Lightray, believe me, I am as digusted by Foley as anyone, but let’s get a grip. I’m not bringing up any other scandal to try to lessen what Foley did, but to say they are unrelated is ridiculous. Actual physical sex with an underage male page is worse than explicit IMs, isn’t it? Why is the reaction to Foley’s misdeeds greater than the reaction to Studds’?
LHOD, so the power issue is meaningless because you say it is? Obviously there was more to the training than that.
Hey, this is right out of the manual
"Individuals entering into a consensual relationship in which a power differential exists must recognize that:
a. the reasons for entering such a relationship may be a function of the power differential;
b. where power differentials exist, even in a seemingly consensual relationship, there are limited after-the-fact defenses against charges of sexual harassment; and
c. the individual with the power in the relationship may bear the burden of responsibility. "
The “power differential” between a teenage page and a Representative is rather enormous, in my opinion.
Yes, your non-partisan opinion is plain. Please do not confuse me for a Republican standard-bearer. GWB is against nearly everything I believe in. Hastert obviously did not do enough earlier when allegations first surfaced about Foley. But you must admit that meaninglessly voting to censure someone and then supporting them for re-election is hardly as strict as demanding an immediate resignation.
But from here on let’s forget about Studds totally, it’s distracting from the Foley business. I’m sorry I brought it up.
One of the big differences is the level of fundamental hypocrisy involved. Conservative Republicans are so adamant about the need to define the family as husband, wife, and their two children who are such completely non-sexual beings that sex education should be abstinence-only. If you want to talk that talk, you need to walk that walk. When it becomes obvious that they don’t play by the rules they try to enforce on the world, it is very ugly. Much uglier than when Democrats, who often communicate tolerance and understanding for things like homosexuality and single motherhood, stray. The Dems don’t set themselves up for quite the fall from the high horse.
I’m going to add one thing on this, because I’ve realized that the two things are related.
The fact that it occurred before means that the expectation of vigilience is greater now.
Hasturt knows full well that congressmen diddling pages has been a problem in the past. When Foley’s shennanigans came to his attention, he knew damn well that was a problem that needed addressing – Congress had been through something like this, before. That’s why the congressional page system was rehauled, so that it wouldn’t happen again. Hasturt was supposed to be one of those rehauls; he failed this time around.
And I’m not going to try to evaluate whether consensual sex with a page who was not (IIRC) underage in the Studds case, is “better” or “worse” than unwanted harassement via IMs. That’s something that voters are just going to have to decide on their own, person by person.
The fact is that Foley probably woundn’t have committed a crime had he had consensual sex with the 16-year old boys. By sending those IMs, though, he violated a law that he himself had passed.
And THAT is bullshit, as your quote–about “a consensual relationship in which a power differential exists”–demonstrates. If such relationships can’t be consensual, then discussing the consensual variety of them is meaningless.
Now, what I did NOT say was that “the power issue is meaningless.” I think it’s very significant and worth talking about. I just deny the ludicrous claim that there’s no such thing as consensual sex in situations with power differentials.
(Technically, of course, you’re right: if one person holds ALL the power, i.e., the other person lacks the power to move away, to speak, etc.–then the sex can’t be consensual. But in that case, we’re discussing necrophilia, not fucking an employee).
First of all, I have to admit that I am enjoying watching the Republicans self-destruct over this issue.
However, to be fair, I don’t know what the Republican leadership could have or should have done because (as far as it has come out to this point) it was the somewhat creepy e-mails that came to their attention months ago, not the really icky IMs. The most they could have reasonably done then is told their fellow elected official to stay away from the pages, but there wasn’t then any real evidence that Foley had gotten sexual (rather than over-friendly) with the pages.
Still, the Republicans are running on a platform of Christian morality, leading many of them to freak out how they were shocked, shocked to have this “immoral” freak in their midst (despite the fact that it wasn’t the worlds best kept secret that Foley was gay and unusually interested in the page program). Since they can’t find any Democrats to point the finger at, they have to point the finger at somebody, and that somebody has turned out to be Dennis Hastert, one of their own, who to this point was sitting there fat, dumb and happy. He screwed up by denying knowing anything about it when first questioned, and then having people come out of the woodwork passing the buck by saying they talked to Uncle Denny, who they expected to make the bad man go away.
