| Saturday, September 30, 2006 |
| Grand Old Pedophile protectors |
A commenter named "Gandhi" on this RawStory thread puts it about as harshly as it can be put:
GOP: "Grand" Old Pedophiles
The House leadership (meaning the Republicons in charge) were notified 11 months ago about this! And they did nothing. Foley was not even asked to resign his post as "protector" of children.
Foley is single and his sexual orientation seems to have been no secret. Who favored him for the job to beginn with?
This is what Republican Family Values are all about: claim to be the party that defends family values but provide a safe haven for pedophiles who want to prey on children. And give them a job that makes it even easier for them.
GOP: the party of perversion
That may sound harsh, but the fact is that the Republican leadership, including, arguably, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the leader of the ethics committee, and at least two other sitting members of Congress, including NRCC chair Tom Reynolds, knew about Mark Foley's penchant for hitting on pages -- or at least for contacting them personally, and inappropriately, from his home email account -- for at least a year. The scandal involving just the emails -- setting aside the disgusting Instant Messages that ultimately pushed the Florida Congressman to quickly resign before they could be made public -- occurred not this summer, but the summer of 2005; fully one year ago. And one has to wonder why the GOP leadership chose to treat him like a wayward parish priest (interestingly enough, Foley is Catholic, which says something about the peculiarity of that religion's particular brand of closet...) rather than like a potential felon, or at least, as a danger to other Congressional pages.
The question of why Foley was allowed to remain both deputy whip and chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children is a legitimate and inevitable one. Was it some twisted sense of irony among the House leadersip? An obliviousness to the political ramifications if Foley should slip up? Or just another manifestation of the Republican sense of hyper-invincibility and arrogance that have infected the do-nothing 109th Congress of the United States? These cretins have shirked every legitimate responsibility given to them by the Constitution; from acting as dupes for as shoddy a president ever foisted on the American people, to writing blank check after blank check on the war, to refusing to question the intelligence leading up to it, to failing to act on immigration, the budget deficit, or anything else of substance. Instead, this Congress has spent their time personally enriching themselves and their friends, gorging themselves on illicit contracts, prostitutes, free meals, free trips and lobbyist-paid grandiosity. This shoddy Congress, this shoddy Republican Party, has brought shame on itself, long before Mark Foley brought shame on himself and them.
More on the Foley scandal:
Gays rush to put distance between themselves and him...
The DNC calls for an investigation into the "sex crime cover-up"... but somehow they fail to put their call to arms on their web-site...
Foley's short, to the point, resignation letter...
John Aravosis is all over the story, including the latest buzz from Capitol HIll, where other Republicans, like the questionably not-gay Chris Shays, are saying anybody who knew about Foley and did nothing to stop him should resign. Aravosis also notes the apparent disinterest in the story at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue -- you know, the place where honor and dignity are supposed to be returning, even as we speak...
TPMM has further updates, including the yes, no, maybe so interest in Foley at Justice and via Roll Call, the widening pool of potential GOP coverer-uppers. From Roll Call:
As of Saturday evening, nearly a dozen House GOP lawmakers and staffers have acknowledged that they knew of the initial batch of non-sexually explicit messages from Foley to a 16-year-old former House page, some of them for a year or more. These include [House Speaker Dennis] Hastert [(IL)]; Majority Leader John Boehner (Ohio); National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (N.Y.); Reps. Rodney Alexander (La.) and John Shimkus (Ill.); Mike Stokke, the Speaker’s deputy chief of staff; Ted Van Der Meid, Hastert’s counsel; Paula Nowakowski, Boehner’s chief of staff; Jeff Trandahl, the former Clerk of the House; and another Hastert aide and Alexander’s chief of staff, according to public statements and GOP insiders.
If resignations are to occur over the Foley scandal, I question whether they can occur without touching the top man, Hastert, who is currently in a statement release battle with Tom Reynolds over who knew what, and when. Read Hastert's statement here and Reynolds' statement here.
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Tags: Mark Foley, Florida |
posted by JReid @ 10:02 PM   |
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