<p>As I mentioned before, Rep Studds (MA-D) had a relationship with a Page in the 70s, he admitted it in the 80s and continued to be re-elected until the 90s.</p>
<p>Calmom, thanks for the link. I haven’t read all the posts, but, if those IMs are real, all they show is that someone using that particular username sent them. It’s possible Foley will admit sending them (and maybe that’s already happened) - but - until and unless he does, it’s not a clear case. </p>
<p>I’m remembering a corporate officer resigned in our building a couple of years ago, in the face of accusations from his executive assistant that he was harrassing her by sending her sexually explicit email, and, she produced pages and pages of printed emails that were absolutely disgusting. It took a computer forensics team to finally prove that she either sent them to herself = from his computer - or that she falsified the records (I cannot remember which but it was one or the other). The exec was offered some form of reinstatement but by then his career was derailed. Happily, she went to jail - I think the charge was attempted extortion or something because she was trying to use the guise of sexual harrassment to get money from the company. </p>
<p>My point is that things are not always what they seem - with democrats or republicans - and if he’s not “confessing” to this (and I haven’t seen the news so maybe he has), and if he hasn’t been found guilty by anyone, in my mind, it’s not conclusive. As I understand it, he hasn’t been accused by the young men (though clearly they’re helping), but rather by the challenger for his seat, right? </p>
<p>The information is too sketchy, much of it unsubstantiated, and it’s a bit early to hang him, I’d say.</p>
<p>Um, late? He already resigned. And apologized. I doubt that there’s much ambiguity out there besides details… I appreciate your reluctance to rush to judgment, but I think you can put this one on the shelf and move on at this point.</p>
<p>LTS, he resigned in a very big hurry, which to me suggests that he has something to worry about. From the NY Times article
I’d think that if the IM messages weren’t his, he would have expressed shock, outrage, and denial… not “I’m sorry for letting everyone down.” To me, what he said is a close to an admission of wrongdoing ad you could ever expect.</p>
<p>"ABC News reported Friday that Foley also engaged in a series of sexually explicit instant messages with current and former male pages. In one message, ABC said, Foley wrote to one page: “Do I make you a little horny?” </p>
<p>In another message, Foley wrote, “You in your boxers, too? … Well, strip down and get relaxed.”</p>
<p>Foley, as chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus, had introduced legislation in July to protect children from exploitation by adults over the Internet. He also sponsored other legislation designed to protect minors from abuse and neglect."</p>
<p>His resignation is not where this should end. He is a hypocrite and a very dangerous one at that.</p>
<p>MD, you may have overlooked that Republican Phillip Crane, one of those particularly sanctimonious “moral” Republican Congressmen, had sex with a page at roughly the same time that studs did.</p>
<p>Razorsharp, the Democrats are not the party of no values. There is a difference between a sexual predator of minors like Foley and mutually exploiting consenting adults like Bill & Monica. Hell, to get Bill Clinton back, I’d chip in to pay for his membership in the bimbo of the month club. </p>
<p>Clinton lies under oath about illicit sex. Bush & Co. ruin this country with Iraq. One of them gets impeached. Shows the Republican sense of priorities as to which is more damaging. Someone e-mailed me a bumper sticker that show’s Bush’s photo and says: “Someone give this man a b__w job so we can impeach him.”</p>
<p>Oh, btw, Razorsharp, before you further indulge in high sanctimony about the Republicans being the party of family values and “throwing Foley out,” the Republican leadership in the House has known about the “Foley problem” for 10-11 months. The shoes will be dropping in the media in the next couple of days.</p>
<p>But go ahead and do what Republicans do these days: form up hollow square, keep eyes rigidly front, and ignore the stench behind you that you’re defending under the illusion that the Democrats will be worse.</p>
<p>How about they’re both the parties of no values? Clinton commits genocide - half a million children (“we think it was worth it”), so many dead that there is barely a family in the country without a dead child, and gets reamed for illicit sex. Mr. Sleaze is at best mendacious, at worst clueless, and watches a war victory (with thousands of tons of WMD discovered and destroyed) turn so sour that the vast majority of the occupied – the “liberated”! - approve of killing us, and his contractors (the company that his Veep used to manage) run a cafeteria that serves pork around Muslims three meals a day (anyone remember the Sepoy Mutiny?) And Democrats sit around and politely vote on the acceptable limits of torture like the good little loyal opposition they are, and pontificate about timetables with no times in them, in an impossible fable that only a soothsayer might be able to make sense of. </p>
<p>Works for me. Frankly, the world would likely be a better place if they all spent the bulk of their time sending x-rated messages to Congressional pages.</p>
<p>35 pages of e-mails from Foley to page. So saith a Republican congressman.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060929/NEWS01/309290002/1075[/url]”>http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060929/NEWS01/309290002/1075</a></p>
<p>Snip:
</p>
<p>“Made it to post #59 before a “what about Clinton” on a political thread. Is this a new record?”</p>
<p>I tried at post #15, but we knew it would come 'round sooner or later. </p>
<p>How 'bout Selene Walters?</p>
<p>TD, </p>
<p>Both of these men were immoral. Crane apologized but the voters ousted Crane in the next election as they should have. Studds had the audacity to say there was nothing wrong in his relationship with the page as they were both adults (pages are 16-17 hs juniors) and he was in office for roughly another decade.</p>
<p>Note: It was Dan Crane, not Phillip Crane, who had sex with a female page.
