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  #51  
Preechr Preechr is offline
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Old Oct 6th, 2006, 12:22 PM       
Huh?

Everything would have been different if the page had been a girl, sure... It would be a different story, but it's not. The story is that a male page seems to have initiated sex talk on AIM with a Congressman in order to get him to type embarrassing stuff, which he did. The text logs were shared among the pages as humorous, but eventually fell into the hands of Democrats that chose to use them as a weapon against Republicans during this year's election campaigns.

The IMs were released to the media, and the Democrats went after Hastert saying he should have done something about the situation way back when he was first notified of the original e-mails which were not near as serious looking as the IMs are. The implied "danger" of the e-mails is not what was said but who sent them. Foley's homosexuality was no secret, apparently, but the IMs were until last Friday. Democrats demanding Hastert's resignation because he didn't come down harder on Foley for sending some innocent e-mails to a former page doesn't make any sense unless Hastert was supposed to know Foley was a pedophile. Without the IMs, Hastert could only have assumed that based upon Foley's homosexuality.

The Democrats have put themselves into the position of demanding Hastert's resignation because he let a gay man talk to a teenage boy. The IMs, prank or not, are out of the picture... unless someone coughs up proof Hastert's office had knowledge of the IMs prior to last week.
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Cosmo Electrolux Cosmo Electrolux is offline
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Old Oct 6th, 2006, 12:27 PM       
I think it was a Washington Post editorial that suggested that Hastert resign. And, if memory serves, Members of Hasterts own party were playing the finger pointing game well before any Democrat suggested that he resign.
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Old Oct 6th, 2006, 12:58 PM       
Did you ever hear Bill Marr's monologue about how doing Monica was one of the great sacrificies Clinton made for America? Putting up with what was basically Prison sex when he could have had almost any woman he wanted?

I don't think I agree, but it's very funny.
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Old Oct 6th, 2006, 01:03 PM       
Preechr, were the e-mails that were handed over to the FBI also a prank?
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Old Oct 6th, 2006, 01:03 PM       
I never really understood that. Why her? He was the most powerful man on Earth. He should have pulled in quality ass the likes of which Derek Jeter and Colin Farrell only dream about.

For Christ's sake, JFK snuck Maralyn Monroe into the White House.

Was he that addicted and she was right there?
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Old Oct 6th, 2006, 01:06 PM       
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean issued the following statement following House Speaker Dennis Hastert's remarks at his press conference today:

"What Republicans don't understand is that this is about children, not politics. People are looking at this as concerned parents, not as Republicans or Democrats. It's disgraceful that Speaker Hastert and the Republican leadership didn't stand up for our children and do the right thing when they learned about the problem years ago, rather than a week after it became public. They chose to protect Congressman Foley and their party instead of the victims. Americans don't want to see finger pointing from the Republican leadership, they don't want to see the Speaker dodging tough questions. They want to see the people involved unequivocally stand up, take responsibility for their failures and investigate immediately."

The Buck Stops Where?
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mburbank~ Yes, okay, fine, I do know what you meant, but why is it not possible for you to get through a paragraph without making all the words cry?

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Old Oct 6th, 2006, 01:22 PM       
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Originally Posted by KevinTheOmnivore
Preechr, were the e-mails that were handed over to the FBI also a prank?
I'm not saying anything is or was a prank. Drudge is saying part of the IMs were a prank, and the fact is that there's no way to contest that. Foley's not around for another 2 weeks, and I can read through the IMs and believe he was getting rooked. No 16 year old straight kid is going to have those kinds of chats with an old sissy like Foley and not laugh about it with his friends. Even if it wasn't a prank, the possiblity that it was is too believeable to eliminate the rumor.

