Party of Family Values: Foley Resigns

[gla]

<p>

If CREW were just reacting to the IMs they received, how is it they had time or presense of mind to give ABC a scoop? Odd, isn’t it?

not as odd as the fact that people keep mixing up IM and email.</p>

<p>Hastert, et al made a BIG point of saying they only had the former. As did CREW.</p>

<p>I know CREW is a mostly Democratic organization. What is the makeup of stopsexualpredators.org? is it Democrats, Republicans, former pages, ex-altar boys?</p>

[Strick11]

<p>Pages are Republican? Really? At 16? Who knew? I thought they were named by members of both parties.</p>

<p>Good grief, who’s excusing anything, RugBurn? Where is anyone defended? If this was common knowlege as claimed, why is it wrong ta ask who else knew? What conspiracy does the question imply? How is it claiming conspiracy to ask that anyone who knew beheld equally responsible?</p>

[zoosermom]

<p>" know CREW is a mostly Democratic organization. What is the makeup of stopsexualpredators.org? is it Democrats, Republicans, former pages, ex-altar boys?"</p>

<p>We don’t know GLA, that’s why there are so many questions.</p>

[zoosermom]

<p>“Good grief, who’s excusing anything, RugBurn? Where is anyone defended? If this was common knowlege as claimed, why is it wrong ta ask who else knew? What conspiracy does the question imply? How is it claiming conspiracy to ask that anyone who knew beheld equally responsible?”</p>

<p>Exactly. If the culprits are only republicans, then they should be prosecuted, humiliated, shunned, whatever is possible and if there are no involved democrats then they should welcome an investigation, too, shouldn’t they?</p>

[fundingfather]

<p>

This is the kind of disingenuous misdirection by which Bush supporters lie. The newspapers never “decided that it didn’t amount to much.”

</p>

<p>

The St. Petersburg Times said that last November, it received copies of an e-mail exchange between Mr. Foley and a former page from Louisiana. The newspaper said the boy, who was under age, did not want his name used, and the paper said it did not want to publish accusations based on unnamed sources. The Miami Herald apparently received the same information, although it is not clear when it received it.</p>

<p>Brian Ross of ABC News said he learned about the e-mail messages in August but was too busy with Hurricane Katrina and the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks to pursue them immediately. None of the organizations seemed to anticipate how big the story would become.</p>

<p>“I never thought it would lead to his resignation,” Mr. Ross said.</p>

<p>When The St. Petersburg Times received its first tip on the e-mail messages in late 2005, the editors decided it was “friendly chit-chat,” with nothing overtly sexual, but nonetheless assigned two reporters to find out more, according to an editor’s note.</p>

<p>The reporters tracked down the teenager, but he refused to let them use his name in a story. They found a second page who had corresponded with Mr. Foley and was willing to let them use his name but said he did not have a problem with the messages, undercutting the premise. </p>

<p>When the newspaper asked Mr. Foley about the messages, he “insisted he was merely trying to be friendly,” Scott Montgomery, the newspaper’s government and politics editor, wrote Saturday in a note to readers.</p>

<p>The editor of The Herald, Tom Fiedler, said the initial messages did not seem to justify writing a story. “We determined after discussion among several senior editors, including myself, that the content of the messages was too ambiguous to lead to a news story,” Mr. Fiedler was quoted in his paper as saying.

<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/washington/03media.html?_r=1&oref=slogin[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/washington/03media.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[OpiefromMayberry]

<p>You know if everybody tries real hard, this post can catch the Duke Lacrosse" post in numbers by the end of the week. ;)</p>

[baseballmom]

<p>Opie-I agree. I step out for a 3 hour meeting and several pages have been “messaged”, (no pun intended).</p>

[driver]

<p>bbm and opie:
you’ve got it. Some of these threads just bring out all the nuts.
Nutfully yours,
D</p>

[kluge]

<p>OK, before Zoosermom accuses anyone else of “lying” and “twisting” her words, and generally being bad people, let’s just quote Zoosermom verbatim:

"Zoosermom’s posts highlighted above where they calmly accuse democrats of knowing all about it and deliberately concealing it until now - "</p>

<p>More twisting. I have said repeatedly that I want to know where those IMs were. We do know that CREW had some and I would like to know to whom they were given in the two-plus months since the creation of that website. It’s a mark of your partisanship that you don’t want to know.

