So Boehner has reversed himself yet again. First it was “I told Hasert and he assured me that it would be taken care of” then it was “I can’t recall” and then “I didn’t talk to him, how dare you accuse me of that.” Now he’s back to “I heard something, I took it to my supervisor.”
Ok. Question: isn’t this something to take to the ethics committee, not your POLITICAL supervisior? This is the same deal with Alexander: they notified the political elections wing of the party about this with a lot more urgency than the ethics side of things.
In 2003, Foley had cybersex with an ex-page. The phrasing of the headline makes it sound like it happened while Foley was on the House floor, which it didn’t. Either way, this now definitely goes beyond flirting.
To the extent that the question is still, “were the original emails ‘off’ enough that most reasonable persons seeing them would have expected further investigation,” the original emails are on pp.4-8 of this PDF. Make up your own mind.
You may be thinking of Gary Hart former Senator Gary Hart, whose 1988 Presidential run was derailed by Donna Rice. I can’t remember any Coloradoan at the federal level resigning for those reasons.
I must say, regardless of what is eventually revealed about who knew what when, the jostling amongst the House leadership to maneuver away from the curb before the bus comes by is intensely amusing political theater.
Reynold’s aide apparently tried to bargain with ABC to keep the IMs out of the public eye. Did Reynolds know?
Reynolds, btw is in charge of the Republican Congressional election effort. As I keep noting, there is a clear pattern that Republicans dealt with this as a potential election problem with FAR more effort and interest than they dealt with it as an ethics violation.
Oh, my Goddess, yes! I haven’t laughed so hard since they shot Ol’ Yeller! Its like a turd star collapsing into a neutron density shit singularity. No light can escape, but it still stinks from 3 parsecs…
Even ignoring the issue of whether or not Hastert and Boehner were trying to cover up for Foley or were simply in the dark, there’s still the matter of why House Page Board Chair John Shimkus didn’t inform the other members of the Board when he first learned about the emails late last year. I mean, even if Shimkus thought there wasn’t anything there, his failure to tell the other members of the Board that something had happened to one of the pages is questionable.
What cracks me up is that some right-wingers (think Hillbilly Heroin addict who can’t get it up) are now claiming that this is all a nasty Democrat (sic) trick to sway the November elections. So, in other words, its not the year-long cover-up by House Republican leadership that is outrageous; its the fact that the information has now come to light that is the outrage.
There’s also the issue of whether Hastert is lying about asking for Foley’s resignation. I got the impression last week that Foley decided to resign, and then informed Gov. Bush and the Speaker, yet today on Rush, Hastert said:
This differs from my recollection and from what the Speaker said on Monday:
I have two words for you that recall another case where Republican politicians seemed to think exposure by the media was a worse crime than the original events: Abu Ghraib.
Well, let’s keep in mind that it may be true that he was molested, it may be true that he’s an alcoholic.
Perhaps this man is actually doing some right things in the wake of all this, and maybe he’s trying to shift some of the blame, too. (Maybe it’s all a put-on, but I’d rather wait for evidence before claiming that.)
Ok, so he was a closeted gay man who liked 'em young. Ok, so he chased boys and was really stupid about it.
That’s a personal tragedy, and there’s no indication that he did anything physical.
That doesn’t make it right, but let’s not light the pyre just yet for this man.
I think the worst thing that can come out of this is more hysteria over homosexuality and an irrational approach to pedophilia.
I even mis-spoke there. I don’t think this is pedophilia, or ephebophilia. There’s nothing magical about 18. Our society has decided to draw the line there, and I see nothing wrong with doing so – we should expect a certain degree of self-control from adults, after all. But biologically, it would be extremely naive to expect that no adult will find 16 year olds sexually attractive, especially men (regardless of orientation) who are hard-wired to be sexually attracted to youth.
Not just Abu Ghraib. Hasn’t Bush been condemning everyone who had a problem with his illegal wiretapping? Who cares if people don’t like being illegally wiretapped? What matters is some liberal commie revealed we are being illegally wiretapped. Now that’s just un-American.