<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Crane[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Crane</a></p>
<p>The age of consent in Washington D.C. appears to be 16:
<a href=“http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm[/url]”>http://www.avert.org/aofconsent.htm</a></p>
<p>It is somewhat complicated because at the time of the Studds scandal, a law prohibiting sodomy was still on the books. (Studds was gay and apparently had an ongoing relationship with a male page)</p>
<p>So, based on comments from my CC friends of the liberal persuasion, should I assume that you believe that there is something unique to Republican pedophiles? That only the GOP members of government can behave in immoral ways? That seems to be the point of this thread. Your logic seems to be:</p>
<p>Person X does something bad,
Person X is a member of Group A
Therefore, all members of Group A are bad.</p>
<p>I enjoy debate, but when people make these leaps of judgement, I don’t get it. I don’t think any conservative anywhere – on CC or in real life – would condone the behavior of Foley. Why do people persist in trying to paint all Republicans with this brush? </p>
<p>This is a difference that I see between liberals and conservatives, and I admit that I see this from the conservative viewpoint. My opinion is that conservatives talk about specific political actions of liberals with which they disagree, and the liberals try to find ways to say that all conservatives are bad people. I know the liberals here won’t agree, but that’s my view after spending a number of years on CC.</p>
<p>I’m not clear about what some of you are saying by bringing up the Crane and Studds incidents. Are you saying that if one of them was re-elected twenty years ago, that Foley should have stayed in Congress too and been re-elected?</p>
<p>And latetoschool, I applaud you for witholding judgment until the facts are in, but I think if you check the news, you will see that more facts are in than you have seen yet. It was not, as you said, his campaign opponent who accused him at all. (BTW, when being careful to wait for facts, you might want to be careful which “facts” you assume.) According to ABC News, the matter was apparently brought to light by another page, who reported it to another Republican member of Congress, who reported it to the authorities. The FBI has been looking into this for more than 2 months, according to ABC. That is probably why they knew so quickly what his IM screen name was. </p>
<p>Facts are facts. But common sense is common sense. When the House Republican leadership recommended that Foley resign on the very day the stuff comes out in the paper, it’s pretty obvious there was more to it than just charges from his opponent.</p>
<p>SJMom, I agree with the first part of your post. </p>
<p>As to the difference between liberals and conservatives, are you oblivious to the fact that your claim that “liberals try to find ways to say that all conservatives are bad people” is an example of a conservative (you) finding a way to say that all liberals are bad people?</p>
<p>I don’t mean to single you out - you’re hardly alone. A favorite pastime of the CC righties is lecturing us all on the universal moral and intellectual failings of “liberals.”</p>
<p>I didn’t say or imply that liberals are bad people. I said that they seem to find ways to label all conservatives as such. I characterized a behavior I’ve observed – that’s not the same as labeling libs as bad. I don’t have any problem with people decrying behavior or actions of individuals or policies of groups. But I get tired of people mixing those two things up. </p>
<p>Usually, when I get this irritable with CC, it’s time for a break. :(</p>
<p>Who made this a “political” issue? I thought this was a good scandal worthy of Tabloid News: Sex, underage, pedophiles, voyeurism, very descriptive emails, pontifications, fetishes, FBI, ethics, oh darn my spell checker doesn’t list the words that I want to write or the computer filter is set too high. </p>
<p>Since this guy was not too “descrete” and of high position, I wonder if Home Land Security is jeopardized? If the Leadership of our Congress knew of this problem, WE got a problem, regardless of political parties.</p>
<p>ITM – the title of the thread made this a political issue.</p>
<p>Ok.
Apparently, I didn’t view Foley’s and our National interests as a political issue but as concern of all Americans, as good parents would no doubt agree?</p>
<br>
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<p>Saying that a group of people do bad things is not the same as saying they are bad people? Wow, that’s a distinction without a difference if I ever saw one. That reasoning says that there is no such thing as any bad people anywhere - only people who do bad things. How do we define good and bad people separately from their actions?</p>
<p>Kluge is right. You fail to see the irony of doing the very thing that you accuse liberals of doing.</p>
<p>Happy to bash Clinton since I have a teenage daughter:</p>
<p>Consenting adults or not, a 21(?) year old staffer giving the President of the United States a blow job while he’s sitting at his desk is wrong. That was the proverbial tip of the iceberg.</p>
<p>My 18 year old daughter was a young girl while Clinton’s sexual exploits and lies were broadcast on the nightly news. The current teenagers learned from the President of their country that oral sex was not sex. Now these same teens engage in oral sex and claim it is not sex! The “good” girls give the boys oral sex and can still retain their virginity.</p>
<p>Bill Clinton singlehandedly lowered the morality of an entire generation of Americans. And lets not forget the global humiliation.</p>
<p>Oh, then there’s the lack of reaction to the bombing of the USS Cole, the snafus in Somalia, embassy bombings…Mini, I’m sure you can add to this list.</p>