you are a homophobe? Or, are you STILL justifying Clinton's behavior? How absurd!

Posted by GM at October 4, 2006 11:44 AM

This whole mess just sickens me. We pay top dollar in salaries, retirement benefits, and medical coverage for these unconvicted felons and this is what we get. How about we pay minimum wage, Social Security only, and minimal medical coverage, 'cause that's about what they're worth. Since this is what we get by paying top dollar, we might as well be paying bottom dollar and save some money. There certainly doesn't seem to be much difference in quality.

Posted by Vulgorilla at October 4, 2006 04:15 PM

What happened to the post linking to the great expose by over at Passionate America? Thanks to the diligent investigative reporting by Wild Bill (blogger, talk show host, and not former President of the United States of America), we can all celebrate the identity of one of the, ah, young men involved ... and he wasn't underage, so it was okay! Wild Bill is also onto evidence that the mails ... were actually written by someone else! Why remove a link to such timely and critical material? What happened to The Party of Responsibility?

Bloggers that don't ride the wave (or maybe "tsunami" would be a better word here) will be left behind, you know.

Posted by Jassalasca Jape at October 4, 2006 04:40 PM

Two separate issues, and their conflation is what the Democrats hope to use politically. You will notice that they don't want people to think clearly, just be affected by the rhetoric.

Foley was wrong and should resign. He did. Enabling can only be revealed by complete information, not innuendo.

The Democrats are saying the precise opposite of what they have said when their own are caught. They cannot win this one on the merits, and so resort to purely partisan rhetoric.

History will eventually get it right.

Posted by Assistant Village Idiot at October 4, 2006 10:06 PM

Dear Assistant Village Idiot,

Since you appear to be more concerned about the party affilliation of your government than its quality, let me give you a little helping hand (no pun intended, believe me) with spinning this catastrophic national embarrassment in the most positive way possible.

Tell your friends to take comfort in the fact that Mark Foley was at least turned on by other people, which is more or less normal. The Tories under John Major weren't quite so lucky, and they're rebounding quite nicely. To follow their example, all you need to do is cede power to the other party, and wait for them to grow so full of themselves that they start a pointless, costly and unwinnable series of military adventures that soil the national reputation so badly that the general public decides to throw the rascals out.

Worth a try, anyway.

Posted by Jassalasca Jape at October 5, 2006 02:16 AM

What really blows my mind is that I, as well as many others, have been accused as if we had committed the deed ourselves. Accused mostly of trying to place blame elsewhere other than with Foley himself, while they continuously attempt to lay blame with Hastert. Not only that, I've seen numerous occasions where Studds, Frank, Clinton and Reynolds have been brought up and the only one that gets defended is Clinton. Oh maybe not outright defended, but a certain amount of outrage ensues if his name is brought up. So by the standards shown here and elsewhere, can I assume that Clinton's behavior should be overlooked? And why? GM was pretty clear in his description of predatory behavior and Clinton fits the mold as if it were made for him.

Allow me to begin this with a disclaimer so certain people will not misunderstand the purpose for my commentary here. Foley's behavior is despicable. He is a predator. Period. No one here is condoning his actions. No one. I've yet to see anyone condone his actions. Least of all, me.

But these emails and IMs are three years old. It has been said that he was warned to cut it out, although he denied any bad behavior at the time. One issue, and there are many issues here, is that as I understand it there has been no evidence that any such behavior continued after that time. By all appearances, it looks as if the warning was heeded and the behavior stopped. Perhaps more will come out, but at this point it hasn't.

This is juicy. Very juicy, and it is being seized upon by the left as a solely Republican leadership issue. It's no different than when the Democratic leadership glossed over past occurances. Our Congress, both houses, are throughly corrupt. I am disgusted at all of them. They're simply in a battle for who can make the other look worse. Foley is only the lastest in a string of bad behavior by various reps. And pointing out the blatant hypocrisy of it all is certainly a viable argument.

Let the investigation play itself out. I'll bet a week's pay that we'll find cover-ups and withholding from both sides. (As long as they don't put Fitzgerald in charge.)

Posted by Oyster at October 5, 2006 06:57 AM

Thisis mainly addressed to GW and DADvocate:
by Bernard Chapin

In America today, a powerful case can, and will, be made that heterosexuals all too readily defer to homosexuals regarding claims of oppression or that we suffer some kind of psychological malady due to our refusal to celebrate them to the full extent they desire. Most “straights� seem to silently accept the validity of bogus concepts like “homophobia� which maintains that many of us harbor hate for those who happen to be physically attracted to members of the same sex. I hold that the concept of homophobia is fallacious, and that, in fact, the opposite of homophobia, “heterophobia� is a more pressing concern.

Posted by James S Melbert at October 5, 2006 08:44 AM

Hey Guy, with your usual republican trait of obfuscation, you accusation of misunderstanding or of noncompresion is as bogus as you claim os evenhandedness(which is tacitly assumed)

The Republicans on the Hill seem to have trouble dealing with the sexual predation of Foley, just as the Democrats had in dealing with the sexual predation of Clinton.

This is the part I referred to in my accusation that you have to justify by copmparison.

Posted by James S Melbert at October 5, 2006 08:52 AM

Excuse hedouble post. Also the word was supposed to be noncomprehension
My typing, is as usual, noncomprehensible!

