Media/Democrats Trying To Bash Entire GOP Party With Foley Mess

• October 1, 2006

Here it comes.
As I’ve stated before, I really don’t think this matter with Foley necessarily reflects poorly on anyone outside of Foley himself. As much as the Democrats and their allies in the media might want to blow this up into some giant Republican scandal, I just don’t think the actions one Republican politician can be used to criticize the GOP as a whole.
Here’s why:

What he did wasn’t illegal. In Washington D.C. the age of consent is 16.
The boy’s parents contacted Republican leadership in Congress to alert them of the problem, but didn’t want the matter to go any further than that.

Given that Foley didn’t break any laws, and that the boy’s family didn’t want the matter to go any further, what could Republican leadership have done? I’m positive they were probably a bit mortified and creeped out by their colleague’s leisure-time activities, but outside of getting him to stop bugging this kid what were they going to do? Ask him to resign? That would have gone against the family’s wishes who just wanted the incident to be over.
And let’s not forget that this sordid incident isn’t all that different from Bill Clinton getting a hummer in the oval office. Both instances involved inappropriate, but completely legal, sexual contact (in Clinton’s case physical, in Foley’s case simply electronic) between a politician and a subordinate. In Clinton’s case Democrats defended this inappropriate infidelity. In Foley’s case, he immediately resigned.
I’m not going to defend what Foley did. I find it repugnant. But neither am I going to sit idly by and watch Democrats try to turn this into a campaign issue. That’s just plain ridiculous.

Tags: Politics

http://Array robert108

Foley’s indiscretion doesn’t reflect on the Republican party but the inability to candidly explain how the party handled the matter certainly could and thus would be a legitimate election issue.

Style over substance.
one eyed jack

Rob- the Republicans will certianly lose in the court of public opinion unless they vigorously censoe all R leaders who knew Foley was a pedophile and was pestering pages.

You want to hunker down and blame others for raising a public outcry. Hunkering didn’t work for the Catholic church, and its the wrong thing for the House Republicans to do.
MikeAdamson

While Foley’s conduct may or may not have been illegal it was certainly foolish for a politician to put himself in such a position,typically foolish for a political party to turn a blind eye and hope it would pass undetected and unpublicised and doubly foolish for the party to bungle its handling of the case as the facts emerge.

Foley’s indiscretion doesn’t reflect on the Republican party but the inability to candidly explain how the party handled the matter certainly could and thus would be a legitimate election issue.
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

You compared this to the Lewinksy affair.

As far as I know this Foley never committed perjury over his emails. Clinton did.

That is the difference.
Pilgrim

This whole thing is the perfect red herring for the demos. It WILL be a distraction from the real issues. This little gift was delivered to the left all tied up with ribbons.

At this point damage control is the best the right can do. This is ammunition the left will use for all it’s worth.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

One eyed Jack, Foley was a creepy old man…but he wasn’t a pedophile under the law.

Mike:

the inability to candidly explain how the party handled the matter certainly could and thus would be a legitimate election issue.

You might find this interesting:

Reportedly the St Pete Times had the same information in August 2005 and wrote nothing about it either, apparently because the emails do not constitute illegal conduct, they are just creepy, and the boy’s parents did not wish to pursue this.

The far more damaging IM messages were released by CREW , the same “public interest” group which is representing the Wilson/Plames in their laughable suit against Cheney, et al.

When did they get the IM’s? Why did they wait until now to release them? Is there any indication the Republicans who looked into THIS MATTER had any knowledge of their(the IM’s) existence.

Pardon an old lady’s suspicions. I’ve seen this dance too many times before.

More here.

I, personally, will not be surprised to hear plenty of leftists like you, Mike, try to turn this into a campaign issue to draw attention away from the terrorism/national security issue where Democrats are clearly losing.

SayAnythingBlog.com

Media/Democrats Trying To Bash Entire GOP Party With Foley Mess

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