Sex, Politics, and Hypocrisy

Special to FreeRepublic ^ | 03 October 2006 | John Armor (Congressman Billybob)

[Congressman Billybob]

Rep. Mark Foley, a Florida Republican, has resigned abruptly from the House on the revelation by ABC News of “sexual” instant messages to underage male pages. The Democrats in Congress and in the media are trying to hang this albatross around the necks of Republican leaders, and Republicans generally.

There is incompetent reporting, either accidental or deliberate, on this story. Foley sent e-mails to some pages that were not overtly sexual. Almost the entire press has failed to report the differences between e-mails and instant messages. Since most reporters use both methods of communications or can easily get information about them, there’s no excuse for this fault.

E-mails are automatically recorded in the process of being sent. They do NOT go directly from the sender to the receiver. They are saved on servers on computers other than those of the sender and receiver. A competent computer guru can find, recover, and report on contents of e-mails.

Instant messages (IM’s) are quite different. They can only be sent when the sender and recipient are on-line simultaneously. They go directly from sender to receiver. They are NOT recorded anywhere, unless either the sender and/or receiver sets up his “cache,” or temporary local memory, to do that.

The nasty IM’s that have come to light now, and sealed Foley’s fate, were sent more than year ago. Someone, most likely the pages who received them, must have recorded these, and through the blogosphere, made them available to the press. There is no factual support for the insinuation that Speaker Dennis Hastert, or anyone else in Congress except Foley, knew anything about these IM’s before ABC broke this story.

I stop at this point to make clear my opinion of all adults – male or female – who pray on children – male or female. Such alleged “grownups” are monsters who do not belong in Congress, do not belong in public, and do belong in the seventh circle of Hell. That said, the rest of this is about the consequences of the Foley resignation.

Democrats are attempting to portray this as a “moral failure” of the Republican Party and therefore a reason for all voters to vote for them. The Democrat who was running against Foley and is now running against state Rep. Joe Negron (the new Republican nominee), is already running TV ads on that. Let’s examine the record to see whether that claim has any legitimacy.

Gerry Studds (remember him? he was in all the papers) was a Democrat Congressman from Massachusetts. He was not accused of inappropriate communications. He was found to have had sexual relations with a page. By an overwhelming vote, he was censured by the House in 1983. After that, he was reelected repeatedly, with the full support of the Democrat Party.

Barney Frank (he was in all the papers) was a Democrat Congressman from Massachusetts. In 1989 he was found to have kept a male prostitute in his Capitol Hill apartment and to have done legislative favors for him. Frank was strongly censured by the House. He has been repeatedly reelected and is still in the House, with the full support of the Democrat Party.

Wait a minute, you say, Frank had nothing to do with underage boys. Well, in my years in District Court in Baltimore City, I saw more than a few prostitutes and pimps. Since their activities are already illegal, they don’t seek proof of the age of the prostitutes. They provide what the customer wants, male or female, of whatever age.

Then there’s Ted Kennedy, Senator from Massachusetts. Admittedly, his known sexual peccadillo was with an adult female. In 1969 he left Mary Jo Kopechne alive in his sunken car. She drowned while he left the scene to set up his alibi. Kennedy has been repeatedly reelected with the full support of the Democrat Party.

Last but not least, there is William Jefferson Clinton. Surely you’ve heard of him? He had sex in his office with a female subordinate. The manager of your local McDonalds would be fired on the spot if he had sex with a female fry cook at work. Clinton still enjoys the full support of the Democrat Party.

I repeat, I make no brief for Rep. Foley’s conduct. I am delighted that he is out of Congress immediately. However, the Democrat response is not to dump the Member. Instead, it is to wait while the Member hunkers down, and then to support him for reelection. Democrats do worse than what Foley did. They do not resign, nor does their Party ask them to resign.

For the Democrats to seek to make Foley a partisan issue in the 2006 election is the height of hypocrisy. Men who cannot control their own zippers are unfit to be in leadership positions in the federal government. All of them. Republican, Democrat, or independent. No exceptions.

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About the Author: John Armor is a lawyer specializing in constitutional law, who may again be a candidate for Congress in the 11th District of North Carolina. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu

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[SolidSupplySide]

Congress has limited resources for conducting this kind of investigation.

I disagree. The Ethics Committee hasn't been doing too terribly much lately.

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

Megadittos!

Men who cannot will not control their own zippers are unfit to be in leadership positions in the federal government. PERIOD.

[Morgan in Denver]

I realize the media spin and Democrat accusations but the Foley debacle should be a source of pride for every Republican.

We had an issue and it was dealt with. Rep. Foley resigned and the House Speaker is taking steps to counter this happening again. The Ethics Committee has gotten involved for developing the facts in this case and the FBI has the information to pursue it if there was anything done that was illegal.

Is there any, ANY, question that had Foley been a Democrat they would still be circling the wagons in protecting Foley and calling any criticism homophobia.  The Democrats are shameless and for the next thirty days they will be proving that to every voter.