Long story short: The only damage done by this to the Republicans can be counteracted by Denny Hastert spending the next few weeks shoring up procedures to protect children from politicians in Congress. Who are the only potential people to not get behind that? Congressional pedophiles? Hastert's going to look like a champion of child victims, which will help the party, while the Dems will have to fight to squeeze around him in the headlines if they want to talk about anything else.
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mburbank~ Yes, okay, fine, I do know what you meant, but why is it not possible for you to get through a paragraph without making all the words cry?

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Old Oct 6th, 2006, 01:40 PM       
You honestly believe that the American public will care if Denny Hastert pushes some resolution calling congressman-on-child pedophilia bad?

Whatever damage has been done is done. America smells a cover up. Even if the IM's were a prank, they weren't the only form of shady contact this guy has had with young boys. The chair of the RCCC pushed him to run again, even though Foley himself felt the pressure to get out.

Foley resigned almost immediately. Whether the exchanges were genuine or in jest, he had been made out. Whether they were real or a prank, Hastet, Reynolds, and perhaps others may have known about them. Wouldn't they still have warranted some type of action, even if they were maybe a joke? We know they may have been a joke now. Nobody knew that then.
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Old Oct 6th, 2006, 02:42 PM       
Until the IMs came out LAST WEEK, all Hastert had to move on was the e-mails, which were of decidedly less creepy character. As soon as the IMs came out LAST WEEK, Foley took off and the Republicans started taking it seriously. There's not even any way to prove the IMs weren't forged altogether, much less accurate or in context. The only thing that actually stands so far as real proof that Foley did anything at all wrong is his resignation, in fact. No proof means this is a scandal ripe for spinning, and it can spin much more easily in favor of the Republicans than it could help the Democrats. Any hit the Rs are taking in the polls due to this will be easily overcome if they rally behind some new effort to "think of the children" or something... If America smells a coverup, the Republicans are doing a fine job of pinning that on the Democrats while taking steps to protect pages in the future. Once again, the Dems are portrayed as living in the past and doing nothing to make the future better. America is a more hopeful country than that.
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mburbank~ Yes, okay, fine, I do know what you meant, but why is it not possible for you to get through a paragraph without making all the words cry?

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KevinTheOmnivore KevinTheOmnivore is offline
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Old Oct 6th, 2006, 03:00 PM       
I don't believe the Democrats are asking anything that the Washington Times already hasn't. Are they living in the past, too?

As I said before, the onus here is on the Republicans. The Democrats can be as cynical as they want to be here, b/c they're A) Out of power and B) Not the party of values, virtue, and piety.
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Old Oct 6th, 2006, 03:27 PM       
Another way to look at it-- Congressman Gerry Studds did far worse than what Foley is even suspected of doing. Foley had to resign from his conservative district in shame, while Studds was allowed five more trips to the Hill by his liberal district. Why is this?

Because Democrats supposedly do this stuff, and Republicans supposedly do not. is it a double standard? Yes, but it's one of the GOP's own design.
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Old Oct 6th, 2006, 04:26 PM       
A Republican. This doesn't stain the party. The question is will the idea that Hastert could have done more to stop it affect the party in the elections, and I say no it won't... not at least near as much as were the Democrats allowed to manage the media cycle with whatever else they'd planned to put out there.

That we're still talking about Foley rather than some new scandal here on a Friday afternoon shows that this is still the headlining issue. Not Iraq. Not Iran. Not Afghanistan. No terror, just one more homo caught doing what most Americans believe all homos typically do: prey on our children. There will be no proof before the elections that Republicans did anything to hide anything... we'll have to wait on the investigations for any of that if it exists... So it's time to start a reform process and we can ring the All Clear bell in about a week or two. The Party of Family Values saves the day again!

The Foley scandal was ONLY ever an attempt by Democrats to manage the media cycle in their favor, just like the NIE thing from two weeks ago. They blew it. This was bad strategy, and they've given control of the media cycle over to the Republicans. As I said, Kev... MR. CAMPAIGN... The Rs set out to run on local issues this year, while the Ds planned to run on national issues. Had they waited to start Foley-gate for the first week in November, it would have really been more effective. Instead, they played it too early and lost probably two critical weeks of media attention that could have been more favorable for them had they spent this time letting failures in Iraq or pending war in Iran be the news, then throwing Foley on the fire at the last minute to show the party in power to be just a corrupt bunch of windbags that like to touch children innappropriately.

