I don’t think that’s clear yet.
I’m not sure what you mean about “everybody doesn’t jump on him.” But as far as the differences go: She wasn’t a teenager entrusted to his care, she was definitely old enough to consent, and he wasn’t chairing a Presidential council on fidelity during their relationship.
Where were you from 1998-2000? Every conservative with a platform was jumping on Bill. Foley is getting off lightly.
Well, the Republican leadership is back to eating their own over this. Guess some people had miraculous memory-jogs overnight…
Just a bit more on my last post. This is actually the most interesting part of this whole mess…watching the heretofore very-well-oiled-machine of the Republican Congressional leadership jump randomly from talking point to contradictory talking point like a bag full of grasshoppers.
Maybe you were in some other universe during the impeachment trial.
The big deal isn’t Foley, per se. He’s a sleaze, and he’s gone. But as I said back in post 135:
Now, is there any analog to this in the Lewinsky business? Was there any need for anyone besides Bill and Monica to know she was pleasuring him? Of course not. But fortunately for the GOP, Ken Starr didn’t let that stop him.
Because Monica didn’t fall into the live boy / dead girl Edwin Edwards standard of sexual misconduct. 
From what I’ve read, the real kicker to this is that the Republican evangelical base is really ticked off, which is going to hurt. They’re not exactly used to giving the benefit of the doubt on morals issues. I’m sure they won’t vote Democrat, but they will stay home.
What specific improper behavior were they aware of? An older man flirting with sixteen year-olds is sketchy and I imagine that some folks would be legitimately shocked, but personally it’s doesn’t really ping my outrage meter.
Umm…lots of people jump on Clinton. And I don’t think even many of his strong supporters think what he did vis-a-vis Monica was right.
Well, they apparently asked Foley to cut off contact with the page in question, and he did so. And the emails they were given really did come off as rather clumsy flirting. They could’ve done more, perhaps, but to find out more would’ve involved taking pretty drastic measures (dig through his sex-life, try to limit his contact with the hundreds of young pages and interns in Capitol Hill, search his computer records) based on not much more then rumour and suspicion. And the page in question understandably didn’t seem to want to pursue it much past getting Foley to cut it out. I’m not sure I would’ve acted differently.
That said, Hastert’s attempt to lie his way through this after the full story broke was blatently corrupt, as well as really stupid. For that the Repubs do deserve some of the drubbing they’re getting over this.
Or they could have checked with the head of the page program, said, “Heads up, this guy was being creepy, let us know ASAP if you hear about anything else like this.” They could have said, “We’ve gotten word there may be improprieties between a congressman and one of the pages. Put together an anonymous survey by Friday and distribute it to the pages, so we can find out if there’s anything here worth following up on.” They could have said, “Heya, ethics committee, this may be nothing, but be aware we’ve had to discipline a house member for creeping out a page; maybe we need to set up some guidelines to keep this from happening again.”
I briefly heard Al Franken talking today about sending a flier out to conservative churches detailing the moral failings of the Republican leadership. Was this just a fantasy of his, or does anyone know if this is likely to happen?
Daniel
Apparently knowledge of his proclivities dates back to the mid nineties at least. When is enough enough?
Not only that, but I’ve read one set of exchanges (Googling for it again turned it up several places, including here.)
It isn’t just hamfisted flirting, or getting into a strange discussion about masturbating into a towel and imagining the boy’s nude buttocks bouncing in the air. This is coercive and badgering that pushes a kid’s boundaries, which may have been going on since the mid 90’s. Does this ping any sort of meter?
I’m guessing most of this already exists. As someone posted earlier, there have been similar scandals in recent history, I can’t imagine the Hill doesn’t have guidlines and such for sexual behavior regarding younger employees. And every job I’ve ever worked at, especially gov’t jobs, have had exhaustingly worked out proceedures and such for alerting people the ins and outs of reporting sexual harasement and the like.
Of course they could’ve taken more specific targeted measure you suggest, but even if they try and keep it anonymous, stuff is likely to leak out and embarass the (for all they know, innocent) congressman. There are probably further things they could’ve done, but given the situation, I can understand the desire to consider the problem fixed, and don’t see it as evidence of some sort of gigantic moral lapse on the part of the Republican leadership.
And keep in mind the Page in question didn’t work for Foley, and had actually left DC before the emails that made him uncomfortable. Had it come to the leaderships attention that a congressman was making advances on someone who worked directly under him, I’d expect a more vigarous response, as that does stink a lot more of using power over a younger employee to get sexual favours.
Knowledge? Be more specific.
Also keep in mind that both the FBI and the St. Pete Times received similar information to what Hastert et. al. got, and decided there wasn’t enough to open an investigation/write a story on.
My understanding is that the IM conversations were just given to the press by pages other then the one who sent emails to Hastert et al. So while I agree that certainly goes beyond flirting (and is indeed illegal, see Bricker’s posts above), the Repub leadership didn’t know about them until everyone else did. I’ll like the original emails when I get a chance.
Illegal (criminal), no. Actionable (by lawsuit), yes.
See the Pit thread on the subject. Thanks to RTFirefly.
I’m sure they are (who was the Democrat from Colorado that resigned over Sexual Harrassment - 1990s?). I’m equally sure that the process is not to call the accused into your office and when he said “no, just a mentor thing, sure, I’ll cut off contact” not do ANY followup.
Didn’t read the pit thread, but did read the article. Again, I don’t see anything that could be defined as knowledge by republicans leadership of Foley’s more outrageous activities (and certainly nothing that hinted anyone knew he was breaking the law). Certainly other House members would’ve heard the rumours, but again, I don’t know if its such an outrageous thing that they didn’t act on those. Single elderly men tend to attract that sort of speculation regardless of thier actual activities (indeed I’ve heard similar rumors about Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. I doubt they’re true).
When the emails discuss should I pick you up at the airport ,it gets ugly. When in 2001 pages were told to stay away from Foley it gets uglier.More pages are coming out now. More ugliness will follow.
The rehab thing is too convenient. A ready room to get him out of the public glare for at least 30 days. Alcohol made me do it. Sorry alcohol does not make you do that.
If it were a woman at work being propositioned by her boss ,age would be irrelevant. It is a congressman using his power and position. It is criminal.
It depends.
Federal law, discussed above, criminalizes a certain level of what might be considered sexual harrassment, but not the whole panoply of behavior that could serve as the basis for a lawsuit.
Repeated requests to “Go out with me…” or “Have dinner with me…” or even “Kiss me…” from a supervisor to a subordinate are almost certainly sexual harrassment, but almost certainly not criminal, regardless of whether they are directed to a 25-year-old or a 15-year-old.
On the other hand, repeated entreaties to “Have sex with me…” is not a criminal matter when directed at the 25-year-old, even though it is obviously the basis for a sexual harrassment lawsuit. But directed to the 15-year-old, it may well be criminal, depending on the medium and the location.
And they didn’t know about them because they didn’t investigate.
The emails were not overtly unethical or illegal, but they were disturbing and suspicious. As we’ve seen over the past few days it was easy for ABC news to turn up the more damaging material with a minimum of effort. If the Republican leadership had done a minimal amount of research when they received the first complaints about Foley’s behavior they could have turned up the IMs then. But they didn’t, because they didn’t give a shit about the safety of the pages.
Parents send their teenagers off to Washington with the expectation they will be properly protected and chaparoned. They don’t expect them to be tootling around town on the arm of some horny congressman.
Well, you have to admit, that’s a lot better than hamflirted fisting.