Well by now we’ve all heard of Mark Foley, the Congressman from Florida who was also the co-chairman
of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus. Among the things Foley has
accomplished during that time was the writing of laws that would protect children from online predators. He
even went so far as to say publicly that any one who was found guilty of sexually preying on a minor should
have all legal rights taken away. Well, for any of you living in a cave or avoiding national news what has
happened is Foley has resigned because of inappropriate sexual advances towards a male teen
Congressional page through e-mails and instant messages.
In a blatant attempt to deflect the scrutiny he is currently facing, Mark Foley has announced in a letter that
he is going into an alcoholic rehab center. He's putting himself across as a victim of the very laws and
protections that he helped write. He's the "crusader" when it comes to championing for children's safety
and rights. He has also been heard, when it comes to child predators, that they are "sickos," but what
does this make him? After all it's a safe bet that he was masturbating while he was IMing the 16 year old
boy. Doesn't this constitute cybersex? After all, during the explicit IM that Foley got busted for he even
asked the 16 year old about how he likes to masturbate! I don't know about you, but this certainly
constitutes as cybersex to me!!!
On top of all of this, there is a transcript where Foley rewarded one of them with a "lunch date" and also
drove them (cruise?) around DC. Does anyone see the unhealthiness in all of this??? As for his so called
alcoholism, all alcohol does is lower a person's inhibitions, not cause people to do something that is
outside of their true nature. So, if Foley is using alcohol as his excuse then he's pretty much admitting that
he felt this way towards the pages in the first place!
Now, shall we talk about another double standard? The neo-con movement, which has been notoriously
anti-gay, has all of a sudden become rather Politically Correct. There have been rumors regarding Mark
Foley's sexuality for years. Let's face it, the man has been single (never married), and has been the
subject of scrutiny and people have tried to "out" him for years. As a result, just last week Newt Gingrich,
said on Fox News that he has been the subject of "gay bashing." WHAT??????????????????
Now, the right-wing nuts are going to try to bring up the flaws and errors committed by Congressman Gary
Studs, Barney Frank, and of course, President Clinton.
We know what Bill did. There is no need to rehash it. Now I will be the first to say that I do not approve of
what Clinton did with Monica Lewinsky. However, one important fact is that Monica was a legal adult. It
was wrong and inappropriate of Clinton to do what he did, but it was not illegal and it was hardly an
impeachable offense.
Congressman Gary Studs (who was outed as gay) had sex with a 17 year old page. What differentiates
this is that the page later defended Studs when he was in his 20's in front of Congress. The page Foley
was corresponding with has not defended him at all. In fact the young man’s parents didn’t want to pursue
the matter purely as a matter of privacy. Foley was not defended like Studs.
Barney Frank had a boyfriend who was turning tricks in his house. It was wrong and inappropriate, but
again it was not against any child predator laws.
How are these instances separate from Mark Foley?
What Foley did was to help create laws to protect children from predators, to prop himself up as a the
champion and political guardian for kids, and yet he gets caught himself, guilty of the very indecency that
the current Republicans and evangelical Christians blame people like me for. Oh yes, those people on the
“not so right” really put themselves across as being holier than thou, incapable of committing such
despicable acts because they have God and morality on their side. Now they will exercise the “spin
machine” in a desperate, but futile, attempt to try and cover their collective asses and try to repair the
ongoing damage happening to the entire Republican leadership.
The few examples (Clinton, Studs, and Frank) that I listed above will be the means that the Republicans
will use to attack us. This is their tactic. In order to defend themselves they will attack us and try to put the
spotlight on the Democrats. However, the differences are really quite clear between Foley and these
instances that the neo-cons will try to bring up. It is nonetheless important for all of us to know what “the
other side” is going to say so that we can be prepared to respond to their lies.