Posted by James S Melbert at October 5, 2006 08:56 AM

James,

I won't argue with you are your homophobe point because I agree with you. It's just interesting how some leftist are using this to their "advantage" in this situation when if Foley had had a (D) behind his name their rhetoric would have been very different.

Rep. Studds (D), exposed in 1983, had sex with a 17 year old male page. House Democrats gave him a standing ovation on the House floor. Some of those same Democrats are still in the Congress and Senate.

Gagdad Bob makes some excellent points concerning male homosexuals and pedophilia, including: This is apparently consistent with studies indicating that “While no more than 2% of male adults are homosexual... approximately 35% of pedophiles are homosexual. Further, since male-on-male pedophiles victimize far more children than do heterosexual pedophiles, it is estimated that approximately 80% of pedophilic victims are boys who have been molested by adult males.�

If someone had been preaching this loudly before the Foley incident, I wonder what the reaction would have been. My sister once got upset because my 9 year old daughter, referring to the way a boy was dressed, said the boy looked "gay."

This really stirs up the bucket concerning gay rights. But, the Democrats only REAL concern here is winning elections. Past history clearly shows that.

Posted by DADvocate at October 5, 2006 12:55 PM

DADvocate, the Democrats gave Studds three standing ovations.

Posted by Woody at October 5, 2006 01:10 PM

Two headlines today:

"Judge Dismisses Child Porn Charges Against John Mark Karr"

"Hastert: 'I'm deeply sorry'"

Which accused gets the most outrage from Democrats?

Posted by Woody at October 5, 2006 03:42 PM

Oyster,

I get the idea. What you are proposing is a strict principle of anarchy, and that hasn't worked out too good on the rare occasions that someone has tried to apply i t in practice. If people are only responsible in a strictly individual sense, it's tough to organize and operate a lemonade stand, let alone something on the scale of a national government.

Like the idealism of your thinking, though.

Posted by Jassalasca Jape at October 5, 2006 07:03 PM

Woody,

I wouldn't know which of these two characters attracts the most outrage from Democrats, but personally I am more concerned about Dennis Hastert that John Mark Karr. There are two reasons. First, I have known for some time that Dennis Hastert is Speaker of the United States House of Representatives; but I had to look up John Mark Karr on the Internet to discover that he is an English teacher recently extradicted from Thailand on suspicion of sex offences.

The second reason I am more concerned about Dennis Hastert is that he presides over the United States House of Representatives. If he makes poor decisions (such as giving important committee responsibilities to a colleague who wastes his time soliciting masturbatory email messages), that affects the quality of government for an entire nation. John Mark Karr, on the other hand, is an English teacher, and time he loses from class preparation in favour of whatever masturbatory ritual trips his trigger means that a handful of students don't learn to spell so good.

So on balance, I would say that Hastert is worth getting at least mildly upset about, while Karr is probably worth not noticing in the first place. But maybe the world looks different if you watch enough TV.

Posted by Jassalasca Jape at October 6, 2006 03:01 AM

DADvocate,

Mark Foley could take a page (no pun intended) from Gerry Studds' book, of course, by facing the cameras together with the object of his affection and telling the world, in one voice, that what happened between them was a private matter. Studds did a news conference along those lines, and it worked because the pair at the podium came across as a couple dedicated to one another on equal terms.

The problem for Mark Foley is that the tableau would look more like a photo opportunity for the male heirs of the Brady Bunch.

So my short answer would be that I don't think your line of argument is going to work very well for The Party of Responsibility. But maybe it's worth a try anyway. As Donald Rumsfeld said, "People have freedom, they make mistakes".

Posted by Jassalasca Jape at October 6, 2006 03:23 AM

Woody,

DADvocate, the Democrats gave Studds three standing ovations.

How are we to know that Foley couldn't have beaten that, if the leadership had let him give a speech in his defense before resigning. What an exceptional opportunity for great oratory! Politicians these days have no sense of adventure, no love of risk-taking. There was William Bennett, of course, but that was a different subject. It seems that the nation is only willing to undertake wars it is guaranteed to win, and then cannot find the courage to lose them gracefully. Why deny this man a chance to purge himself through a public barracking? What has become of the Rough Riders of old?

Posted by Jassalasca Jape at October 6, 2006 03:44 AM

it worked because the pair at the podium came across as a couple dedicated to one another on equal terms.

And because Democrats love anyone, perverts, included, of their own political persuasion. Studds didn't have to deal with the trails left by IM's and emails either.

The Dems only concern in this "scandal" is how many votes they can gain. I'm certain there are Dems just as guilty as Foley. I know a woman who clerked for Clinton and Gore one summer. Afterwards she had to be treated for severe depression. Since this was before Monica I didn't make a connection but now I wonder.

Posted by DADvocate at October 6, 2006 02:18 PM

This is so far after the story that it will probably not be germain. But you said "While what Foley did was indeed dispicable, he isn't the only one here. ....." The statement should have had a period after the word "dispicable".
Also, "The Republicans on the Hill seem to have trouble dealing with the sexual predation of Foley, just as the Democrats had in dealing with the sexual predation of Clinton." A period after the word "Foley", would have made the point without the justification by comparison. Clintons affair was handled as a stand alone case in general, why can't Republican peccadillos be handled the same way?

Posted by James S Melbert at October 7, 2006 08:52 AM