Posted on 12/16/2006 12:26:40 AM PST by JohnHuang2
If ever a news story bolstered Rush Limbaugh's low opinion of the "drive-by media," it is the tawdry saga of former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla. When the story about Foley's e-mails to former House pages first broke, cable news was All Foley/All the Time. The chattering classes -- this columnist included were outraged at the GOP leadership's inexcusable failure to protect vulnerable House pages from Foley. Many pundits didn't need proof, so happy were they to embrace Nancy Pelosi's charge that there had been a "cover-up of Mark Foley's outrageous behavior."
When the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct report came out this month finding no violations by GOP leadership of House rules or standards, the once-big story devolved into news briefs and tepid editorials. No big scandal, no big story.
No apologies, despite what the media got wrong. As the ethics report noted, "Much of the initial press coverage of this matter did not distinguish between" inappropriate -- creepy, but not sexually explicit -- e-mails Foley sent to a former page in 2005 and explicit e-mails Foley had sent to a different page in 2001. The distinction is important because the investigation found no proof that any House staffer or member had seen the explicit e-mails until ABC News released them in September.
Which means: There was no cover-up. GOP staffers only saw the e-mails in which Foley had asked a former page for his "pic" and commented that another page was in "good shape." As reporters for the Miami Herald and St. Petersburg Times discovered, the 2005 e-mails did not warrant a story. As one editor noted, the e-mails didn't prove that Foley was "anything but creepy."
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
The DBM is only as effective as the willingness of the public to believe and accept their version of events on the Foley case, the war, the economy, etc. That doesn't mean the DBM are blameless. Far from from it. They are treasonous, America haters who would gladly hand this country over to a vicious dictator just so long as they could get to cover it and bash conservatives and christians in the process.
But I am so sick of people accepting the garbage the DBM throws at them. In fact, it's how the DBM became the DBM in the first place. It all goes back to Vietnam and Watergate when the media turned into the liberal media and took breathtaking leaps in power as they turned the country against the war and took down a President. Out of that came an unending lust for power and a continuing crop of journalists who worship Cronkite, Bernstein, Woodward, the NY Times and 60 Minutes, and see themselves as rightful heirs to carry on the work begun in 1968 and furthered in 1973.
Interesting how it's the same with the anti-war brigade of which Cindy Sheehan is the prime example. They rose to prominence during Vietnam and moved on to Watergate along with the liberal media because it was a natural progression to go after Nixon (Nixon's war, after all). The Iraq War is just the latest excuse to turn the clock back to the salad days of acid, protests and power. Cindy Sheehan, who is too young to have been part of the original protests, couldn't get in this version of them fast enough, and she's riding it with all the gusto of someone who pined for those days of acids and protests that she missed in the 60s. Meanwhile, original leftists like Ward Churchill picked up right where they left off.
There is no doubt that with their success in undercutting the war and helping the Republicans push themselves out of power, the DBM are growing in power and reinforcing their influence in the eyes of Boobus America. The Iraq Surrender Group, coming on the heels of Rummy being kicked out the door, would seal the deal and complete the return of the anti-war, pro-leftist DBM and 60s radicals to their previous prominence. That is why it's so important for them and why they're screaming like stuck pigs over it when W appears to be saying it's DOA.
Regardless, though, it's the public, Boobus America, that enable the DBM to wield their power. The same public that jam ten deep at every Wal-Mart register are the same public that rails against Wal-Mart after they hear another DBM Wal-Mart hit piece. The same public that watch a DVD on a wide screen plasma or LCD in high def and paint peeling surround sound that they picked up in their $25,000 SUV are the same public who moan over how bad the economy is after the DBM tell them. And the same public who brag how great their 401k's are doing are the same public who are outraged how capital gains cuts help the rich and their broker pals on Wall Street at the expense of Main Street after the DBM tell them so.
So much for critical thinking.
Yup! Fizzled! Six hours after posting, only six readers and this should be the third reply.
Proof of the enemedia being a tool of the socialist party!
Foley basically bent over and invited this mistreatment. He could have exacted retribution very easily, but chose not to do so. He could have said, "The Dems outted me for purely partisan purposes. Now I am going to pay them back by outting all of the closet gays on the Dem side of the aisle."
and NOBODY is covering the fact the Miami Herald ADMITS THEY NOT ONLY KNEW, THEY HAD PICTURES OF FOLEY AND HIS LONG TIME HOMOSEXUAL SEX PARTNER but kept it quiet because of PRIVACY CONCERNS(!!!!when does a newspaper care about privacy other than to protect a leftist?) but also because the Miami Herald saw keeping the secret as a means of ensuring their access to a Congressman!
BLACKMAIL! by the media has been glossed over.
Foley is still a perv and we're fortunate his sicko behavior has been given its just desserts - removal from Congress, a destroyed reputation and the ending of his harrassment of vulernable young teens.
But there are far more morally corrupt critters in Congress---still there! Mostly Demoncrats.
Oh ok. Let's let OUR pederast back in power and in a position of authority then. - rolls eyes -
Remind me...did he actually molest any of the "teens" that set him up?
ROTFLMAO! Lemme get this straight - you have no problem with this guy since his attempts at seducing 14 yr old boys didn't pan out as he had hoped???
One feature of this story was that the pages were NEVER referred to as "former" except as absolutely necessary, and then buried somewhere in the 37th paragraph.
Can you imagine if Republicans had attacked a gay for consensual sex talk with adults (even if young adults)? The media would have rushed to their typewriters en masse to defend the homosexual as the victim and vilify his attackers.
And yet here the media, and the Dims, were the attackers. Fine and dandy to publicly destroy a homosexual for legal (if sleazy) behavior s'long as he has an "R" after his name. Just like it's acceptable to call Clarence Thomas an "Uncle Tom".
Check your facts. The ex-pages he contacted were over 18, as I recall. Yes, he's a slimeball, but he at least knew what the age of consent was.
My mistake. 14 should have been 16. However your facts need some amending as well:
"A 16-year-old male former congressional page concerned about the appropriateness of an e-mail exchange with a congressman alerted Capitol Hill staffers to the communication."
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/09/sixteenyearold_.html
These were not 18 year old adults. He's a slimeball and thankfully out of office.
You seem to get a blast from jumping to conclusions.
He's a pervert..but a pervert who had the decency to quit before any damage was done to innocent (maybe some) stupid young guys who, as I've heard, were goading him on. Don't get me wrong (you seem to be). Whether provoked or not, he is and was a molestor, a man with no moral compass. That said, others far worse than Foley are still there in Congress...why not focus on them now instead of the guy who's gone.
That is about as simply written for you as possible.
On that, we certainly agree.
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