Posted on 10/03/2006 1:28:59 PM PDT by 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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Oh...and I still want to see the liberals defend the Limon victims instead of just worrying about Limon himself getting a lesser sentence under the "Romeo and Juliet" laws (gag!).
That said, Foley should be locked up. If he were a Democrat, the left would only be concerned as to whether or not the two were planning to use a condom....or if they knew about fisting...etc. Regardless, now that we have them on record appropriately appalled at something morally reprehensible, let's see that they have to appy it to some of these other areas.
of = off
Naive...
Teddy, Gary, Bill, Barney. Need I say more?
"I was discussing this situation with my son late last night under so questions he was asking about a manipulative englsi teacher in a pre collage compclass that has abandoned writing and turned the class into an debating issues --reviewing his notes on the topics selected by the teacher and listening to the open brawl over she has cultivated -- she has been making her students the willing and unwilling to consider and think about Liberal hot button issues.
by selecting the issues of brawl -- it duplicates the assertion of Jimwright dem leader of the house under Reagan that declared as long as dems got to pick the topics and make the rules for the discussion of them they would always win."
You must have had the same englsi teacher I did.
I'm fishing.
Are techy's able to trace IM's at all? Or will one have to guess what Page received and sent the IM's......or can one trace the receiver of IMs from Foley's computer. I would hope the FBI has already secured his computers.
Solid,
By any chance are you a Democrat? If not, somehow your not understanding the known facts .
PC only has power because people boy the knee to it -- it the republicans were to stand up on issues and in news interviews and say I refuse to accept your premise -- they way you have framed the question is fasle and deive a state through the heart of these control statements and then state in some fashion what they believe -- how differnet would things be?
The DIMS as we love to call them -- They do not answer the questions nor are they guided by the assertions of others of them
They pick and chose their own immorality on any given standpoint.Ignoring even what they said five minutes previously all that matters is the moment. (This usually kills them)
When we look at the republican house and the senate it is ruled by mediocrity, and men of delussion (Spector comes to mind here)
Were are the firebrands where are the poeple driven by message? There are no Reagans here or Washingtons, jeffersons or JFK's there --the house whip was supposed to be that. Gingrich started out as a man of vision and bore great influence but he crashed and burned due to a bunch of mindless stupidity -- and for years afterwards he would insert himself in things with inane comments that made him a laughing stock -- unlike McCain and some others Newt has seemed in the past 18 months to start to speak again some inciteful things and things that would help the party.
If he could return to his form in the 1980's he could again try reform and bring the party of lincoln back into a cohessive body with direction and purpose -- I am not talking about a newt presidency -- but Newt as a party advisor.
And this is something to the previous statement of republicans needing to reform and repair their own rather than eating them
And I am actually positive that this and other teachers are following someone's talking points on indoctrination techniques.
How? By breaking into the kid's home and searching his hard drive? These messages probably didn't exist anywhere else, unless the kid had already given them to Democrat operatives, by that time.
You seem to be confusing the content of the emails with the IMs. The emails were certainly suspect, but they were also ambiguous, the IMs were not.
The Republicans should be forcefully reminding the Democrats of this.
Regards, Ivan
Foley is, almost certainly, a real pedophile, what we don't know is whether he is also a pederast.
I cannot come up with any better words, so I quoted your always eloquent words as my disclaimer.....
I am reminded of CFR and the claim that elections will now be conducted in a kinder, gentler manner.
George Allen
Jeneane (?sp) Pirro
Mark Foley
Call me paranoid, but what we are seeing is the big money going after the dirt. At least McCain's feelings are not getting hurt. Remind me, which direction were the President's numbers (and Dow Jones) headed when this story broke? Gasoline prices were headed where?
So far, the only dirt seems to be on Foley, but hey, I have been told it's the seriousness of the (dem) accusation.
Foley is gone and good riddance-the system can deal with him now. It is time to clean house on both sides of the aisle.
Much like the minister at a wedding, I say if anyone knows of any reason why Congressman X, Y or Z should not serve, now is the time to speak.
Congress needs a high colonic and I am willing to hold the bag. The time to do it is now while President Bush is still in office.
Thing is the Foley issue isn't about Barney Frank. It isn't even about homosexuality. It's about sexual advances toward a minor aggravated by being in a position of power. The laughable attempt by socons to make this about Barney Frank is as inexcusable as democrats trying to make it about the Republican party.
By Foley's confession. The House leadership never really asked Foley what was going on.
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