Well, to be fair, we have no evidence that Foley fucked children, just that he wanted to. And that the children in question were “technically” minors but legal to fuck in several states. Soliciting sex from minors and having a friend who is selling adult sex to other adults from your house are two different things (note that Frank did kick him out when he found out).
For Stubbs, we are dragging up events that happened in 1973 and a censure that happend in 1983 - ten years after the event when the young man in question had no complaints or regrets. Some of “Foley’s Friends” seem far more ooked out than Stubb’s friend - the come ons weren’t welcome, which makes them sexual harrassment - on top of the whole minor thing, and the gay sex (not that its bad, but the “base” finds it icky) thing. The early 70’s were a very different time. I think we’ve changed significantly as a society in the past nearly 35 years.
It’s a shame anyone has to hide what they are. Things like this wouldn’t happen. Although a republican probably wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting support from his party in the first place.
Funny link I found at Fark showing Foley’s comments about Clinton.
"Some of the strongest reaction Friday was in response to Starr’s account of Lewinsky performing oral sex on Clinton as he chatted with members of Congress on the telephone.
That was “just sad,” Foley said. “It’s unbelievable that he could behave so carelessly in that setting.”
As mentioned, what they are counting on is precisely that their position of high public trust and authority will enable them to prevent any ill consequences (e.g. in this case, keep it under wraps for almost a year). Historically it has been the case that enough of them have been able to get away with bad behavior that there’s no disincentive.
ralph124: as noted, Studds and Frank were investigated and disciplined (Stubbs: Censure; Frank: Public Reprimand) even if you think it not enough, *and then they went before the voters and *the voters ** validated their permanence in office. Foley’s case was (a) not being acted upon and (b) involved and involves avoiding having to face the judgement of the voters. If your point is that *any ** type of scandalous behavior should merit immediate removal in every case, I actually disagree – IMO when a congressperson is linked to this sort of improper personal activities not involving his actual legislative work, or breaches of national security, and there is no actual conviction of the congressperson him/herself * for a felony in office, the politician should be exposed by the media, censured by the colleagues, and made to choose if he/she dares or not to go before the voters for their judgement. (That’s right, Congressman JRDelirious would NOT have voted to expel Foley, as things stand now, but to censure or reprimand him.)
Foley was trying to get away with sweeping it under the rug altogether, and his terse, “lightning” resignation is itself an attempt to make it blow away as quickly as possible (a very smart move, I must say: when you just got nailed to rights and you know it, you help nothing by trying to keep fighting…).
Man, I forgot all about Gerry Studds, Dan Crane, Donald Lukens, all such wonderful folks. The first’s transgressions may go a long way to explaining why the Dems haven’t seized on this quite as vigorously as one would naively expect. As DtC pointed out, the inevitable tu coque seems to hit proportionally hard, and teh gay is a big multiplier. Hey, up to now, Republicans prefered to diddle little girls, right? That’s not so bad. I feel like an idiot for being surprised at the Barney Frank comparisons. I mean, he’s gay, after all. He even admits it! Obviously relevant. Somehow.
Not that it matters much, but it’s true that Frank (as he admitted) paid Gobie for sex when they first met, and later the two hooked up. So, there’s a misdemeanor, I suppose, though Frank was never charged. Frank kept him around as a kind of gofer (with, er, benefits), and Gobie was living the good life in Frank’s nice D.C .flat. Frank did appause his position to get some parking violations dismissed for Gobie, but beyond that, I’m not aware that he did anything else unethical, and even this transgression seems pretty minor league when you think of the banking scandals that were raging at the time. That does appear to be the extent of his career impropriety, for which he was punished accordingly, it seems, though I guess Gobie and Frank differ on some of the juicer details. When Frank learned Gobie was bringing johns to his apt., he dismissed him. Some time later, Gobie needed money so he tried to sell his story to the press, if memory serves, and hence the details became public. Sad story, but Frank was able to move on pretty well, and he’s really been an exemplary Representative, so far as I can tell. I give my fellow Massholes a lot of credit for being able to vote an admitted “gay, left-handed Jew” into office repeatedly. He’s an extremely intelligent man, looks after his constituents well, and that’s enough.
In the current thread on the GD, I posted Newt Gangrene’s response on FoxGnaws, to effect that an overly aggressive investigation would be seen as “gay-bashing”. Presumably, somewhere in that twisted mind, gay = pedophilia. I doubt he even noticed it, it is so ingrained, he probably believes he is not prejudiced against gay people.
Probably blow the Grinch’s mind to find out that one of the bloggers working hardest to unravel this coverup is John Aravosis of AmericaBlog, who’s openly gay.
That page was 27 when this (10-year-old) scandal hit the press. The page stated at a joint Press Conference with Rep. Studds that they were both consenting adults, and it was nobody else’s business what they did. And he later campaigned for Rep. Studds reelection.
The voters of Studds district apparently did hold him in high esteem; they re-elected him 5 more times.
You can’t blame him. Nobody ever calls the pundits on FoxNews when they do this kind of thing. Works very well for them. And continues to. Look for tu coques and Big Lies all over the place next week.
Anybody notice this blew up on a Friday, the trad time for Pubbies to vent bad news?
If this scandal proves to have enough legs to damage the House leadership, look for some exciting votes/overseas initiatives to spring up in the next couple of weeks.
Here’s a spin: I happened to click into a radio station carrying Drudge’s Sunday night show tonight. Didn’t catch much of it but the gist I heard was that Foley’s actions weren’t so bad, after all, the pages weren’t little children, or even 12 or 13 or 14; they’re almost adults. Okay, that’s an argument that could be made, though it doesn’t address the power imbalance of such a relationship, among other issues.
But then Drudge segued into allegations that this scandal is going to be used to REGULATE THE INTERNET THAT’S RIGHT FOLKS YOU’RE GOING TO LOSE THE FREEDOM OF THE INTERNET OH THE HORROR! I tuned out before discovering just who would be seizing upon this sorry episode to impose such jackbooted censorship.
Anyone else tune in and catch enough of the story to explain and/or expand up this?
Oh, and speaking of power imbalance, here’s a quote from an ABC News online story about a former page who was warned five years ago to watch out for Foley:
