Former Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards once claimed that the only way he could lose office is if were found in bed with a live boy or a dead girl. Florida Rep. Mark Foley wasn't found in bed with a live boy, but he did send him some peculiar text messages. He resigned from Congress today. Had Foley been a Massachusetts Democrat instead of a Florida Republican he would have had a better shot at waiting out the scandal.

Hey let's be fair. Scandals have no political colors. Don't do the Hannity thing here and claim that Republicans always get a raw deal on scandals while Democrats always get a "pass". Gary Condit, James Traficant, Jim McGreevy, and Robert Toricelli are but a few of the Democrats who have lost their political seats because of personal scandals. I don't think they got the long end of the stick here, either. (No pun intended, I swear).

Sure, Republicans and Democrats engage in scandalous activities. No argument here. My point is that Gerry Studds found himself embroiled in a far worse scandal with a Congressional page and to this day believes he did nothing wrong. Whereas Foley seems to have sent some seedy emails, Studds took it a step further and apparently introduced the page to homosexual relations. Had Foley been a Democrat, and a Massachusetts Democrat, I don't think he resigns based on what we know now. Perhaps there's more to it than the emails we've seen. Similarly, President Clinton acted indignantly during the Lewinsky scandal whereas Bob Livingstone resigned from Congress when his affair was exposed. I guess what I'm saying is that Democrats and Republicans both do wrong. Increasingly, I find that Democrats act as though their accusers, and not them, are really to blame. This doesn't stand in every instance. But it certainly does with Marion Barry, Sandy Berger, Bill Clinton, Gerry Studds, et cetera.

That's exactly the point Dan. When Republicans do wrong, they know when to leave. The Democrats hold themselves to a lower standard and the jaws-of-life is needed to extract them when they do wrong. They have no shame.

And let's not forget that other stalwart of the Gay Agenda from Massachusetts, Barney Frank, who hired a live in boy toy and paid for his warped aberrant lifestyle using public money. He’s still there. Disgusting.

let's not forget that in 1983 homosexuality isn't as acceptable as it is now, though the revelation was older.

A more important point is to notice how most gay people do not engage in "healthy" relationships even if homosexuality wasn't a perversion to begin with.

Frank's boy toys, not to mention gay prostitution ring run out of his house, Foley and Stubb's abuse of minor, these types of acts are not intrinsic in homosexuality, but appear a lot more frequently.

Yet another reason it shouldn't be normalized.

The timing of this coming out now, shortly before an election, gee ...what a surprise.

"Perhaps there's more to it than the emails we've seen."

I don't know what you've seen, but the stuff posted on Drudge right now is very explicit and completely perverted. Forget resignation. I hope he gets prosecuted to the extent of the law.

Yeah, that stuff wasn't up when I posted. Initially, it was some strange correspondence asking what the page wanted for his birthday and if the page could send him a picture from the beach. Pervy, yes, but my sense is he could have survived that by claiming it was innocent and misinterpreted. The reason I said, "Perhaps there's more to it than the emails we've seen," is that him resigning based on something he could have survived suggested to me that he knew something that the public didn't. The stuff that's now on Drudge--telling a teenager he wanted take off his boxer shorts--is the type of stuff he was undoubtedly confronted with. Unlike asking a kid what he wants for his birthday, asking a kid to take his shorts off is something that a politician loses office over--unless he represent Cape Cod.

Um Dan I think your off your kilter a bit on Mass.

Probably cuz you grew up there or something.

Just cuz every house member is a Democrat doesn't mean that its pedephile-friendly.

That claim is an insult to every victim of pedephilia.

WOW!

WaPo is reporting that the House Leadership KNEW for a year that this guy was a pedephile and took NO ACTION:

"The resignation rocked the Capitol, and especially Foley's GOP colleagues, as lawmakers were rushing to adjourn for at least six weeks. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post last night that he had learned this spring of some "contact" between Foley and a 16-year-old page. Boehner said he told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), and that Hastert assured him "we're taking care of it.""

These Repubs in Congress just can't get anything done anymore!

If they can't even kick a pedephile out of their own ranks how are they gonna protect our nations children from the terrorist predators at home and abroad?

VOTE DEMOCRAT IN 06!

