Drudge is reporting that the seedy instant messages between ex-Rep. Mark Foley and congressional pages were the result of a joke that spiraled out of control. "[Jordan] Edmund, a conservative Republican, goaded an unwitting Foley to type embarrassing comments that were then shared with a small group of young Hill politicos," Drudge reports. "The prank went awry when the saved IM sessions got into the hands of political operatives favorable to Democrats." The bad news for Foley? Some eager prosecutor, rather than Ashton Kutcher, may be the one telling him that he got punk'd.

Yeah I caught that too.

Really makes a lot of sense. You know resigning over something you know is a joke. Then claiming you're an alcoholic and a priest abused you.

WOW.

YOU REPUBS ARE DESPERATE!!!!!

I don't think Foley ever knew it was a joke, HeHe. The students, like most political people in Washington, knew Foley was gay and tried to bait him into saying creepy stuff. Ethically, I don't think this changes things much from Foley's standpoint. When a predator goes online, it doesn't make him less of a predator when the person at the other computer is an undercover cop and not a child. Even if the kids were interested in playing a joke on Foley, and not letting him play with them, it changes neither Foley's intentions nor the fact that he was saying these things to pages. Sorry that the scandal isn't coming out the way you would have written the script.

Ok.

And the message

"I really miss you since San Diego"

and

"Maybe we should drink at my place so we don't get caught"

That was the prank? They hung out with Foley, got drunk, and did god knows what else. AS A PRANK??

1.) Meeting up with someone in San Diego in such a way that he "misses" you later isn't a prank.

2. If it was, Foley would have known about it cuz the kids wouldn't have shown.

Your missing the fact that these online conversations talk about real-world contact.

I agree, it doesn't change anything in regards to what Foley did, it's also probable he did as much or more with pages who weren't simply playing a joke. That would explain the resignation.
It also doesn't change the fact that dem operatives are guilty of either attempting to manufacture a bogus scandal, using information they knew to be wrong. (the page wasn't a minor and they were playing a joke), or they believed the information was valid and left minors in danger by holding on to the info to inflict maximum political damage.
Two questions,who were the dem operatives and why did the democrats not want to have Freeh lead an investigation?

Opus, there is not evidence that any dem knew anything.

The person who gave the info to ABC News was a republican staffer.

Every person informed of Foley's conduct was a republican. Two on the page council. Renoylds. Bohner and Hastert.

The Republicans WISHED they had told the Dems cuz then it would be a bi-partisan scandal.

But they didn't tell a single Dem.

HOW can you even possibly charge that Dems manufactured this??

Fox News has reported:

"House Republican candidates will suffer massive losses if House Speaker Dennis Hastert remains speaker until Election Day, according to internal polling data from a prominent GOP pollster, FOX News has learned.

The data suggests Americans have bailed on the speaker," a Republican source briefed on the polling data told FOX News. "And the difference could be between a 20-seat loss and 50-seat loss."

The Republicans are at war amonst themselves over this. The faction that wants Hastert to stay clearly have the upper hand for now, but there is a growing movement to ditch him.

Roger Ailes is obviously part of that movement.

Not to pile on DrudgePacker here but check out the newest stuff from ABCNEWS.COM:

"The former page also said Foley told him that if he happened to be in Washington, D.C., he could stay at Foley's home if he "would engage in oral sex" with Foley."

"This was no prank," said one of the three former pages who talked to ABC News today about his experience with the congressman."

Yeah. Prank my arse.

DrudgePacker has been in lockstep with Republican talking points his ENTIRE career.

Just cuz he puts on an old-school hat doesn't mean he's a real journalist.

Hehe

A couple things,

"The prank went awry when the saved IM sessions got into the hands of political operatives favorable to Democrats."

Republicans?

Ad that to Rogers, a self admited gay blackmailer/outer/activist saying he had the info, even has more info on others who are to follow. He also claims to have called the DCCC and Burton.

It also appears Pelosi and Emanuel have refused to submit to a request to take lie detector tests to determine if they were aware of the Foley situation before hand.