What if it does turn out that Hastert didn’t know but that high-ranking members of the democratic caucus did and intentionally held onto the information. How would you feel about that? It’s certainly a plausible scenario at this point.

The democrats probably had the IMs and we know that the republicans didn’t.

“Zoos:
How do we know that CREW had the IM’s”
The website.

And after several posters pointed out that the CREW website had no such posts:

I mistyped (as someone else did vis a vis email and IM). It wasn’t the CREW website I meant, it was stopsexualpredators.com.

and

I wasn’t talking about the CREW website, but the Stopsexualpredators.com website which is the core of my question. That is where the information initially came to light and it has been extremely mysterious since July. I can’t link it right now because it’s been up and down, in and out since this all broke. The reason any conspiracy theory exists is specifically because of that particular website and the strange behavior and timing associated with it.

</p>

<p>Lest I be accused (again) of lying and twisting - those are Zoosermom’s own words. So let’s move to the next step, the new candidate for the IM “conspiracy” - <a href=“http://stopsexpredators.blogspot.com%5B/url%5D”>http://stopsexpredators.blogspot.com</a> Contrary to Zoo’s claims, the website has been up consistently, and there’s no mystery about it. As I posted yesterday:

It’s also a fact that some guy started a blog called “stopsexualpredators” in July, which had a variety of posts about people involved with highly publicised cases such as Mary LeTourneau, Gary Condit and Chandra Levy, Congessmen Studds, Frank, Crane al. There was a link to a newspaper article about the college-age interns coming to Washington and dressing in a manner some thought was “inappropriate.” Lots of random alarm about issues surrounding sex, politics, etc. and soliciting feedback and input. Early in September a few e-mails came in from former pages about Foley. No smoking guns, but a lot of talk. They were posted on the blog. Then more came in. Then ABC stepped in with the e-mails and IM’s, which Republican ex-pages have reportedly been talking about (and saving and showing each other) for years. And then it all blew up.

</p>

<p>Bottom line: There’s absolutely no objective or rational basis to question ABC’s Sauer’s straightforward explanation of how the matter erupted when and how it did. There’s no reason to believe that she’s lying. There’s no reason to believe that anyone other then the Republican pages had the IM’s before ABC got them last week. There’s no reason to continue to hunt for a convenient “liberal conspiracy” because there’s no rational reason to believe one existed over this matter.</p>

[Strick11]

<p>

You know if everybody tries real hard, this post can catch the Duke Lacrosse" post in numbers by the end of the week.

</p>

<p>Sexual assault alone will never compete with gay Republican sex with minors.</p>

<p>Not that that is what this is about. This is about punishing the whole Republican party for what one member of Congress did. OK, from what we know, mostly didn’t.</p>

[Strick11]

<p>kludge, the quotes are long, but let’s compare ABC’s report with what the NY
Times said. It seems relevant given how what ABC said is being repeated here.</p>

<p>ABC:

A Republican staff member warned congressional pages five years ago to watch out for Congressman Mark Foley, according to a former page.</p>

<p>Matthew Loraditch, a page in the 2001-2002 class, told ABC News he and other pages were warned about Foley by a supervisor in the House Clerk’s office.</p>

<p>Loraditch, the president of the Page Alumni Association, said the pages were told “don’t get too wrapped up in him being too nice to you and all that kind of stuff.”</p>

<p>…</p>

<p>Loraditch says that some of the pages who “interacted” with Foley were hesitant to report his behavior because “members of Congress, they’ve got the power.” Many of the pages were hoping for careers in politics and feared Foley might seek retribution.</p>

<p>Loraditch runs the alumni association for the U.S. House Page Program, and he is deeply concerned about the future effects this scandal could have on a program that he sees as a valuable educational experience for teens.