Adding insult to injury is what we’re now learning in how far back this has been going on. We’re now
learning that there are pages who are coming forth from as far back as 2001 reporting that there was a
problem with Congressman Foley. One page on ABC News even stated that he had told others about
Foley’s behavior and warned them to steer clear of him. Nonetheless he made a point of seeking out the
young males pages and would befriend them in what could only be deemed as highly inappropriate. As a
result Foley was somewhat reprimanded, told to treat all pages equally, professionally and to stop being
“overly friendly” with them. Now, if all of the pages knew about Foley’s aberrant behavior, if Mark Foley had
been told to curb his “enthusiastic” friendliness with the pages, wouldn’t it also be safe to assume that the
other politicians on Capitol Hill knew of his sexual activities as well??? And then, to top it all off, after
probably knowing about Foley’s behavior and practices, they went ahead and auctioned off a lunch date
for a page with FOLEY HIMSELF!!! So, not only do we have Foley becoming a child predator, not only do
we have fellow Republican Congressmen enabling this through their actions, but now they’re denying it
and pointing fingers as to each while each one saying, “I didn’t know anything about this! This is the first I’
m hearing about it!!!” Does anyone else see the scandal? What’s even worse is that a new instant
message transcript just came to light where Foley wanted to take a former page on a dinner date. The
young man informed him that he couldn’t do that until he was 17 whereupon Foley started pressing him
with questions like, “What will we do after dinner?” When Foley kept pushing the questions the young man
responded with “you’re fishing, aren’t you?” Again, doesn’t anyone else here see the scandal???
Now, what is making this tons of fun are the different stories that are coming out of Capitol Hill in regards
to who knew what and when did they know it. It's absolutely beautiful, and yet not at all surprising, that Tom
Reynolds, Dennis Hastert (among others) are all telling different stories as to when this information came
to light. Hastert has stated that he only found out about this recently, yet there are other people coming
forward saying that they reported this to Hastert as far back as 2005. Classic cover-up!!! To make this
even funnier is that the White House has simply addressed this as “naughty e-mail.” Do they honestly think
that they’ll be able to sell this to the American Public???
of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus. Among the things Foley has
accomplished during that time was the writing of laws that would protect children from online predators. He
even went so far as to say publicly that any one who was found guilty of sexually preying on a minor should
have all legal rights taken away. Well, for any of you living in a cave or avoiding national news what has
happened is Foley has resigned because of inappropriate sexual advances towards a male teen
Congressional page through e-mails and instant messages.
In a blatant attempt to deflect the scrutiny he is currently facing, Mark Foley has announced in a letter that
he is going into an alcoholic rehab center. He's putting himself across as a victim of the very laws and
protections that he helped write. He's the "crusader" when it comes to championing for children's safety
and rights. He has also been heard, when it comes to child predators, that they are "sickos," but what
does this make him? After all it's a safe bet that he was masturbating while he was IMing the 16 year old
boy. Doesn't this constitute cybersex? After all, during the explicit IM that Foley got busted for he even
asked the 16 year old about how he likes to masturbate! I don't know about you, but this certainly
constitutes as cybersex to me!!!
On top of all of this, there is a transcript where Foley rewarded one of them with a "lunch date" and also
drove them (cruise?) around DC. Does anyone see the unhealthiness in all of this??? As for his so called
alcoholism, all alcohol does is lower a person's inhibitions, not cause people to do something that is
outside of their true nature. So, if Foley is using alcohol as his excuse then he's pretty much admitting that
he felt this way towards the pages in the first place!
Now, shall we talk about another double standard? The neo-con movement, which has been notoriously
anti-gay, has all of a sudden become rather Politically Correct. There have been rumors regarding Mark
Foley's sexuality for years. Let's face it, the man has been single (never married), and has been the
subject of scrutiny and people have tried to "out" him for years. As a result, just last week Newt Gingrich,
said on Fox News that he has been the subject of "gay bashing." WHAT??????????????????
Now, the right-wing nuts are going to try to bring up the flaws and errors committed by Congressman Gary
Studs, Barney Frank, and of course, President Clinton.
