<p>Schools? Oh, I could bring up the many indiscretions of the Catholic Church, but that would probably be frowned upon. ;)</p>
<p>We can’t get rid of all of them. But like roaches, when I see 'em I squash 'em.</p>
<p>Hey, it’s a big tent party. They got Rudy and Newt and Foley (only Santorum, allegedly, says that the latter had any sex at all) and Denny watching out for those family values. What’s to worry?</p>
<p>If anything should be politicized, this is it. That’s what being the party of family values is all about.</p>
<p>Actually, all schools, although statistically public schools have more instances of child abuse than parochial schools (hard to believe, given the press, I know).</p>
<p>HH:
Interesting. Do you have a link to these stats? Is that a larger # or a higher percentage?</p>
<p>okay. these are people of leadership, role models for democracy to the world, who talk about accountability, and punishment alot, who have allowed one of their own to go on about his little hobby with nothing more than a “stop it” and then trusting that a man who made inappropriate emails to a minor would “stop it” even though, if you probably looked at the studies done to bolster the legislation pt through by Foley, telling someone who goes after minors to just “stop it” is not enough</p>
<p>did they have him seek counseling, did they warn him to not contact ANY pages under any circumstances out side of the Hill</p>
<p>it is political because of the way it was handled, and it is political because Foley based most of his polictical life on stopping child predators and it is political because the house leadership did not do their job…they did the minimum necessary to stop it, but the maximum to keep it quiet</p>
<p>as this, at the email point, was not legal, yet, at the very least it did cross that line, even to the jaded eye, and should have taken much more seriously</p>
<p>to not read the emails and then “handle” it was absurd</p>
<p>and look what happened, the man they told to “stop it” continued, if he had not been doing the iming before…</p>
<p>Hereshoping, it’s hard to know where to start with your bizarre post in which you combine a whiny accusation of “politicization” with a claim that “the other guys did it too!” So I’ll just address this one vile assertion:
If you mosey over to the Duke Lacrosse rape case thread you find some commentary about the very high proportion of strippers and sex workers who were sexually molested as children. </p>
<p>I haven’t seen any shortage of strippers lately, have you? Yet I don’t see any particular outcry about the sexual victimization of girls by men - I don’t even think thta there’s a special name for it. i guess that would be “Politically incorrect”,though, eh?</p>
<p>NO, No, HH. I was talking about all the pedophile priests who molested all those innocent boys, and kept getting moved from parish to parish, with no record whatsoever of their indiscretions.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artID=15581[/url]”>http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artID=15581</a></p>
<p>kluge: I don’t understand your reasoning there, sorry.
I mentioned that “the other guy did it too” to point out how useless it is to politicize these behaviors. I don’t have a double standard, but it seems others do. I think Foley should have resigned, as he did. I think Studds should have resigned, Barney Frank should have resigned, and Clinton should have resigned. 
In fact, off the top of my head, it seems more Republicans than Democrats do end up resigning over behaviors such as these. Maybe I’m wrong, and that’s just an impression.</p>
<p>Kluge is absolutely right that if the Republican leadership wanted to, they could have easily looked into Foley’s potential sexual harassment of pages or anyone else he had power over at the Capitol.</p>
<p>The House leadership has no problem twisting arms when they need a vote. There should also be enough resources to check into bad behavior, especially this kind, which can do so much damage (both emotional and political).</p>
<p>In fact, off the top of my head, it seems more Republicans than Democrats do end up resigning over behaviors such as these"</p>
<p>because they are the chest thumping hypocites.</p>
<p>Just a small question and a comment</p>
<p>What would the republicans gain by covering up for Foley for all this time?
Foley’s district is just north of us - SW Florida is a very cnservative area. Any Republican would win over a Democrat in this area.</p>
<p>AM: Most of the convicted priests were pederasts, not pedophiles. ;)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>CREW turned the emails over to the FBI in July. The FBI chose not to investigate, which is unfortunate. Foley has had every chance to hide evidence if he chooses; had the FBI checked up on him before this became public, the investigation probably would have been much easier for them. </p>
<p>For all of you who say there was no coverup, consider this:</p>
<p>After the page scandals of the 1980s, Congress enacted a very specific safeguard to make sure that it wouldn’t happen again: they created a Page Board, and made it BIPARTISAN, so that politic concerns wouldn’t trump children’s safety.</p>
<p>The Republicans were aware of the historical problems with the page board, and they chose to utterly disregard the safeguard that was in place…they didn’t notify the Democrat on the Page Board of the complaint, so there was no opportunity for a bipartisan review to protect the children. There is no excuse for that. And no excuse for excluding the one Democrat on the Page Board from the meeting that was held today to make changes to the page program.</p>
<p>Being the majority party does not mean that you are divine right rulers who can exclude at will the very people that Congress intended to be allowed in the decision-making.</p>
<p>
Conyat,</p>
<p>To deliberately exclude the Democratic member is suspicious. Could you please provide a link that substantiates your allegation?</p>
<p>Conyat,</p>
<p>By the way, what is CREW and how did it/they get the emails? </p>
<p>EDIT: I assume your reference is to this [CREW[/url</a>] that claims to have turned the Foley emails/IMs over to the FBI in July. Isn’t it interesting that [url=<a href=“http://stopsexpredators.blogspot.com/]this”>http://stopsexpredators.blogspot.com/]this</a> website](<a href=“http://www.citizensforethics.org/]CREW[/url”>http://www.citizensforethics.org/) also began in July on the same subject?</p>
<p>Anyone have a problem with this quote, from the link mini posted in #295?</p>
<p>“A former senior Republican official in Congress says Foley was one of a handful of members and staff whose behavior with pages was being closely watched.”</p>
<p>One of a handful?</p>
<h1>338. I caught the same reference on the one of the network newscast.</h1>
<p>MEdia Sources
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 2, 2006; 6:26 AM</p>
<p>On Friday afternoon, a strategist for Rep. Mark Foley tried to cut a deal with ABC’s Brian Ross.</p>
<p>The correspondent, who had dozens of instant messages that Foley sent to teenage House pages, had asked to interview the Florida Republican. Foley’s former chief of staff said the congressman was quitting and that Ross could have that information exclusively if he agreed not to publish the raw, sexually explicit messages.</p>
<p>“I said we’re not making any deals,” Ross recalls. He says the Internet made the story possible, because on Thursday he posted a story on his ABC Web page, the Blotter, after obtaining one milder e-mail that Foley had sent a 16-year-old page, asking for a picture. Within two hours, former pages had e-mailed Ross and provided the salacious messages. The only question then, says Ross, was “whether this could be authenticated.”</p>