See, the war has no immediate end in sight, which makes it scary. Foley only lasted a week before it's started to, if not already turn in the Republicans favor, at least show signs of being neutralized and entirely spinnable. Foley is a nice smokescreen, because it puts national politics on Jerry Springer terms for the electorate. The problem highlighted by one dirty old bastard is at least something we can fix, and people vote for those that fix things. Had the Democrat strategy revolved more on highlighting the things it seems we might never fix, it would have been more effective... But , alas, they couldn't do that simply because THE DEMOCRATS HAVE NO PLAN FOR HOW TO FIX ANYTHING ANYMORE.

They've become the party of snot-nosed, bitchy, fingerpointing whiners that will seemingly complain about anything. There have been only a few issues they could have adopted in the last year to their benefit, and they've passed on every single one because they aren't interested in championing any progress, preferring instead to focus on tearing down and obstructing Republicans and any progress they might try to make.
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mburbank~ Yes, okay, fine, I do know what you meant, but why is it not possible for you to get through a paragraph without making all the words cry?

How can someone who obviously thinks so much of their ideas have so little respect for expressing them? How can someone who so yearns to be taken seriously make so little effort?!
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  #63  
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Old Oct 6th, 2006, 07:36 PM       
Quote:
Originally Posted by Preechr
They've become the party of snot-nosed, bitchy, fingerpointing whiners that will seemingly complain about anything. There have been only a few issues they could have adopted in the last year to their benefit, and they've passed on every single one because they aren't interested in championing any progress, preferring instead to focus on tearing down and obstructing Republicans and any progress they might try to make.
Someone who's been around a few more years than me, tell me if that doesn't pretty much describe every minority party ever?
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Old Oct 7th, 2006, 08:57 AM       
Preech, I gotta agree with Kev here. Not because I think being a greasy old perv and masturbation in yur office while texting with a boy is at all out of the envelope for a Congressman, but because the GOP is holier than thou. A large part of the Republican base is all about their claim that they are Gods party. It hurts the party that the guy in charge of protecting kids is a perv, because that sort of irony is the R's achilles Heel.

Also, I think there is every chance that it will turn out Hastert is lying that he didn't know anything beyond the 'overly friendly' emails.

And I think that even totally gay active teens would have been laughing at foley more often than blowing him.

Is all of this fair? Do Foley's failings have anythig to do with his being an R? Of course not. Is D's righteous indignation an insulting charade? Mostly. But I think Kev is correct that R's worked very, very hard to create this particular vulnerability. Pride, even false pride, maybe particulalry false pride, goeth before a fall.
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Old Oct 7th, 2006, 09:56 AM       
Now the Republican "leaders" are bringing the Democrats before the house ethics committee asking what they knew about this before the press got hold of it. Why am I not suprised? Typical....
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Old Oct 7th, 2006, 10:27 AM       
ugh....

Okay, so a day ago I disagreed with Preechr. Initially I thought the Dems were handling it well, playing it cool, and allowing The Republicans to cannibalize themselves.

now they're running ads on it. Howard fuckin' Dean is talking about it.

Cosmo, the Dems invited this. They tried to control the fire, get it t drift to certain districts maybe, rather than just watching it burn.
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Old Oct 7th, 2006, 10:48 AM       
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Originally Posted by Cosmo Electrolux
Now the Republican "leaders" are bringing the Democrats before the house ethics committee asking what they knew about this before the press got hold of it. Why am I not suprised? Typical....
Of course they are. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is a Democrat group, and they seem to be the folks that sat on the story until election time. The investigation panel was formed to find out exactly who covered up what. Talking to Democrats as well as Republicans is not only typical for such a thing it's responsible.
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mburbank~ Yes, okay, fine, I do know what you meant, but why is it not possible for you to get through a paragraph without making all the words cry?