We know what Bill did. There is no need to rehash it. Now I will be the first to say that I do not approve of
what Clinton did with Monica Lewinsky. However, one important fact is that Monica was a legal adult. It
was wrong and inappropriate of Clinton to do what he did, but it was not illegal and it was hardly an
impeachable offense.
Congressman Gary Studs (who was outed as gay) had sex with a 17 year old page. What differentiates
this is that the page later defended Studs when he was in his 20's in front of Congress. The page Foley
was corresponding with has not defended him at all. In fact the young man’s parents didn’t want to pursue
the matter purely as a matter of privacy. Foley was not defended like Studs.
Barney Frank had a boyfriend who was turning tricks in his house. It was wrong and inappropriate, but
again it was not against any child predator laws.
How are these instances separate from Mark Foley?
What Foley did was to help create laws to protect children from predators, to prop himself up as a the
champion and political guardian for kids, and yet he gets caught himself, guilty of the very indecency that
the current Republicans and evangelical Christians blame people like me for. Oh yes, those people on the
“not so right” really put themselves across as being holier than thou, incapable of committing such
despicable acts because they have God and morality on their side. Now they will exercise the “spin
machine” in a desperate, but futile, attempt to try and cover their collective asses and try to repair the
ongoing damage happening to the entire Republican leadership.
The few examples (Clinton, Studs, and Frank) that I listed above will be the means that the Republicans
will use to attack us. This is their tactic. In order to defend themselves they will attack us and try to put the
spotlight on the Democrats. However, the differences are really quite clear between Foley and these
instances that the neo-cons will try to bring up. It is nonetheless important for all of us to know what “the
other side” is going to say so that we can be prepared to respond to their lies.
Adding insult to injury is what we’re now learning in how far back this has been going on. We’re now
learning that there are pages who are coming forth from as far back as 2001 reporting that there was a
problem with Congressman Foley. One page on ABC News even stated that he had told others about
Foley’s behavior and warned them to steer clear of him. Nonetheless he made a point of seeking out the
young males pages and would befriend them in what could only be deemed as highly inappropriate. As a
result Foley was somewhat reprimanded, told to treat all pages equally, professionally and to stop being
“overly friendly” with them. Now, if all of the pages knew about Foley’s aberrant behavior, if Mark Foley had
been told to curb his “enthusiastic” friendliness with the pages, wouldn’t it also be safe to assume that the
other politicians on Capitol Hill knew of his sexual activities as well??? And then, to top it all off, after
probably knowing about Foley’s behavior and practices, they went ahead and auctioned off a lunch date
for a page with FOLEY HIMSELF!!! So, not only do we have Foley becoming a child predator, not only do
we have fellow Republican Congressmen enabling this through their actions, but now they’re denying it
and pointing fingers as to each while each one saying, “I didn’t know anything about this! This is the first I’
m hearing about it!!!” Does anyone else see the scandal? What’s even worse is that a new instant
message transcript just came to light where Foley wanted to take a former page on a dinner date. The
young man informed him that he couldn’t do that until he was 17 whereupon Foley started pressing him
with questions like, “What will we do after dinner?” When Foley kept pushing the questions the young man
responded with “you’re fishing, aren’t you?” Again, doesn’t anyone else here see the scandal???
Now, what is making this tons of fun are the different stories that are coming out of Capitol Hill in regards
to who knew what and when did they know it. It's absolutely beautiful, and yet not at all surprising, that Tom
Reynolds, Dennis Hastert (among others) are all telling different stories as to when this information came
to light. Hastert has stated that he only found out about this recently, yet there are other people coming
forward saying that they reported this to Hastert as far back as 2005. Classic cover-up!!! To make this
even funnier is that the White House has simply addressed this as “naughty e-mail.” Do they honestly think
that they’ll be able to sell this to the American Public???
| Guest Column 10/03/06 Ben adresses the Mark Foley issue |
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