Posted on 10/09/2006 6:36:59 AM PDT by shortstop
Let’s be honest about Tom Reynolds.
He’s the western New York congressman whose giblets are in the fire over Mark Foley, the pervert who had the hots for teen-age boys.
Mark Foley is the Florida congressman who seems to have spent the better part of his 10 years in the House of Representatives fantasizing about high-school pages.
And Tom Reynolds is the guy who kicked him out of Congress.
That’s the part that the evening news overlooks. In the mad rush by the media and the Democrats to lynch somebody over this Foley mess, nobody seems to remember that it’s Tom Reynolds who got rid of him.
Instead, Tom Reynolds is the designated fall guy. He’s the Republican they want to take down so they’ve put him at the bottom of the dog pile. Day after day for more than a week, Tom Reynolds has been the one the reporters and the Democrats have cursed. They want his blood.
Why?
Because for the last few years, he’s been the guy in charge of efforts to keep control of the House of Representatives in the hands of Republicans. And he’s been good at it. And that has ticked off a lot of Democrats. An entire party of people tired of playing second fiddle have focused their anger on Tom Reynolds and they want his scalp.
More than anything, they want to twist this controversy in such a way that it hangs around Tom Reynolds’ neck, and they want to see him swing in the breeze on Election Day.
But to do that, they’ve got to lie.
So let’s be honest about Tom Reynolds.
And understand that he’s not the cause of the Mark Foley mess, he’s the guy who cleaned up the Mark Foley mess. Tom Reynolds is the guy who kicked Mark Foley out of Congress.
And who, more than anything else, made sure that he would never prey upon another congressional page.
Here’s the story.
Several months ago, the Louisiana parents of a former congressional page learned their son was bothered by the tone of some e-mails sent by then-Congressman Mark Foley. The e-mails – which you’ve probably read – were creepy, but they weren’t sexual. There was not a single sexual word or intimation in them.
But they naturally and understandably bothered this young man’s mom and dad. So they called their congressman. They told him that they didn’t want anything public to come of this, but they didn’t want Foley writing their son anymore.
The congressman told Tom Reynolds, one of the Republican leaders in the House. Tom Reynolds immediately told the speaker of the House. The speaker of the House is the highest-ranking congressman, and is the person right behind the vice president in the chain of presidential succession. The speaker of the House is a constitutional officer of the United States government and taking suspicions of a bad congressman to him is taking the matter as high up the chain of command as it can go.
And that’s what Tom Reynolds did.
He didn’t hide it. He didn’t cover it up. He didn’t give the pervert a pass. He did his duty. He immediately notified not just A boss, but THE boss.
And as a result another congressman – the one in charge of the page program – took the House clerk and paid a visit to Mark Foley, telling him to immediately break off all communications with present or former pages and to stay away from them. Period. They laid down the law to him.
Which, realistically, is all that could be done. At that point, there was no suspicion on the part of anyone that any sexual messages had been passed. It was known that Mark Foley was oddly friendly, but it was not known that he had made homosexual advances. There was no evidence he had broken any rules or laws. He couldn’t be arrested or investigated or impeached.
But he could be reported and he could be warned. And the congressman who made sure both those things got done was Tom Reynolds.
Could he have done more?
Sure, but he would have had to be clairvoyant to do it. Given the information he had, the actions of Tom Reynolds were strict and thorough. Given what he knew, he took the sternest actions possible against Mark Foley.
And when he learned more, he did more.
When ABC News prepared to do its story on Mark Foley – and senior Republicans learned for the first time of the contents of salacious and disgusting instant messages – Tom Reynolds acted boldly and quickly. The day he learned what was contained in the messages, he kicked Mark Foley out of the House of Representatives.
How did he do that?
By using the power of his personality and the power of his position. He sent his chief of staff – a former employee and family friend of Mark Foley – to Mark Foley with a demand for his resignation.
In fact, Mark Foley’s resignation was written by Tom Reynolds’ staff at the Republican committee responsible for congressional elections. That resignation letter, approved by Tom Reynolds, was printed off on Mark Foley’s letterhead and sent by Tom Reynolds to Mark Foley for his signature.
That’s what Tom Reynolds did.
There was a fox in the henhouse and Tom Reynolds killed it.
He didn’t form a committee. He didn’t threaten punishment. He didn’t leak it to the press. He didn’t mess around. He just let Mark Foley know in no uncertain terms that he was done, that his congressional career was going to end immediately.
That’s what Tom Reynolds did.
That’s what you or I would have done.
He stood up for the integrity of the House of Representatives, he began to heal the honor of the government, and – most importantly – he acted instantly to protect the congressional pages.
When first notified of the problem, he immediately notified the speaker of the House. He made sure that Mark Foley was warned to stop his odd conduct. And when Tom Reynolds learned of the sexual nature of what Mark Foley had done, he made sure – that very day – that Mark Foley could never do it again.
That’s the truth about Tom Reynolds.
But you’d never know that by watching the evening news. Because some powerful people and institutions have decided to beat the hell out of Tom Reynolds. He is a blue-collar nobody from Buffalo, New York, who has risen by hard work and determination to be one of the most powerful and useful conservatives in the country. He has held the Republican majority in the House when conventional wisdom said he should have lost it. He was given a job by Republican voters and he did it, not only representing his own district effectively and well, but using his ability to bolster the cause of Republican principles all across the country.
He has done his duty and he has done it well.