How can someone who obviously thinks so much of their ideas have so little respect for expressing them? How can someone who so yearns to be taken seriously make so little effort?!
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Old Oct 7th, 2006, 10:51 AM       
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Originally Posted by ziggytrix
Someone who's been around a few more years than me, tell me if that doesn't pretty much describe every minority party ever?
Doesn't have to. The "Contract with America" Republicans worked to be a better, more functional group.
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mburbank~ Yes, okay, fine, I do know what you meant, but why is it not possible for you to get through a paragraph without making all the words cry?

How can someone who obviously thinks so much of their ideas have so little respect for expressing them? How can someone who so yearns to be taken seriously make so little effort?!
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KevinTheOmnivore KevinTheOmnivore is offline
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Old Oct 7th, 2006, 10:53 AM       
Yeah, it didn't take that long to go to the shitter.

But I sort of agree with you on Democrats....unfortunately.
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Old Oct 7th, 2006, 10:56 AM       
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Originally Posted by mburbank
But I think Kev is correct that R's worked very, very hard to create this particular vulnerability. Pride, even false pride, maybe particulalry false pride, goeth before a fall.
If they clean their house of anyone that actually did cover this up, that will make them stronger and prove that the party's moral stance is intact. America doesn't require leaders that never screw up, just leaders that own up to their mistakes.

Keep in mind, I'm not talking about real things here, just impressions. I have on my special glasses that filter all this through campaign politics and voter perceptions. Elections are my football.
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mburbank~ Yes, okay, fine, I do know what you meant, but why is it not possible for you to get through a paragraph without making all the words cry?

How can someone who obviously thinks so much of their ideas have so little respect for expressing them? How can someone who so yearns to be taken seriously make so little effort?!
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Old Oct 7th, 2006, 12:00 PM       
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Originally Posted by theapportioner
It's just fantastic how gay people, alcoholics, and even priests are now getting thrown under the bus because of this situation. Look guys, this just proves that all gay people are child rapists, too!

Fucking republicans.
Democratic strategist Bob Beckel suggested this week that the mere fact Foley is gay should have “raised questions” about his friendships with pages.

Those damn republicans.
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Old Oct 7th, 2006, 01:45 PM       
I think the fact that he's gay AND a Republican should have raised red flags about his sanity.

Q.) What do og Cabin Republicans do in their spare time?

A.) hate themselves.
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Old Oct 7th, 2006, 07:31 PM       
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Originally Posted by KevinTheOmnivore
ugh....

Okay, so a day ago I disagreed with Preechr. Initially I thought the Dems were handling it well, playing it cool, and allowing The Republicans to cannibalize themselves.

now they're running ads on it. Howard fuckin' Dean is talking about it.

Cosmo, the Dems invited this. They tried to control the fire, get it t drift to certain districts maybe, rather than just watching it burn.
You're probably right. It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out..

And Preechr...I wasn't aware that the group you mentioned had actually released those transcripts. But, in all honesty, do you believe that had Foley been a democrat and a Republican group had that info, they wouldn't have done the same thing? We all know for a fact they would have. Fox news would have rode the wheels off of that train and we all know it.
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Old Oct 7th, 2006, 10:10 PM       
Well, of course.

It's no secret I hate politicians. As far as I'm concerned, it's just a matter of time before one of those lowlifes gets caught doing something truly disgusting once again, be they Republicrat or Demolicant.
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mburbank~ Yes, okay, fine, I do know what you meant, but why is it not possible for you to get through a paragraph without making all the words cry?

How can someone who obviously thinks so much of their ideas have so little respect for expressing them? How can someone who so yearns to be taken seriously make so little effort?!
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  #75  
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Old Oct 10th, 2006, 10:51 AM       
I think North Korea may have just nuked this scandal.
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