Author Topic: GOP Imploding As More and More Details Emerge  (Read 18476 times)

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Lanya

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Re: GOP Imploding As More and More Details Emerge
« Reply #15 on: October 01, 2006, 07:16:02 PM »
ABC News
GOP Staff Warned Pages About Foley in 2001
By MADDY SAUER and ANNA SCHECTER

Oct. 1, 2006 — - A Republican staff member warned Congressional pages five years ago to "watch out" for Congressman Mark Foley, according to a former page.

Matthew Loraditch, a page in the 2001-2002 class, told ABC News he and other pages were warned about Foley by a supervisor.

Loraditch, the president of the Page Alumni Association, said the pages were told "don't get too wrapped up in him being too nice to you and all that kind of stuff."

Staff members at the House clerk's office did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Some of the sexually explicit instant messages that led to Foley's abrupt resignation Friday were sent to pages in Loraditch's class.

Pages report to either Republican or Democratic supervisors, depending on the political party of the member of Congress who nominated them for the page program.

Several pages for members of Congress tell ABC News they received no such warnings about Foley, R-Fla.

Loraditch says the some of pages who "interacted" with Foley were hesitant to report his behavior because "members of Congress, they've got the power." Many of the pages were hoping for careers in politics and feared Foley might seek retribution.

Loraditch runs the alumni association for the US House Page Program and he is deeply concerned about the future effects this scandal could have on a program that he sees as a valuable educational experience for teens.

Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/print?id=2514259
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BT

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Re: GOP Imploding As More and More Details Emerge
« Reply #16 on: October 01, 2006, 07:29:20 PM »
And yet the only coverup we see so far is at the hands of CREW, who conveniently decided to release the smoking gun IM's 45 days before the election.

Meanwhile house pages were advised to be cautious with Foley in 2001, by GOP leadership.

Foley was told to can the emails by GOP leadership.

And Foley was asked to resign by GOP Leadership when the IM's came out.

I still don't see a coverup on the GOP's part.

Can't say the same for CREW, with their smoking gun information that they just held onto until an opportune time.

Certainly they were not highly motivated to protect the children.


Lanya

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Re: GOP Imploding As More and More Details Emerge
« Reply #17 on: October 01, 2006, 07:30:53 PM »
September 30, 2006
A Note From the Editors

There still seems to be some confusion about the order of events related to our coverage of Rep. Mark Foley and his email exchanges with teenagers he met through the congressional page program. Let me try to clear this up.

In November of last year, we were given copies of an email exchange Foley had with a former page from Louisiana. Other news organizations later got them,too. The conversation in those emails was friendly chit-chat. Foley asked the boy about how he had come through Hurricane Katrina and about the boy's upcoming birthday. In one of those emails, Foley casually asked the teen to send him a "pic" of himself. Also among those emails was the page's exchange with a congressional staffer in the office of Rep. Alexander, who had been the teen's sponsor in the page program. The teen shared his exchange he'd had with Foley and asked the staffer if she thought Foley was out of bounds.

There was nothing overtly sexual in the emails, but we assigned two reporters to find out more. We found the Louisiana page and talked with him. He told us Foley's request for a photo made him uncomfortable so he never responded, but both he and his parents made clear we could not use his name if we wrote a story. We also found another page who was willing to go on the record, but his experience with Foley was different. He said Foley did send a few emails but never said anything in them that he found inappropriate. We tried to find other pages but had no luck. We spoke with Rep. Alexander, who said the boy's family didn't want it pursued, and Foley, who insisted he was merely trying to be friendly and never wanted to make the page uncomfortable.

So, what we had was a set of emails between Foley and a teenager, who wouldn't go on the record about how those emails made him feel. As we said in today's paper, our policy is that we don't make accusations against people using unnamed sources. And given the seriousness of what would be implied in a story, it was critical that we have complete confidence in our sourcing. After much discussion among top editors at the paper, we concluded that the information we had on Foley last November didn't meet our standard for publication. Evidently, other news organizations felt the same way.