</p>

<p>NY Times:

Matthew Loraditch, who worked as a page with Ms. Gallo and Mr. McDonald in 2001 and 2002, said a supervisor had once casually mentioned that Mr. Foley “was odd” and that he later saw sexually explicit text messages that Mr. Foley had sent to two former pages after they left the program.</p>

<p>But Mr. Loraditch said he was never warned by program supervisors to stay away from him. “He was friendly,” said Mr. Loraditch, who maintains a Web site for alumni and attends Towson University in Maryland. “He would talk to us more than some other members would."

</p>

<p>According to the Palm Beach Post the Facebook page of the former page in question says (memo to self: must read my son’s Facebook page…)

…another page, who asked not to be named told The Palm Beach Post, “The program in no official capacity warned us about it,” and he said that Loraditch had posted an explanation for his comments to ABC on the college social network, Facebook.com.</p>

<p>Loraditch’s Facebook.com statement said: "I have received several heated responses from my fellow pages about media involvement in the current situation. I want to respond with a few points and thoughts.</p>

<p>"Firstly, as to the ABC “Warned” story, while I may have inadvertently used the word, “warned,” in communication, I can assure you it was not intended. The fact of the matter is in an informal situation a supervisor mentioned that Foley was a bit odd or flaky and did not connote by tone or otherwise that he should be avoided.</p>

<p>"Secondly as to talking out in general, . . . I don’t think anyone can argue that protecting kids, pages, or whomever from sexual predators is anything but the most important of this whole saga. Nothing comes in front of the safety of the page program, not the page program, a member of congress, no one.</p>

<p>"Thirdly, I have stressed several key points in my contact with media that all situations with Mr. Foley occurred after we had finished our service as pages. That if anything had happed while we were in Washington, it would have been dealt with. That I have full faith and trust that any of the supervisors and staff we worked with would have properly dealt with any situation like the current one. That the page program is one of the most wonderful and educational experiences a youth can have.</p>

<p>"Fourthly, although not all of you know people who have had these horrible conversation with Foley, I do. And frankly that gives me all the more reason to speak out. . . .</p>

<p>“Finally, if i have hurt or offended anyone, I am sorry. And I love my page friends and I cherish my relationships with the page program staff, however fracture some of this may have made them. I want you all to know that I truly believe that I’m doing the best that I can do.”

</p>

<p>Clearly the Times was reporting more responsibly. That’s the basis for questioning how ABC reported the story versus other outlets.</p>

[kluge]

<p>Actually, as best I can tell, Strick, this is “about” trying to figure out some way, any way, to blame the liberals, or the Democrats, or the media, or George Soros, or somebody, anybody other than the Republicans for something that happened on their watch, under their noses, and which they elected to keep from the one Democrat who was supposed to share oversight with them.</p>

<p>If you, and Zoos, and Driver didn’t insist on trying desperately to find some thread to attach this to the “other side” it would have died hundreds of posts ago.</p>

<p>So keep it up, OK? I’m not partisan enough to ignore clear evidence, but I am partisan enough to enjoy the show.</p>

[mini]

<p>“This is about punishing the whole Republican party for what one member of Congress did. OK, from what we know, mostly didn’t.”</p>

<p>You got that right! and what the representatives of the party of family values “mostly didn’t”.</p>

[gla]

<p>

Clearly the Times was reporting more responsibly. That’s the basis for questioning how ABC reported the story versus other outlets.

</p>

<p>It seems that the page changed his story between the time he spoke to ABC and when he spoke to the Times and fellow pages. How was ABC less responsible?
We know the Times is a tool of the GOP, however.</p>

[zoosermom]

<p>Kluge, thank you for your continued stalking.</p>

<p>I did mean stopsexpredators and the site has not been consistently up. That is simply not factually correct. I did, however, mistype in an earlier post which I clarified and apologized for immediately.</p>

[DRJ4]

<p>The thing that troubles me with CREW and stopsexpredators.com is the similarity in their timelines. I also have a time issue with ABC of a different kind. Specificially, I think the IMs must have been pre-packaged and ready to give to ABC. As I understand it, ABC claims the IMs were received in response to its report on the Foley emails and that it published a follow-up story a mere 24 hours later. From my inexperienced eye, the following had to occur for ABC to get the IM story out within 24 hours after the Foley email story broke:</p>