And unable to beat him professionally, the Democrats and the press have decided to destroy him personally. And so they have made Tom Reynolds out to be the defender of a pervert, when in reality Tom Reynolds is the sort of man who would literally fight to the death to defend a child against sexual abuse. As a father, Tom Reynolds – in a way he seldom mentions in public – knows how innocent and vulnerable children can be. As a man, Tom Reynolds would do anything to protect a child – his or anyone else’s.
So this slander is doubly false. It is not true to the facts and it is not true to the man. Tom Reynolds spent years in the Erie County Legislature and the New York state Assembly pushing, session after session, for tougher laws to protect children and other victims from criminals and predators. He is a bulldog on law-and-order.
And Mark Foley discovered that first hand.
Mark Foley was a runaway train. And Tom Reynolds was the brick wall he crashed into.
Tom Reynolds did his job. He got rid of the cancer. He made sure Mark Foley would never get near another congressional page.
Let’s be honest about Tom Reynolds.
He didn’t cover for Mark Foley, he fired him.
He did exactly what he should have done.
He did what you or I would have done.
And all this other stuff is dirty politics being played by the Democrats and the media.
Standard operating procedure for Democrats
we must look at the whole congressional record to understand that this is just a one way street political football...as per Rush:
10. Sen. Daniel Inouye. The 82-year-old Hawaii Democrat was accused in the 1990s by numerous women of sexual harassment. Democrats cast doubt on the allegations and the Senate Ethics Committee dropped its investigation.
9. Former Rep. Gus Savage. The Illinois Democrat was accused of fondling a Peace Corps volunteer in 1989 while on a trip to Africa. The House Ethics Committee decided against disciplinary action in 1990.
8. Rep. Barney Frank. The outspoken Massachusetts Democrat hired a male prostitute who ran a prostitution service from Frank’s residence in the 1980s. Only two Democrats in the House of Representatives voted to censure him in 1990.
7. Former Sen. Brock Adams. The late Washington Democrat was forced to stop campaigning after numerous accusations of drugging, assault and rape, the first surfacing in 1988.
6. Former Rep. Fred Richmond. This New York Democrat was arrested in 1978 for soliciting sex from a 16-year-old. He remained in Congress and won re-election—before eventually resigning in 1982 after pleading guilty to tax evasion and drug possession.
5. Former Rep. John Young. The late Texas Democrat increased the salary of a staffer after she gave in to his sexual advances. The congressman won re-election in 1976 but lost two years later.
4. Former Rep. Wayne Hays. The late Ohio Democrat hired an unqualified secretary reportedly for sexual acts. Although he resigned from Congress, the Democratic House leadership stalled in removing him from the Administration Committee in 1976.
3. Former Rep. Gerry Studds. He was censured for sexual relationship with underage male page in 1983. Massachusetts voters returned him to office for six more terms.
2. Former Rep. Mel Reynolds. The Illinois Democrat was convicted of 12 counts of sexual assault with a 16-year-old. President Bill Clinton pardoned him before leaving office.
1. Sen. Teddy Kennedy. The liberal Massachusetts senator testified in defense of nephew accused of rape, invoking his family history to win over the jury in 1991.10. Sen. Daniel Inouye. The 82-year-old Hawaii Democrat was accused in the 1990s by numerous women of sexual harassment. Democrats cast doubt on the allegations and the Senate Ethics Committee dropped its investigation.
If all this is true, and I have no reason to doubt it is not, all I can say is Thank you sir, you have done what you were elected to do and are a good public servant!
Now, the whole mess could be cleaned up if the democrat who covered it up until election time would confess and follow the Republicans lead.
What? Where did you get that nugget? Hastert and company got him to resign when the IMs came out and there was no choice. Reynolds actively recruited him to run again after many knew that Foley was weird. Heck Reynolds Chief of Staff was the Foley's former Chief of Staff who said he went to Hastert earlier. Do you think he would fail to inform Reynolds about FOley if he had already told Hastert?
Hard to believe Foley wanted to run for the Senate in '04. If he had I'm sure this "scandal" would have been revealed around Oct 26. Then we would have had 2 Demo senators from FL and the GOP would have been 1 seat closer to losing the Senate this year.
Hey Tom...your Chief of Staff , Kirk Fordham is GAY...get RID OF HIM...oh, you DID?
I hate it when people do the right thing
The big deal is the RATS want to hammer and hammer until, believe it or not, the 2008 elections. They believe that if they can take over the House and the Senate in 2006 and start impeachment they will cause enough problems that we will have a RAT president. This with any Republic they can smear, just might do it. Remember they have the communist MSM at their side. We have to get out the vote or we are in deep sh@@.
I'm really enjoying all this, he said, she said about the Foley debacle.
It's firing up the Republicans according to some of the reading in to days news.
I have noticed beginning last Sat. a change in the wind.
This is going to back fire on the Democrats. It has persuaded those who were not going to vote to get off their buffs. They are not only going to vote but, are going to be fighting to persuade others to get out and, vote against this radical Democrat Party.
Yep. The only ones who'll be affected by it are those in Foleys district. They'll have to choose his replacement.
The democrats, on the other hand, look like they've played one heck of a nasty political trick. Their hands look more than dirty. People don't like sneaky people. They can't be trusted.
Right On..........everyone needs to know that the Republicans did the right thing, now it is just a case of MSM and Dims gay bashing, in hopes that that will somehow dishearten the Republican base.
The best thing that the Republicans have going for them now is the Dims' shallow and one-dimensional view of the Republican base. If they keep beating the drum on this "scandal" it could come back to bite them in the @ss.
Fordham is gay, anything is possible. Are ALL the pages gay or just MOST of them.. It sure is a RAT's NEST!
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