Certainly, being a Democrat doesn't automatically make someone "pedophile friendly".
To make that assumption would be an absurd and narrow minded conclusion. I would expect that being disgusted by the kind of behavior that Foley or Studds demonstrated would be considered disgusting across party lines. The difference is that the Dems are less likely to criticize or take responsibility for that kind of behavior and will typically cover for themselves or their colleagues. This applies to wrongs other than pedophilia as well.

In most cases, Repubs handle unfortunate or difficult events like adults. Dems handle them like children (see Clinton freaking out on Chris Wallace).

And Marcus, abuses of minors are not intrinsic acts of homosexuality? I get your point but any man who's at all sexually interested in another man (or boy) is homosexual. Don't care if he's the giver or the receiver.

HeHe: When I invoke Massachusetts, I am referring to an actual historical event rather than mere speculation (click on the link and you will see what I'm talking about). Gerry Studds was a Congressman from Massachusetts. He bedded a 17-year-old male page, after allegedly giving him alcohol. Both Foley and Studds did wrong, but Studds did worse. His constituents didn't seem to care, and kept re-electing him. So when I say Foley probably wouldn't have had to resign had he been a Massachusetts Democrat, I am referring to precedent--Gerry Studds getting reelected after finding himself in a similar scandal. My sense was that readers would remember this scandal, and if they didn't they would click on the link to see what I was talking about. You should have clicked on the link before you started going off.

The washinton post made it seem like Tom Foley was Tom Tancredo in their story!

"In Congress, Foley pushed bills to deport imprisoned illegal immigrants and to amend the Constitution so that children born in the United States are not automatically citizens."

In reality, Foley got an F- from Americans for immiration for his votes on Amnesty, what bunch of crock.

You're right I shoulda clicked the link. My bad.

I still think his reelection probably had more to do with him personally than his party affiliation.

BTW any bets on the House? 39 days to go. I have dems gaining 8-12, just falling short.

"Claiming to be a man of deep Catholic faith, Foley hasn't shied away from proclaiming his rectitude. "At Sacred Heart, I was taught how to be a better citizen because of their focus on discipline and moral values," he said, referring to the school he attended in Lake Worth, Florida.

Foley also received an 84% approval rating from the Christian Coalition in 2004, the most recent year we could find spur of the moment.

Indeed, Foley made get-tough laws on sexually exploited children -- particularly exploitation over the Internet -- one of his primary crusades in Congress. He was even Co-Chair of the Missing and Exploited Children Caucus.

He also introduced a bill to ban online "child modeling" sites, claiming they are "nothing more than a fix for pedophiles."

"They don't sell products, they don't sell services," he said. "All they serve are young children on a platter for America's most depraved. These sites sell child erotica and they should be banned."

On Bill O'Reilly's show this May, he said, "Our kids are precious. Their lives are vulnerable. The predators are winning as we speak."

Rarely has there been a clearer case of the kind of religious hypocrisy that Jesus condemned so passionately in the Gospels.

Foley rails against the depraved; he is the depraved. Foley attacks the predators; he is a predator.

Our question: where are the denunciations from the religious right? Where is Focus on the Family? Where is the Family Research Council? Do they only care about sexual misconduct when it's committed by a Democrat? The hypocrisy doesn't belong to Foley alone. The hypocrisy belongs to everyone who rails against sexual sin for political purposes then delivers a sermon of silence when the sinner happens to advance a right-wing, Republican agenda."

Bravo.

HeHe: Foley is an open homosexual who supports a right to an abortion. He is (was?) a member of the Main Street Republican Partnership, a group of liberal and moderate Republicans looking to steer the party away from the Right. He represented Palm Beach, Florida, not Cobb County, Georgia. In other words, he was not a conservative--however politically tempting it is to throw that label on him.

The piece you quote--please provide a link to the original--makes it sound as if he were in bed with Pat Robertson (pardon the bad choice of words). In reality, Foley is what many conservative Republicans refer to as a RINO.

"Had Foley been a Massachusetts Democrat instead of a Florida Republican he would have had a better shot at waiting out the scandal." -Dan Flynn

"In other words, he [Foley] was not a conservative--however politically tempting it is to throw that label on him." -Dan Flynn

What are those two quotes together supposed to show, R.C.?

After reading some of the news articles out I'm surprised at how flimsy some elements of this story are and how no one seems to be asking basic questions about the nature of the evidence against Foley.