Since that time, we revisited the question more than once, but never learned anything that changed our position. The Louisiana boy's emails broke into the open last weekend, when a blogger got copies and posted them online. Later that week, on Thursday, a news blog at the website of ABC News followed suit, with the addition of one new fact: Foley's Democratic opponent, Tim Mahoney, was on the record about the Louisiana boy's emails and was calling for an investigation. That's when we wrote our first story, for Friday's papers.

After ABC News broke the story on its website, someone contacted ABC and provided a detailed email exchange between Foley and at least one other page that was far different from what we had seen before. This was overtly sexual, not something Foley could dismiss as misinterpreted friendliness. That's what drove Foley to resign on Friday.

I hope this helps clarify a bit about what we knew and when we knew it.

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Michael Tee

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Re: GOP Imploding As More and More Details Emerge
« Reply #18 on: October 01, 2006, 07:34:41 PM »
The GOP damage-control tactics are interesting.  From this group, you can get a good idea what they are going to be:
1.  That Democrats were also caught in long-ago sex scandals (as if the issue were the human frailty of individual politicians instead of cover-up at the upper levels of GOP power)

2.  That CREW (a non-governmental organization, or NGO) somehow was the real party covering up (as if CREW and not Hastert and his office had the responsibility to maintain ethical standards in the House)

Both nice efforts at distraction, and IMHO bound to fail.  Voters just aren't that stupid or easily distracted.  Or maybe they are.  It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.  To me, it's just one more example of moral rot in the Party of Family Values.  Why does this cut more against the Republicans than the Democrats?  Because it is the Republicans who are constantly appealing to "Christian values" and soliciting the votes of Christian fundamentalists on "moral grounds" and so if they are shown to be corrupt and venal, and they respond by tarring the Democrats  with the same brush, they still lose - - the Democrats never made such a big deal of their morals.  The Republicans went all ballistic over a Presidential BJ, remember?

BT

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Re: GOP Imploding As More and More Details Emerge
« Reply #19 on: October 01, 2006, 07:41:31 PM »
CREW stands for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington .

Of course they should have come forward. To do otherwise goes counter to their purpose.





BT

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Re: GOP Imploding As More and More Details Emerge
« Reply #20 on: October 01, 2006, 07:44:03 PM »
Lanya you are covering old ground. The issue is not the emails it is the IM's and the over-reaching accusation that GOP leadership was involved in a coverup.

Far as i can see the only coverup was done by CREW.


BT

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Re: GOP Imploding As More and More Details Emerge
« Reply #21 on: October 01, 2006, 07:49:56 PM »
Quote
Why does this cut more against the Republicans than the Democrats?

You seem to think that attending church implies moral perfection.

Which is ludicrous on the face of it. The idea is to seek moral perfection, not have it before you start attending.

Else why have the Sacrament of Confession as they do in the Catholic Church. or Pastoral guidance in many others?
« Last Edit: October 01, 2006, 07:54:51 PM by BT »

Michael Tee

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Re: GOP Imploding As More and More Details Emerge
« Reply #22 on: October 01, 2006, 07:58:23 PM »
<<CREW stands for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington .

<<Of course they should have come forward. To do otherwise goes counter to their purpose. >>

Yes of course they should.  Maybe their membership will vote out their executive too.  But do you really think that the voters, once apprised of CREW's shocking dereliction of duty, will be so exercized about it that they will give Hastert and the Republican leadership in the House a pass?

CREW, the last time I checked, had not asked the public for its trust as a public legislator.  Did not ask to be elected to any law-making body.  Hastert did.

To  put it another way, are you as shocked by CREW's failure to come forward as you are by Hastert's?

R.R.

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Re: GOP Imploding As More and More Details Emerge
« Reply #23 on: October 01, 2006, 08:03:28 PM »
"It'll be interesting to see how this plays out."

Republicans will probably hold the seat. Bush got 55% of the vote there in '04. Joe Negron, who has $1 million on hand from his run for AG, could win the seat.

R.R.