<p>One or more former pages had to read about the Foley story at the ABC Blotter or other media; the page(s) had to locate and retrieve their stored IMs and decide who to contact, and they had to actually contact someone tangentially involved in this; and finally they had to transmit the IMs to the journalist. Further, during that same 24 hour time period, journalists working on this story had to review the lengthy IMs and prepare a story. Presumably the story was edited by the editorial staff (perhaps at several layers) and be vetted through a legal process before going to print. </p>

<p>Alternatively, ABC could already have been told about the IMs (but perhaps was not given copies) and thus it was willing to publish because it had additional information and sourcing. Maybe that’s why ABC published when the Florida newspapers wouldn’t.</p>

<p>Overall, this doesn’t pass my smell test but it clearly passes others and the timeframe may be true. I’m not saying I know there is more to this story but I think it is worth looking into. Why do I care? Partly for partisan reasons but also because I care if someone knew about the IMs and let Foley stay in Congress, with access to pages, in order to use it for partisan purposes. If some partisan sat on the IMs for 2 days, no big deal. If they sat on the IMs for 2 weeks or 2 months, very big deal.</p>

[zoosermom]

<p>“If you, and Zoos, and Driver didn’t insist on trying desperately to find some thread to attach this to the “other side” it would have died hundreds of posts ago”</p>

<p>That didn’t happen. I want an investigation. I’ve said that in countless ways and raised questions.</p>

[Strick11]

<p>The Times is a tool of the GOP? :rolling</p>

<p>kluge, I spoke only to the point I raised about ABC’s reporting. Someone asked (you? don’t remember).</p>

<p>What it’s about remains an October Surprise structured, in some ways unfairly, to do the most damage to the Republicans, not address the actions of the individual responsible. Given the politically charged nature of the story, it’s fair to ask the usual questions about October surprises. The ones you’re going to ask when the Republicans unveil theirs this coming Friday. ;)</p>

<p>All that remains is a lot of inuendo and rumor that puts the entire blame on one side of the isle and never once questions the degree to which the other side might also be culpable. If this had occured at a school, I would be just as interested in knowing what the other teachers knew as I was in the Administration’s actions or inactions.</p>

<p>Fair enough, mini, so long as you remember which side is exploiting on the gay thing in this one, too. :)</p>

[gla]

<p>

One or more former pages had to read about the Foley story at the ABC Blotter or other media; the page(s) had to locate and retrieve their stored IMs

This takes about 35 seconds

and decide who to contact, and they had to actually contact someone tangentially involved in this;

takes about 10 minutes to go to the ABC news website

[/quote]
and finally they had to transmit the IMs to the journalist.

[/quote]

About .5 seconds

Further, during that same 24 hour time period, journalists working on this story had to review the lengthy IMs and prepare a story.

about 1 hour

Presumably the story was edited by the editorial staff (perhaps at several layers) and be vetted through a legal process before going to print.

</p>

<p>Maybe 4 hours?</p>

<p>Which leaves about 19 hours to get cappuccinos and have phone sex. :)</p>

[weenie]

<p><a href=“AMHERST,%20N.Y.”>quote</a> - Kirk Fordham has quit his job as chief of staff for the upstate lawmaker embroiled in the scandal that’s rocking House Republicans.</p>

<p>Kirk Fordham has issued a statement saying he resigned today as chief of staff for Congressman Thomas Reynolds of Erie County.

[/quote]
</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.13wham.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=83BA2FDB-5B0E-46B9-943A-71F4F9CC5128[/url]”>http://www.13wham.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=83BA2FDB-5B0E-46B9-943A-71F4F9CC5128&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Forham is the one who called ABC News and tried to convince them to withhold all the emails in exchange for an exclusive story on Foley’s resignation. (Of course, he says he just asked for them to be edited - the ABC reporter Brian Ross claims he wanted them all suppressed.)</p>