The journalist who broke the story seems to have had it out for this guy for the past decade:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2509649&page=1

The emails in question show nothing that proves he wrote them. I would question that he would compose emails without basic punctuation and capitalization. And even if he did write the emails, they aren't very telling of anything.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/09/sixteenyearold_.html

The main evidence for the whole story and supposedly his resignation are AOL Instant Messanger logs. I don't think the standard AIM client in 2003 when these conversations supposedly took place logged conversations. The log doesn’t show a date stamp, only a time stamp. The whole log itself is just a html file that can be created or edited by anyone. No ip addresses are linked to either AOL name. Anyone could have logged with Foley’s AIM name from anywhere if they got his password.
http://abcnews.go.com/images/WNT/02-02-03b.pdf

He did resign, but has he admitted any guilt yet? Something stinks to me about this. How many of you log your AIM conversations?

"Rarely has there been a clearer case of the kind of religious hypocrisy that Jesus condemned so passionately in the Gospels.

Foley rails against the depraved; he is the depraved. Foley attacks the predators; he is a predator." -quoted by HeHe

Of course, no one likes a hypocrit. What I am going to say ought not to be construed as a defense of hypocrits generally or Foley specifically.

However, it would seem that this sort of hypocrit is far preferable to the non-hypocrit who is depraved AND rallies for the depraved, who is a predator AND argues that there is nothing wrong with being a predator.

As for Foley's promoting the various legislative measures listed above: what's to gripe about here? It's not like he was writing into the laws special exemptions for himself. Is it not conceivable that, knowing first-hand the evil of pedophilia, etc., he was most knowledgeable regarding the need for such laws? Addicts of all sorts do acknowledge, and might even be the first to acknowledge, the need for tough laws to moderate their vices and to inhibit the formation of vice in others.

Obi, something is definitly strange about this story.

My gut feeling though is that Foley's worse than reported, not that ABC's blackmailing him.

Whenever stuff like this happens it always makes me think: why now? Why is this guy getting outed now, and not years ago? It's not like what he was doing was all that cleverly disguised.

Obviously the election calender is a good motivation for journalists wanting to make a name for themselves.

But I suspect he made some enemies somewhere in high places and this outing is payback for something.

Dan, I don't know this guy was a RHINO but is he really a "practising homosexual"? I haven't seen that in any newsreports or bios.

R.epublican
I.n
N.ame
O.nly

Its easy to say that now.

But what that really means was that he wasn't in the Christian Conservative wing of the party.

He's strongly fiscally conservative, which was (originally) what this party was based on before they sold it to the devil ahem.. I mean "The Christian Right".

He supported CAFTA, the Bush tax cuts, and the war in Iraq.

Club for Growth had his back.

He's not exactly a RHINO in the way a Lincon Chafee or a Sherwood Boehlert.

"He supported CAFTA, the Bush tax cuts, and the war in Iraq."

I would hardly call any of those conservative. I don't like the word RINO, because Republicans who act like Republicans are terrible anyway.

I think it is clear that this story broke now due to political purposes. Whether someone leaked the info to ABC or ABC sat on it for awhile, I don't know, but that's politics, and I don't see anything shocking about it.

I don't log my AIM comments, but I know you could do this in 2003, and If I were engaging in sexually explicit conversations with a congressman, I probably would have logged them. I have no doubt that Foley said that and probably did worse.

I just talked to my dad who is overseas, and he assumed that it was with a boy because he had heard that Foley was gay already, but he noted from the Herald Tribune and USA Today, he couldn't figure out the sex of the boy.

Hehe. Well Marcus that depends on your definition of conservative.

Certainly the old low-tax, free trade, small government conservtives would disagree.

Unfortunaly for America (and the Repubs) these people are giving way to Crazy Christian conservatives who think god ordered them to vote Republican.

I guess to these people Foley is a RHINO.

A practicing Homosexual? Is that like being a practicing Lawyer?

HeHe,

As you are an expert on the Christian Gospels you should recognize that what Foley was doing was "sin" not hypocrisy.

And originally the Republicans were the Hamiltonian party of strong central government, congressional funded internal improvements (the Clay System) and non-expansion of slavery into the territories. That third issue isn't germane to contemporary politics but the first two are the direct opposite of what you claim "original" Republican policy was, pre- the supposed Christian Right takeover.

Who exactly would be an example of the pre-Christian Right Republican which you think Foley was a contemporary representative of? And why is being an economic liberal evidence of conservatism? You seem to need to read more and type less.