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Re: GOP Imploding As More and More Details Emerge
« Reply #24 on: October 01, 2006, 08:05:34 PM »
"Hastert and the Republican leadership in the House a pass"

Hastert didn't know about the x-rated IM's. Once he found out, Foley resigned and the matter was forwarded to the Justice Department for prosecution.

As you probably know, Bill Clinton stayed in office and refused to resign.

BT

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Re: GOP Imploding As More and More Details Emerge
« Reply #25 on: October 01, 2006, 08:08:51 PM »
Quote
Mikey begs the question:To  put it another way, are you as shocked by CREW's failure to come forward as you are by Hastert's?

There is no evidense that the GOP Leadership was aware of the IM's . Perhaps because CREW held that information close to its vest, for whatever purposes.

They were aware of the emails and handled it. So where exactly was Hastert derelict in his duties?

BT

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Re: GOP Imploding As More and More Details Emerge
« Reply #26 on: October 01, 2006, 08:16:26 PM »
How The Foley Story Broke - I Find This Puzzling
Apparently the Mark Foley story first broke on this new blog, StopSexPredartors.blogspot.com, which started in July and brought down the Congressional leadership with its sixth, seventh and eighth posts.

Color me skeptical.  Maybe the blog author was an unwitting catspaw, but I would want some assurance that this was not simply a successful attempt to promote a story that wasn't quite ready for the Mainstream Media by laundering it through some blogs (and wasn't that Matt Drudge's ecological niche, back in the day?).  And part of my suspicion arises because the blog posted emails about gay Congressmen in repsonse to a post about "skinterns", scantily clad young women.  Where were the emails about Dirty Old Men and Sweet Young Things of the female persuasion?

The River City Mud Bugle has even more backstory:

Two hours later [following the first posting of the former page's emails], someone writing under the name “WHInternNow” published a diary on Daily Kos linking to Stop Sex Predators. The diary was met with skepticism from Daily Kos users, and received only a few largely critical comments. “This diary makes an accusation,” one commenter wrote, “a serious accusation, but provides no evidence to back it up.”

In a previous Daily Kos diary about Foley, “WHInternNow” made an early attempt to draw attention to Foley’s peccadilloes.

The Real Problem With Foley (0 / 0)

It’s not that he’s gay. It’s that he constantly hits on underage interns on The Hill. You guys talk about an “open secret” well Foley’s eye for the young boys in the White House and around the Capitol is what has the Republican bosses scared to death. It’s just wrong that this guy can hit on young boys and still be in the leadership.

by WHInternNow on Tue Sep 05, 2006 at 07:48:09 PM CDT

The story was evidently not quite good enough for the D Kos, but ABC found enough to run with it.

This Editor's Note from the St. Petersburg Times explaining their handling of the story raises more questions:

In November of last year, we were given copies of an email exchange Foley had with a former page from Louisiana. Other news organizations later got them, too. The conversation in those emails was friendly chit-chat.

Foley asked the boy about how he had come through Hurricane Katrina and about the boy's upcoming birthday. In one of those emails, Foley casually asked the teen to send him a "pic" of himself. Also among those emails was the page's exchange with a congressional staffer in the office of Rep. Alexander, who had been the teen's sponsor in the page program.

The teen shared his exchange he'd had with Foley and asked the staffer if she thought Foley was out of bounds.

There was nothing overtly sexual in the emails, but we assigned two reporters to find out more. We found the Louisiana page and talked with him.  He told us Foley's request for a photo made him uncomfortable so he never responded, but both he and his parents made clear we could not use his name if we wrote a story.

We also found another page who was willing to go on the record, but his experience with Foley was different. He said Foley did send a few emails but never said anything in them that he found inappropriate. We tried to find other pages but had no luck. We spoke with Rep. Alexander, who said the boy's family didn't want it pursued, and Foley, who insisted he was merely trying to be friendly and never wanted to make the page uncomfortable.