The democrat's "CREW" is also making the claim that more items are to follow.

Are you serious?

Why in the world would Pelosi or Emanuel take lie detector tests?

There's no evidence they ever knew anything!

This isn't Communist Russia Opus.

How authoritarian can you get?

And WTF is Rodgers?

Hehe,

Rogers....a name, you know of a person. Mike Rogers.

Pelosi promised full cooperation, demanded an investigation, then oops...not me..sorry.
She's the minority leader and page allegations would have been forwarded to her also.
Because of their involvements with the DCCC,who Rogers admitted informing about it.
So a thorough investigation of it is akin to communist Russia?
And before you say it, I'd put every republican who might possibly even be remotely involved on a lie detector to.

I know the W stood for Who not what.

I still don't know who that is.

Pelosi didn't want the investigation to turn into a partisan hack-job, which is about the only thing Louie friech is good at.

You're talking about putting people who aren't even involved in this on lie detector tests.

I might as well ask Bush to take one.

Why do you guys keep talking about this trivial
topic, when the arctic circle is melting as we speak. Hasn't anyone ever heard of Global Warming!

Good point Gene.

But four weeks out from the election what else do you expect.

Global Warming will finally get its due in 2008 when every candidate running will favor carbon taxes.

He He is full of sh!t. He is an internet troll who has nothing better to do than to sit at his computer with his Hot Pockets and Pop Tarts patiently awaiting the arrival of a new thread in FlynnFiles so he can be the first to post on it.

F.R.W. confirms it.
HeHe has you all by the tess-tickles

Guido

Man the intelligence of the comment threads is declining since HeHe decided to troll here in anticipation of November. Where are Homer, Skeptic, Ralph, and the Ancient Mariner when the reader needs them? (Opus and Dan of course as exceptions in this thread).

Cases, Hehe.

The most graphic IMs can be a prank, while Foley could have actually propositioned other pages. Heck, as Dan correctly points out, Foley actually propositions the page in the IM.

No one called The Whole Thing a prank, just those circulated IMs, and they were more of a prank ON Foley to get him to say something embarrassing.

If you read the IMs, something's odd. The guy refers to being in between girlfriends, refers girls in Catholic school dresses and generally seems to be oriented in that way yet, he must have done something with Foley, because Foley "misses him". So we have actual references to his orientation in the IMs, never replies to the flirtations (like saying he'd like Foley to grab his python).

And we have only the argument from a dimmer suggestion of what must have been going on in order for Foley to "miss" him.

Here's the thing: Liberals believe that there are all sorts of people. Thus, it kind of follows that there are a number of reasons why someone might miss someone. Thus missing someone is indicative of nothing. The perv (Foley) might just fixate on an attractive boy and be infatuated with being in their presence.

I've seen plenty of signs that Foley propositioned pages, little that he did it younger than ~17, without reporters manipulating ages. For example, the most frequent complaint is about Foley's contact after the they have been his page. It doesn't make sense to ask for a "current picture" from a guy who is working on your staff.

But again, the dems position on Foley is ludicrous in light of their "tolerance" of Studds.

Foley is a perv. But as the evidence -- besides such an abhorrent action as MISSING A PERSON -- is not on Foley DOING anything. So "defending" Foley is only defending a sexual predator if he DID something.

However, if his crime is only perv-ity or as Dan put it, "creepiness", then I don't see people defending him of that. He's a Grade-A perv. He's gone. He can be punished further. We don't care that he's gone. We don't care if he's prosecuted further.

That's some kind of "defense" we're puttin' together for the guy. You're not really good at this logic-stuff, are you?

Bruce,
Thanks for the kind thought. Been in northern Arizona the last few days enjoying the cool air and the sunshine.

I have the same concern but don't know what, if anything, should be done about it. Any ideas, guys? I have noticed the declining number of replies from Homer, Skeptic and Ralph as well. Are you guys staying away because of the troll? If so I would support a Rumplestiltskin exorcism from this site, if you take my point.

If anything its probably depression about the election.