The Spectator article is bullshit. Get real.

Just read your post on it. Good points.

So I'm poking around on ANews and as wonderful as it is I think you need to give it more sexytimeexplosion, if you know what I mean. for instance instead of running the piece involving poor timing on a freaky nasty pedaphile hick,(...not sexy), how's about a little somzing about the Rep canidate in Wisconsin that banged the all of the Green Bay Packers of the 60's.(now your talkin sexy!) I understand that the whole sex with boys thing plays well with your republican audience, I just think you should make like JT and bring some sexy back.

Yours truly,

#2

I can't believe that anybody is upset by this "scandal."

Jack Davis may well be the most conservative Democrat running for Congress in the Northeast.
But for Abortion and his being a Democrat, I have no real problem with him.

Whether our trade policy will be run by treaties or Congress is not an issue that greatly concerns me this year.

Platform 2006
1. I promise to support, defend and serve The People of the 26th District and the country.
2. Getting re-elected will not be my priority, doing what is best for America will be.
3. I will fight to save jobs, farms, and industries.
4. I will fight to cancel all free trade agreements and promote balanced trade.
5. I am for a strong national defense and I support the troops in Iraq. We should start bringing the troops home, but we should not set a date for complete withdrawal.
6. I will not raise income taxes.
7. I will spend your tax dollars as if they were my own.
8. I will balance the federal budget by putting Americans back to work and cutting pork.
9. No amnesty for illegal aliens and seal the borders.
10. I will take the lead in reducing the cost of health care and prescription medicines.
11. I will work to reduce the high costs of energy.
12. I support elimination of the Death Tax.

Well, here's the deal: don't do the crime if you're not willing to make your party do the time.

Who knows how this will shake out? At this point, the "c'mon, they may be underage, but NOT REALLY, if you get my drift" spin doesn't seem to be getting all the traction that the GOP might want. Frankly, I'm glad, but that should come as no surprise.

If you don't want the Democrats to air your dirty laundry at an inconvenient moment, then you shouldn't have dirty laundry. Not that dirty, at least.

To me, the fact that Foley did what he did is much, much much more worthy of outrage than whatever role the Democrats played in exposing it. Disagree?

The sad part is that if the Page's were in danger the democrats kept them in danger for months for political purposes. It has already been stated that if you knew about it and covered it up you are out of there. How many democrats will take the perp walk this week? The guys in the pin stripe suits are shaking the trees and asking lots of questions and the Media types are telling all they know and when they knew it. Funny thing is they all name the same source, democratic operatives. Next we will know the names or someone will visit the motel of many bars.

What makes me laugh about this is how the moonbats are always outraged about "Karl Rove's October Surprise" and how they're always "question[ing] the timing".

I guess it's fodder for outrage when they imagine the Republicans have staged a scandal, but "all's fair in love and war" when the GOP is on the receiving end. But we're used to hypocracy from the left.

My own opinion is sixteen isn't an unreasonable "age of consent", and I'm not horrified by what Foley did. Then again, I'm more from the libertarian wing than the social conservative. I will say I'm surprised the actions of one man are hurting the GOP so badly when there is so much other stuff you could be mad at them for.

Personally, I think the polls reflect the online gambling ban. Yeah, that's it.

Foley's actions are hurting the GOP because everyone who should have done something to remove him from positions such as committees to protect children PROBABLY knew about his antics. And their denial is not convincing. Was it timed?, PROBABLY. But sitting on it for a couple of months is no worse than your own party ignoring it for years and years. When you admonish one president for dalliances with women, you'd better apply that yardstick to your own.
Timing of announcements is always gonna come in for some stick. What about all the pre-election terror alerts of the past 5 years. Pot calls the kettle and all that.

I've read about as much as anyone on this subject, and I'm convinced that this scandal was deliberately timed. This was not something new and out-of-the-blue...the Dems knew about this a long time ago.The folks who had the emails between the page and Foley had them since February...why release them now?
When I go to the voting booth on election day, I will continue to support my party. We've done too many good things (economy, job growth, opportunities, war on terror, conservative SC appointments) to give it all up to a party that has many members just as sleazy and disgusting as Foley. Do you "disgusted" Repubs really want Pelosi as Speaker Of The House, and Dingy Harry in charge of the Senate? Do you really want Hillary's and Bill's butt-buddies running things again?
Yes, what Foley did was inexcusable...but I'm not willing to give up what we have now in a fit of indignation and pique.

But what is there to be "outraged" about? He had consentual cybersex with an 18-year-old.

This is a pedophilia scandal without pedophilia, and a sex scandal without sex.

Scrapiron, it's disappointing that you find the sad part of this whole affair to be the fact that Democrats may have sat on the info. You are, in essence, more outraged by the partisan machinations than you are by the sexual predation of teenagers.

To me, the sad part is that Foley's predatory actions took place at all. I don't care about the political affiliation; the key here is what HE did.

Maybe you don't have kids, and it doesn't hit you the same way it hits a parent.

I mostly agree with Dorian - the only law that plausibly may have been broken was the online bill that Foley passed. But even if there wasn't a law that was broken, there is the element of someone in a position of power potentially misusing that power over someone much younger.

As for timing, wasn't there a gab between when news outlets discovered the e-mails and when folks discovered the IMs? Making public statements against Foley with the e-mails and capitol hill gossip alone would almost certainly have resulted in exposure to civil liability.

You're right Dorian. We accept this kind of smarminess all the time when it is a significantly older gentleman and a young woman. How long was Strom Thurmond in office? How many of these 'scandals' did he have to endure?

Dorian, if it had been anybody but Foley, I'd buy your arguments. However, Foley was instrumental in turning the very things he did into federal crimes. He's a poster child (sorry, couldn't resist) for the preening, privileged, hypocritical oligarchy which is our incredibly efficiently gerrymandered Congress.

Fleeing responsibility by blaming the bottle and dropping out of public sight is just the perfect final twist to a perfectly twisted story.

And like it or not, Republicans who claimed to want to change the nature of Congressional politics twelve years ago have instead become protectors of the status quo.

If you can vote for a good guy, do so. If you can campaign for a quality Republican, by all means knock yourself out. But personally, I'm not going to cry any tears for the Hasterts’ and the Frists’ should they lose their majorities, especially if keeping those majorities means keeping other Foleys. The Republican leadership has earned this loss fair and square.

Mark-

It is not a crime to have consentual cybersex with a younger man.

As I understand it, it is a crime if the young man was 17 years and 364 days old, but not if he was 18 years old.

But what do I know, I'm only a 13 year old girl just getting comfortable with my changing body....

But my point is Foley is emblematic of exactly the kind of nanny-state Republicanism that has driven this injun off the reservation.

And no, Karol, I don't expect the Democrats to be better. I'm just hoping to have better Republicans running in 2008, and that won't happen if the hogs currently at the trough aren't pushed aside.

Look and see what Mark Foley had to say about Clinton on Sept 12th 1998. I think it only fair to practice what you preach.