Republican Congressman Sends Sex Messages to Underage Boys

He misses the point intentionally. Everyone condemns Foley and if it was just Foley, this story would be dead by now (or at least below the fold on page A-22). It's all about the House Leadership ignoring Foley's actions and then lying about what they did. He ironically comments that Dems didn't want Livingston to resign because they "wanted to advance the "everybody does it" defense of President Clinton." First, by bringing up Clinton in this way he is trying to make the argument that Clinton did it so it's OK without having to come out and say it. Second, this is not so as anyone who lived through that can attest.

 

Glenn Greenwald writes well... and with a little indignation...
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Mark Foley and the unmasked Republican Party

Denny Hastert is smack in the middle of one of the tawdriest and ugliest sex scandals in American political history. As a result, he has been the target of aggressive criticism, even from a few members of his own party, and, by all accounts, is desperately battling to keep his job.

In need of moral absolution and support from a respected and admired figure who possesses moral authority among Hastert's morally upstanding Republican base, to whom does Hastert turn? A priest or respected reverend? An older wise political statesman with a reputation for integrity and dignity? No, there is only one person with sufficient moral credibility among the increasingly uncomfortable moralistic Republican base who can give Hastert the blessing he needs:

Rush Limbaugh. And so that is where Hastert went yesterday in order to obtain the Decree that He Did Nothing Wrong.

As much as I tried -- and, trust me, I really tried -- I couldn't expunge this picture from my mind yesterday because, in all its visceral hideousness, it really illustrates what I think is the principal reason why this Foley scandal is resonating so strongly. This is the real face of the ruling Republican party, and it has been unmasked -- violently -- by the exposure of Mark Foley and his allies who protected and harbored him.

If the term "moral degenerate" has any validity and can be fairly applied to anyone, there are few people who merit that term more than Rush Limbaugh. He is the living and breathing embodiment of moral degeneracy, with his countless overlapping sexual affairs, his series of shattered, dissolved marriages, his hedonistic and illegal drug abuse, his jaunts, with fistfulls of Viagra (but no wife), to an impoverished Latin American island renowned for its easy access to underage female prostitutes.

Yet that is who Hastert chose as the High Priest of the Values Voters to whom he made his pilgrimage and from whom he received his benediction. The difference between Rush Limbaugh and Mark Foley, to the extent there is one, is one of hedonistic tastes, not moral level. Rush Limbaugh isn't just tolerated within the party that stands for religious piety and moral strength. He is a leader of it, arguably the leader of its most righteous wing. Is it really all that surprising that a political movement that has chosen a moral degenerate like Rush Limbaugh as one of its most revered and morally respected leaders is not all that bothered by -- and therefore actively harbors -- the Mark Foleys of the world?

The individuals who never tire of making public displays of how concerned they are with our moral fabric -- the Kathryn Jean Lopezs of the world who find Bill Clinton's sex life such a cause for condemnation and who publicly crusade to have John Kerry shunned by good Catholics because of how immoral he is and interrupt such crusades only in order to coo with giddy love and profound respect for Rush Limbaugh -- are well aware that their party is filled to the rim with sleazy, corrupt hedonists with as bloated and piggish a sense of entitlement as can be imagined. But as long as they help keep the party in power, they are not just tolerated but embraced. That dynamic is a core operating principle of the Bush-led Republican Party, and it is why Mark Foley was able to rise within it despite its being an "open secret" in Washington GOP power circles -- a very open secret -- exactly what he was.

When this scandal first broke, I spent a few hours researching federal law with regard to Internet sexual activities and "minors" and, while I knew that Foley was involved in enacting some of these bills, I was really amazed how far beyond that it went. Mark Foley was literally at the center of virtually every activity and law and program over the last 10 years ostensibly designed to battle the evils of Internet sex and minors. Mark Foley spent 12 years in Congress and it is not an exaggeration to say that he basically devoted his whole Congressional career to adding decades of imprisonment on to the mandatory punishments for those who use the Internet to talk about sex with children. He didn't just condemn that which he was doing. He made the crusade against it his life's work, in the most vocal and public way possible.

Mark Foley isn't some isolated case of shocking hypocrisy. Quite the contrary. People who have a publicly and vocally expressed obsession with other people's moral behavior and who want to use the power of the Government to enforce that obsession -- the Rick Santorums and Rush Limbaughs and Newt Gingrichs and Jim Bakkers and Ralph Reeds and Mark Foleys of the world -- are almost always fighting their own demons, not anyone else's. It is so important for them to parade around as moral protectors and moral warriors precisely because they have no other way to cleanse themselves, despite being in desperate need of a cleansing. That's why, all over the Internet, one easily finds things like this:

This isn't some "great find"or specially revealing document. Documents like this are everywhere, because this is the twisted, warped, dysfunctional and rotted political rule to which we have been subjected for the last six years and even before that (though not with the unchallenged power it has now). Mark Foley is the GOP face of efforts to combat the use of the Internet to sexualize minors, and Rush Limbaugh is their High Moral Priest.

We have been barraged with laws, programs, sermons, demagoguery and all sorts of moral demonization from a political movement whose most powerful pundit is a multiple-times-divorced drug addict who flamboyantly cavorts around with a new girlfriend every few months in between Viagra-fueled jaunts to the Dominican Republic. It is a political movement whose legacy will be torture, waterboards, naked, sadomasochistic games in Iraqi dungeons (or, to Rush, "blowing off steam"), with all sorts of varied sleaze and corruption deeply engrained throughout its DNA -- all propped up by a facade of moralism and dependent upon the support of those who have been propagandized into believing that they are voting for the Party of Values and Morals.

