Posted on 10/03/2006 10:47:27 AM PDT by catholicfreeper
Well this is wonderful isn't it. The local Newspaper reports
Rep. Rodney Alexander said a former male House page from Monroe has received threats since reports surfaced Friday that former Congressman Mark Foley sent him inappropriate e-mails.
"This teenager and his family have gone through hell," Alexander, R-Monroe, said Monday. "It's just not fair that they got caught up in this and became casualties. His mother is just broken up by it. Naturally, she's concerned about her child." Foley, R-Fla., resigned on Friday after reports were published about the e-mails connected to the Monroe teenager, who's now 17. Though the e-mails to the Monroe page weren't sexually explicit, it was later revealed that Foley did send sexually explicit e-mails to other pages as early as 2003. Neither the Monroe teenager nor his family responded to interview requests from The News-Star, but Alexander said he talked to the teenager's mother, as well as the FBI, on Monday. Alexander wouldn't say what type of threats the teenager was receiving or the source of the threats. Alexander twice reported the e-mails from Foley to the House leadership, including Speaker Dennis Hastert, which Hastert and others confirmed, as well as to the boy's parents. "My first job was protecting the innocence of that young man and his family," Alexander said. "When I informed the family, they said they were aware of the situation and told me that they weren't going to pursue it because of the harm that it could do to their son." In the e-mails, Foley asked the page how he was doing after Hurricane Katrina and what he wanted for his birthday. The congressman also asked the boy to send a photo of himself. Though not expressly sexual, Alexander said the e-mails "made me feel uneasy. It wasn't normal for a 45-year-old man to be sending those e-mails to a 16-year-old, which is why I informed the House leadership." "The young man clearly felt that the e-mails were creepy, which is why he notified our office." In an e-mail to an Alexander staffer, the page called Foley's e-mails "sick" 13 times. Alexander said that he believes he took appropriate action by informing the House leadership and the boy's parents about the e-mails, but wouldn't pass judgment on the House leadership's actions since then. "If they were only acting on what we talked about ... I just don't know," Alexander said. "I knew that I did what I felt like we needed to do." Hastert said he didn't pursue the matter at the parents' request, which Alexander confirmed, but Hastert also said he never saw the contents of the e-mails. "Nobody ever asked me to see the e-mails," Alexander said.
Alexander said he would have done more if he had known about the explicit e-mails sent to other pages two years earlier. "We knew nothing about the instant messages," Alexander said. "That blew my mind."
Alexander did say that any member of Congress who did know about the explicit instant messages sent in 2003 and didn't take action "should be removed. The question that needs to be answered is who had possession of those instant messages for two or three years and didn't do anything about them?"
Louisiana's 5th District congressman said he hasn't spoken to any member of House leadership since the story broke on Friday.
Alexander wouldn't say whether or not he felt like the leadership was disappointed that he came forward with the information a month before congressional elections that could affect the balance of the House.
"I didn't think as much about what it would do to Congress as to what it might do to the young man and his family," Alexander said. "This needed to be flushed out." link-
A few thoughts on this. As I stated earlier what is being done to this young man is far worse than anything Rep Foley ever did to him. To keep saying that Foley is the main culprit currently causing pages distress is at this point ludricous.
As the American Thinker stated yesterday,"The timing of the two-step release is critical to the political efficaciousness of the operation. The public is being led to conflate the different sets of correspondence (mildly inappropriate emails versus salacious IM messages), leading most people to believe the sexually explicit stuff was what Hastert had seen."
Well it is working. As I also stated one can go to the major political forums and the state wide ones too and see the confusion bearing full fruit. Most people believe this poor North Louisiana kid is not only gay but engaged in all this salacious im'ing and some think he was part of some plot. All because the media wants to confuse his emails with the im's that occured even before he was on the scene in DC.
The media though is not the only culprit. As the American Thinker laid out so well yesterday the true culprits in this matter are extremist democrats engaging in some very dirty pool. At least I hope those Dems are renegades because if they are establishment it shows us how low they have fallen.
However I am sad to say that the Dems and the radical gay elements are not the only sick individuals in this little affair. Certain conservatives in the party are misrepresenting the facts also or at least blurrying them in order to obtain a power grab. I can't come to any other conclusion really. The Washington Times instead of commending Hasert for asking for a Justice Dept investigation is asking for his resignation. Human Events got into the act by blurring the facts for their own agenda. Even WorldnetDaily decided to take time from warning us how George Bush has a secret plot to form an North American Union and gave us the headline of GOP unworthy of governing. Richard Viguree was on CNN yesterday to talk about the Page scandal but all it was a rant against the GOP leadership. Well forgive me if I don't buy all this poppycock that is being done under the guise of morality. This is basically the crowd that squacks like deranged parrot demanding "conservative purity test" and proclaims every Republican that doesn't roll over like a dog to their every utterance is a RINO. We need less Republicans on TV trying to unseat Hasert and more asking for the facts. Perhaps we just need less of them on TV period and let the Justice Dept investigation take its course.
The majority of conservatives are not doing this and we that should be noted. However they don't make good TV for the 24/7 News networks and the radio shows. That being said Kudos to Rep Rodney Alexander who has and is acting in a honorable and correct way. Rodney used to be a good ole fashion conservative Piney Hills Louisiana Democrat. He got elected to DC and after being told by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi he had no leeway to vote his principles told her to stuff it and ran as a Republican. He won and will easily win reelection this year.
In the end lets remember despite the ambitions of a few conservatives, the ones that are using this scandal in a unethical way are the Democrats. I think this literally from the Democrat playbook says it best.
(1). Pay no heed to the distinction between the e-mails and IMs. There's no evidence (yet) that any Republican leaders knew about Foley's cybersex IMs. There's plenty of evidence that they knew how uncomfortable the "overly friendly" e-mails made at least one page. So the Dems will press the GOP on what they knew about the former and will constantly, in their press releases, refer to the "GOP's knowledge of the sexually explicit e-mails."
2. Enlarge the wedge between House leaders. The tension this weekend between Speaker Dennis Hastert and NRCC chair Tom Reynolds was thick. Dems want it to suffocate the party and throw the Republicans even further off their game.
At the end lets us return to that poor little ole kid from North Louisiana. He should be dating girls and going to Friday night football games. Not getting death threats. The above Dem playbook talking points is not helping matters.
Fixed it.
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