The reason that this is such a big story is that the Republicans have spent years making people frightened of gays and child predators. So, when it turns out that a Republican Congressman is gay and (potentially) a child predator, people become frightened. If this weren’t the case, this story would probably have been over shortly after Foley resigned. But throw in the fact that Hastert & Co. had even a whiff that they had an, oh my God, faggot kiddy-diddler in their midst and didn’t immediatly call out the Inquisition to burn anyone vaguely witch-like, and the story has legs like you wouldn’t believe.
In post 18, I describe three things about the creepy emails that should have alerted them to a problem, and three responses that would have been appropriate to this problem. Do you disagree?
As far as I know, Democratic SOTH Tip O’Neil never caught any flack for Rep. gerry Studds (D-MA) affair with a House page. Yeah, Hastert probably should have taken stronger action. But Washington is Washington.
This has been answered in other threads, Studds had a sexual relationship with a 17 year old, the age of consent in DC is 16.
Foley had sexual conversations via the internet with a person under 18, which is in violation of a federal law that he wrote.
That is the main difference between them, the other reason that the Studds issue isn’t getting a huge reaction is that it happened over 30 years ago and was settled by congress over 20 years ago. Studds is a non-issue.
That’s some scary shit. If you want to reopen the Studds case, that’s one thing, and I’ll totally believe you if you suggest that your outrage has nothign to do with an attempt to deflect attention from a current scandal. But suggesting that we ought to tolerate Congressmen harassing teenagers sexually, because someone 2-3 decades ago didn’t get in as much trouble for doing so as you think they should have–what the fuck? Washington is Washington? Is this like the “boys will be boys” Tailhook defense?
So, it just hasn’t registered with you that the oversight requirements have changed since the Studds incident, and because of the Studds incident, and that therefore Hastert has a higher requirement than O’Neil ever did in this regard?
It also hasn’t registered with you that Studds was censured for something utterly different than what Foley stands accused of?
Do you even know what Foley is being accused of? You seem to think it’s the same thing that Studds was censured for.
When Chairman of the House Page Board John Shimkus got wind of the emails, he should have shared them with the other Page Board members, thus following proper procedure and making this a non-partisan Congressional issue. Unfortunately, it appears that Shimkus kept the issue under his hat since the board included a Democrat, and he placed greater importance on preserving the power of the Republican Party rather than risk sharing some bad news with a spit Democrat – a position augmented by the fact that Shimkus did report the emails to National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Tom Reynolds, so they could assess the risk to the GOP’s election prospects. :rolleyes:
When Mark Foley was considering not seeking a seventh Congressional term, due to inquiries over his sexual orientation, Tom Reynolds (said NRCC chairman) talked him into seeking re-election anyway – even after knowing Foley was soliciting underaged pages.
The whole reason the Foley scandal is blowing up as big as it has is simply because Congressional Republicans were so blinded by their partisan power-lust that they refused to do anything that might jepoardize that power, such as referring the issue to a non-partisan board or repalcing incumbent Foley with a non-incumbent candidate – and, as a result, this whole matter is now a “Republican pedophile cover-up” scandal.
With this Administration, that means he’s being groomed for a promotion. Secretary of Defense Hastert, maybe?
Bzzzt – guess again. The Repugs can and are pointing the finger at the Democrats. . . [
](CNN.com - GOP prods Democrats over Foley scandal - Oct 8, 2006) Yeah, right. They waited until 6 years into this clusterfuck of an administration to play this particular card (Foley’s been pulling this crap for over a decade!). Yeah, that makes total sense. Only, not. :rolleyes:
If Hasterate knew, why not privately confront Foely and tell him to step down? If a congressional seat is vacated, the governor of the state appoints a new one. Didn’t Hasterate think Jeb Bush would appoint somebody appealing to the party?
Do these guys really think that things don’t come back to bite them on their hinders?
Well, I guess they don’t.
