the emails. What you see here is that the family contacted their Congressman, not that Hastert, on receiving the emails, contacted the three pages named in the emails. We’re not discussing what the family did; we’re discussing what Hastert did when he found out about the emails.
That word is important, because Congress hires someone to supervise the pages; obviously, Congresspeople don’t do it themselves. The person who supervises the pages is going to be far more familiar with their daily activities than a full-time politician will be; and if it comes to a politician’s interest that the program may have problems, they ought to talk to the person who spends their days dealing with the pages. That person isn’t the chairman of the Page program; it’s the page’s direct supervisor.
Who wasn’t notified. At least, as near as I recall, from early stories; I am having trouble finding this out now. Can anyone link to those early stories, in which the page’s supervisor said she (I think it was a woman) never heard about these emails?
Oy, that post was bad. First, the emails link is to the IMs; sorry! I’m having trouble finding a working link to the emails, but they were linked from one of the other threads.
I’m still unclear whether their supervisor was told, or asked. It appears to me that the investigation consisted entirely of speaking to a couple of other Republican representatives, not of speaking to the other pages named in the emails, or carrying on a conversation with the page directly involved in the emails, or asking the folks who worked with the pages daily about the allegations therein (in a very general sense, e.g., “Have you ever felt that a representative was engaging in inappropriate communication with you? Please give specifics.”). The investigation seemed to consist entirely of getting Foley’s side of things.
But you dragged up a Republican scandal from twenty years ago in an attempt to spread the slime around. If it’s stupid to do that, I’d encourage you not to do that.
Actually, it was illegal. Homosexual sodomy was a crime in Massachusetts in 1983. That law was struck down in the case of GLAD v. Attorney General in 2002.
In fact, both parties claim to represent pretty much the same values. They just differ on the best ways to achieve those values.
According to Republicans, it’s the Democrats who want to enforce their beliefs on who can marry, reproduce, and several other issues on the majority of the country.
I’m not trying to make you look bad. I’m just trying to point out that your points may not be as good as you think they are.
Oh, well, maybe that can wait until you tell us how you came to “know” the page-supervisor statement you presented as fact. Or admit you just repeated some talking point from your party’s “leadership” without any of the regard for the factuality that you claim to revere. What is it? What rep do you want for yourself here?
The repub were willing to sacrifice a few teenage pages to keep it quiet. They were willing to lie to cover it. How does anything dems did justify that? Are they respoonsible for what they do or not?
I’ll go ahead and cite the post that I quoted above. And this thread nicely illustrates it, too, since you insisted that Foley is a pedophile, despite the fact that the entire point of the OP was that Foley didn’t have sex with children, and thus, by definition, that term doesn’t apply. Your entire point was that accuracy was beside the point, and you certainly weren’t going to be bothered with it.
I’ve addressed that above. I’ve also admitted that what I said was partially inaccurate. I wonder if you’ve ever done that in your entire posting history.
I’d rather not turn this into a Pit thread, but it’s worth mentioning that you don’t get to decide what kind of “rep” I have around here. I’ll let my posts speak for themselves, and yours can speak for you.
Without comment. But of course, AQA would have us believe that Republicans have been nothing but forthcoming every day before it came out that they were being less than forthcoming.
You didn’t even read my explanation of the change in the meaning of the word, did you? Or, if you did, you simply don’t give a damn.
Another entirely iincorrect statement on your part. But you don’t give a damn about that any more than you give a damn about the factuality of blaming this latest Republican scandal on the Democrats, do you?
I’m one of the many who do. How do you think you’re doing with it, btw? Does anyone seem to be fooled? Anyone at all?
Rovian projection, loudly accusing others of your own failings, doesn’t work here, as you would know by now if you’d been keeping up.
Moderator’s Note: If the thread doesn’t stay with discussing the issues at hand rather than turning into a personal snipe-fest about the reputations and personal qualities of the posters involved, it won’t be moved to the Pit, it will be closed.
What about Thomas Jefferson.Wait that was long ago and irrelevant to todays scandal too.What about Kennedy? What has nothing to do with Foley. Ok lets get back to Foley.
Apparently the term pedophile may apply to Foley. One doesn’t have to engage in actual physical acts to be a pedophile. If a “child” was the object of his sexual desire, then he was a pedophile.
Irrelevant,he was at best a sexual harasser. At worst he made be a sexual predator. I do not think semantics of what he did and how it should be defined are important. What he did was wrong.
Whether it happened in the past is also not part of this case. It was known by many that he was doing something ugly. Yhey coverered to stay in power. Sacrificing the well being of kids (young men) for political gain is disghusting and indefensible.
Keep in mind that in Studds’ case, he wasn’t fucking someone underage: the age of consent at the time in DC was (is?) 16 years old. The kid was 17, and, AFAIK, said he willingly consented. Dunno about the law with Foley, he’s from Florida and the kid is likely to be as well. Also dunno how age of consent laws are involved in across state lines telecommunications, which seems likely in Foley’s case (Foley’s in DC, kid’s in Florida?).
Hastert lied to the American people. He happened to get caught lying about Foley. Other than that, Foley doesn’t matter. In fact, he (subsequent to being caught acting in a manner that many would choose not to have their elected representatives act) did the right thing. He resigned.
Hastert acted in a manner that shows anyone who doesn’t share his world view that partisan power is the only thing that matters. Teenagers under the protection of the Congress of the United states don’t matter. Honesty to the Poeple of the United States doesn’t matter. Honesty to your subordinates doesn’t matter. Keeping your personal political power is the only thing that matters. No honor, no decency, no other set of values than party loyalty.
And everyone in the Republican Party knows that about him, that’s why he is the he got chosen for his office.
You’re missing the point. Please visit the thread to which I linked. You’ll see that the term “pedophilia” does not apply to sex with teenagers. It only applies to sex with young children. So that term apparently isn’t applicable to either Baumann of Studds.