So, what we had was a set of emails between Foley and a teenager, who wouldn't go on the record about how those emails made him feel. As we said in today's paper, our policy is that we don't make accusations against people using unnamed sources. And given the seriousness of what would be implied in a story, it was critical that we have complete confidence in our sourcing. After much discussion among top editors at the paper, we concluded that the information we had on Foley last November didn't meet our standard for publication. Evidently, other news organizations felt the same way.

Since that time, we revisited the question more than once, but never learned anything that changed our position. The Louisiana boy's emails broke into the open last weekend, when a blogger got copies and posted them online.

Later that week, on Thursday, a news blog at the website of ABC News followed suit, with the addition of one new fact: Foley's Democratic opponent, Tim Mahoney, was on the record about the Louisiana boy's emails and was calling for an investigation. That's when we wrote our first story, for Friday's papers.

After ABC News broke the story on its website, someone contacted ABC and provided a detailed email exchange between Foley and at least one other page that was far different from what we had seen before. This was overtly sexual, not something Foley could dismiss as misinterpreted friendliness.

That's what drove Foley to resign on Friday.

Fine, but - why was Foley's opponent so sure that he had a solid accusation?  Or was it a lucky shot in the dark?

And how did ABC round up the follow-up emails and IMs so quickly?

And was it the page in Louisiana who sent his Foley emails to an unknown web-site after declining to push this story with the St. Petersburg Times?  Maybe - the St. Petersburg Times would not let him make an anonymous accusation.  OTOH, if the former page was so determined to get Foley, why didn't he try another news organization - ABC, for example, didn't seem to have a problem with anonymously sourcing this.

And if it was *not* the page from Louisiana who sent the emails to StopSexPredators, who did?

Baffling.

KEEPING HOPE ALIVE:  I welcome some help in sorting out the dates of the second wave of lurid emails and IMs.  For example, one of them - "strip down and get relaxed" - was from 2003.  If none of them are from 2006, then one might hope that the leadership intervention was effective.

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Michael Tee

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Re: GOP Imploding As More and More Details Emerge
« Reply #27 on: October 01, 2006, 08:20:40 PM »
<<So where exactly was Hastert derelict in his duties?>>

Inappropriate messages were sent to a 16-YEAR-OLD.  Hastert knew.  This alone is enough to open the investigation.  Inappropriate?  How inappropriate?  What messages?  e-mails?  IM's?  Ever send any IM's to the kid, Mr. Foley?  Ever get any IM's, kid?

This isn't rocket science.  If Hastert gave a shit about the protection of kids in very vulnerable situations (politically ambitious, eager to get ahead, young, inexperienced, reluctant to tangle with powerful individuals, scandal-averse) then he would investigate energetically.  Who knows how many kids this fucking Republican pervert could have preyed upon?  If he doesn't give a shit about the kids, but wants to cover up any unseemly occurrences, he'll do what he did - - nothing, and hope it'll stay  quiet at least till after the elections.  Well, shit, how could I know how inappropriate it really was?

OBVIOUSLY he knew nothing about the IMs.  That's cuz he didn't do his job.  He didn't know because he didn't want to know, didn't want to get to the bottom of the problem when it surfaced.  He had larger concerns.

R.R.

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Re: GOP Imploding As More and More Details Emerge
« Reply #28 on: October 01, 2006, 08:30:44 PM »
"Inappropriate messages were sent to a 16-YEAR-OLD.  Hastert knew.  This alone is enough to open the investigation.  Inappropriate?  How inappropriate?  What messages?  e-mails?  IM's?  Ever send any IM's to the kid, Mr. Foley?  Ever get any IM's, kid?"

There was an investigation, and Foley lied his ass off. The kid's parents also didn't want to punish Foley, as I understand it.

The point is, Hastert only knew about the 5 emails, not the x-rated IM's. Once he found out he told Foley to leave congress.

sirs

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Re: GOP Imploding As More and More Details Emerge
« Reply #29 on: October 01, 2006, 08:35:16 PM »
I don't think Lanya cares about the facts RR.  Bush is evil, and by connection so is the GOP.  They can do no right, unless they resign or impeach Bush     :(
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