<p>Barrons:
Legal age in D.C. is 16, so no question about that. ABC saqys messages were to Blogger both before and after he was 18. But I am glad that somebody on this board has the courage to stick up for Foley.</p>
<p>How come Foley, Hastert and Reynolds all shared the same gay chief of staff? Is this why Alexander went firtst to Reynolds with the emails? I always thought it was about campaign money.</p>
<p>Be careful with the word “shared”. (Recipe sharing belongs in the other forum.)</p>
<p>Mini:
what is a better word? Used?</p>
<p>gla, one legal expert menitoned that age of consent of where ever the page is applies to interstate communications. That makes the question of whether he was of age more interesting if the page were home when the exchange took place, or, heaven help us in any of the suburbs surrounding the District.</p>
<p>“Used” the same gay chief of staff? Let’s avoid that one, too.</p>
<p>BTW, how dare those intolerant Republicans have gay staff like that.</p>
<p>This is interesting (age of consent) only to the extent that one wishes to exonerate Foley. I applaud the GOP flaks for sticking up for him. I think the more interesting question is whether or not the leadership covered up his behavior. Are they arguing that they took no action because Foley’s sexually predatory messages were not illegal?</p>
<p>They’re certainly arguing that the nature and extent of his actions wasn’t clear from the information they had. It would certainly argue in favor of not acting if the page turned out to be of legal age.</p>
<p>What would you expect the general reaction to be if the public found out that House leaders were disciplining a member for gay sex between consenting adults? Heck, I’d be outraged.</p>
<p>And that last phrase turns this into a sexual harrassment issue, far from what so many outraged people are attempting to portray it. Much more like that other famous situation in which a politician had sex with a subordinate. You know the one.</p>
<p>The House treated that differently because of the perjury involved, but hey, who says they can’t learn to mind their own business about the sex lives of consenting adults?</p>
<p>Strick:
My point is that they never investigated anything having to do with L’affaire Foley. The Speaker can’t remember if anyone told him about it, no one else read the emails they passed on to someone else. I guess they are saying I didn’t know anything and if I did what I knew was unclear and anyway it was someone elses business and probably Bill Clinton’s fault.</p>
<p>“from the information they had”- </p>
<p>reading the emails might have been a start, don’tchathink?</p>
<p>“When was the last time the federal budget had a surplus that resulted in the deficit diminishing?”</p>
<p>0 When dinosaurs roamed the earth
0 When men wore a lot fewer clothes at work
0 When we conveniently piled the bills under the rug
0 When smoke and mirrors reigned supreme
0 All of the above</p>
<p>Oh, TheDad have you checked your stock portfolio and retirement plan lately? Care to compare 2000 and 2006? Wouldn’t you have loved to project the same “growth” from 2000 all the way to today and applaud an even bigger of “pile of stench” as you call it with recurring glee. </p>
<p>Oh yeah, it’s the economy, stupid! Funny how the people who benefitted the most from a bigger deficit–and the drunken sailor spending of a government at war–forget to applaud the avoidance of a total collapse in those insignificant industries such as real estate. </p>
<p>Would we not sit ever so pretty on a gigantic Gore-like lockbox as we blow through empty buildings …</p>
<p>So many targets, which to choose… Let me just say the real estate market is going to be getting very ugly very quickly. And, yes, I’ll take 1995-2000 over the past six years.</p>
<p>ZM, I think the outing of the page’s name is reprehensible too.</p>
<p>“My point is that they never investigated anything having to do with L’affaire Foley.”</p>
<p>And my point is that they should think hard before they investigate the sex lives of any consenting adults, especially gays where even angels fear to tread. Even if it resulted from inactions, how often is that all tolerance really is anyway?</p>
<p>Think about it. This is a college board. We send our consenting adults off to colleges. Do we want the equivalent of the House leadership, college administrations, sticking their noses into our adult children’s sex life? Some might, but honestly, do you really believe those people are the ones crowing with delight this consenting adult sex scandal has hit the Republicans?</p>
<p>There’s no irony that Republicans were trying to stay out of gay consent adult’s bedrooms and Democrats are outraged they didn’t?</p>
<p>Not to mention that this never appears to have even reached the point of sexual contact. </p>
<p>I’m disgusted, and not only with Foley.</p>
<p>Strick
Why are you disgusted with Foley?
Because he resigned after doing nothing wrong?</p>
<p>I would be more than a little concerned if one of my childs Proffessors were writing naughty emails to him.</p>
<p>And spending $40,000,000 to investigate whether or not the President got a blow-job taught us something I guess.</p>
<p>“And my point is that they should think hard before they investigate the sex lives of any consenting adults, especially gays where even angels fear to tread. Even if it resulted from inactions, how often is that all tolerance really is anyway?”</p>
<p>I actually agree with you. The job of the Speaker, which apparently he didn’t do, was to see, based on his “intimate” knowledge of Foley over a ten-year period, that 16- and 17-year-old pages, for whom the House had agreed to act “en loco parentis”, were protected from the PFV perv’s advances. </p>
<p>He can’t even remember if he was told, no less whether the House had acted to protect them. Now it is not strange that a 64-year-old man should be sinking into senility, and I hope he seeks the help of a competent neurologist.
And I can well understand why he would like to forget, and I expect most members of the Party of the Clueless, placed in that same position, might have acted similarly, and been equally forgetful.</p>
<p>But they didn’t have the opportunity.</p>
<p>Now it’s time for a spanking.</p>
<p>That $40M dealt with a lot of other Presidential scandals besides the perjury case that cost the former President a heavy fine and his law license for 5 years, if I recall correctly. Some folks are good at concealing their tracks.</p>
<p>Of course you’d be concerned if a professor were sexually harrassing your college age child. And if it’s true that these pages were above the age of consent, that’s what this becomes, a serious breach against house rules of sexual harrassment. Foley should be disciplined for that alone. I’d even consider taking Hasert to task for failing to investigate if there’s evidence of such harrassment that was ignored. </p>
<p>But not for failing to get into gay consenting adults’ sex lives.</p>
<p>I agree there is plenty of irony in that. It is part of what makes the obvious politicization of this so disgusting.
I wonder how many school principals and district superintendents resign when one of their teachers have committed ephebophilia?<br>
Recently it was revealed to our town’s citizens that many people at our middle school had suspicions about a teacher for years. Parents complained. Finally the principal contacted the police and they searched his personal things, including his computers, and found evidence that he was filming his young female students from from behind his desk and posting the pictures on the internet.
He was removed from his position. In fact this case was unusual, because normally we are not even told when a teacher or school employee is dismissed for attentions to his/her students. The dismissals are handled very quietly.
Do you think the superintendent resigned, or even the principal of the building? Don’t make me laugh.
Hastert should stand firm and not resign.</p>
<p>Principals are absolutely unequivocably held to task for not reporting alleged sexual abuse or overtures.</p>
<p>I know personally of such a case, where both the principal and the superintendent resigned (or were forced out, but resigned to safe face), because information had come from parents of alleged victims, and the principal didn’t act quickly enough on the information.</p>
<p>Well, that’s good to hear, AM. It does not happen in my town. Absolutely unequivocably NOT.</p>
<p>HH, I know some bad stuff went down with your school and alleged abuse, or so I have intimated from your posts. I am so sorry you went through whatever it was. </p>
<p>I am not saying that principals act in the best interest of the students everywhere or every time. But I know of at least two cases where there was reprimand or demotion (or firing) as a result of not reporting this information.</p>
<p>So is everyone waiting eagerly for Hastert’s press conference to begin?</p>