It is not a coincidence that the GOP was harboring someone like Mark Foley within its highest ranks while their most powerful political officials purposely looked the other way and even actively helped to conceal what he was up to, thereby enabling him to continue. After all, even now that this conduct has been exposed, their instinct -- all the way to the highest levels -- is to excuse and defend those leaders and offer up the most disgusting defenses -- all because preservation of their political power depends on it. This is not some bizarre aberration. This is how they operate and it is what they are. And the Mark Foley scandal is making it virtually impossible for anyone to convincingly deny it any longer.

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/10/mark-foley-and-unmasked-republican.html

 

the gay left?

what the **** is that?

 

For Germany, it is 16. Not sure if I am color-blind here, but it looks like this is saying 14 - that would be incorrect, unless the other partner is also between 14 and 16.

 

ABC shoots down Drudge...
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Three More Former Pages Accuse Foley of Online Sexual Approaches

October 05, 2006 5:20 PM
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/10/three_more_form.html

Brian Ross, Rhonda Schwartz & Maddy Sauer Report:

Three more former congressional pages have come forward to reveal what they call "sexual approaches" over the Internet from former Congressman Mark Foley.

The pages served in the classes of 1998, 2000 and 2002. They independently approached ABC News after the Foley resignation through the Brian Ross & the Investigative Team's tip line on ABCNews.com. None wanted their names used because of the sensitive nature of the communications.

"I was seventeen years old and just returned to [my home state] when Foley began to e-mail me, asking if I had ever seen my page roommates naked and how big their penises were," said the page in the 2002 class.

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.

The page told ABC News he was interviewed this week by FBI agents who had a six-page list of questions about Foley and the exchanges.

The second page who talked with ABC News, a graduate of the 2000 page class, says Foley actually visited the old page dorm and offered rides to events in his BMW.

"His e-mails developed into sexually explicit conversations, and he asked me for photographs of my erect penis," the former page said.

The page said Foley maintained e-mail contact with him even after he started college and arranged a sexual liaison after the page had turned 18.

The third page interviewed by ABC News, a graduate of the 1998 page class, said Foley's instant messages began while he was a senior in high school.

"Foley would say he was sitting in his boxers and ask what I was wearing," the page said.

"It became more weird, and I stopped responding," the page said.

All three pages described similar instant message and e-mail patterns, with remarkably similar escalations of provocative questions.

"He didn't want to talk about politics," the page said. "He wanted to talk about sex or my penis," the page said.

The three new verbal accounts are in addition to two sets of sexually explicit instant messages provided to ABC News by former pages.

An online story on the Drudge Report Thursday claimed one set of the sexually explicit instant messages obtained by ABC News was part of a "prank" on the part of the former page, who reportedly says he goaded the congressman into writing the messages.

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

 

You should get a Blog... Sullivan says the same thing...
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If Hastert Stays ....

05 Oct 2006 04:14 pm

... the GOP could lose 50 seats, according to an internal poll. And if he quits? Maybe they didn't ask that question. One aspect of this is worth further noting. The base of the GOP has been fed homophobia and gay-baiting for years now. It was partly how Rove won Ohio and the presidency. Gay-hating is integral to their machine. Now, the very homophobia these people stoked and used is suddenly turning back on them. Part of me is distressed that the GOP could lose not because of spending recklessness, corruption, torture, big government, pork, and a hideously botched war ... but because of a sex scandal which doesn't even have (so far as we know) any actual sex. But part of me also sees the karmic payback here. They rode this tiger; now it's turning on them. And it's dinner time.

http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/10/if_hastert_stay.html

 

Ugh. Speaking of Rush Limbaugh...

http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/10/05/welcome-to-another-round-of-how-low-can-they-go/#more-4824

Rush Limbaugh re-victimized Mark Foley's teenage victim today by using his name publicly, as did Matt Drudge. (Both Roger Simon and InstaCracker made sure the identity was widely disseminated by linking to the no-name wingnut blogger to whom the original dirty work was tasked.) Because it's not enough that their leaders are beating off online during national security votes, or that the GOP spent years covering the whole thing up — no, no they must do their part to harass, bully and intimidate anyone who threatens their authoritarian cult, even the young victims of sexual predators. Especially if there might be other kids thinking of stepping forward with similar stories (as three more now have). It's the manly thing to do, after all.

Take it away, Rush (via Crooks & Liars):

 

First of all there will be a different indignation of people who hear about someone cheating on their wife, and people hearing about someone being a sexual predator of underage employees.

The two situations aren't the same. They are both wrong, no doubt, but they aren't the same.

Secondly even Clinton's own family didn't know about the affair for sure until much later. It wasn't a case of people covering up for Clinton. In fact you will see some Democrats voting to impeach. With Foley the GOP were trying to cover the thing up.

Worst of all once they got busted, instead of deciding to clean house, and make up for it, they tried to blame Democrats, whine and cry that it really wasn't so bad, and do the unthinkable of blaming the victims, calling them beasts and trying to say they were egging poor Foley on. All of that is just disgusting.

 

Tell us about it Janet!

 

Them??

 

as opposed to the christian right perhaps? because, you know all conservatives are gay hatin' christians, and all gays are atheistic pillow-biters...or not.

 

Basso you've yet to call this matter a kerfuffle ~ why?

 

I know it is a small irrelevant detail (and it is not meant to excuse the lechery), but by all account these "kids" were underage for drinking and voting but not for fornicating...

Carry on... if you can!

 

i guess he hasnt heard limbaugh call it that yet. that is where he so cleverly "borrows" that from.

the plame kerfuffle, ect.

 

Underage drinking is something they do to themselves except, of course when Foley is offering to supply them with the booze.

Are you now going to join in the right wing chorus of trying to blame the victims? Is that why you put "kids" in quotes? You are trying to say to join the right wing talk show hosts who say that this is somehow the fault of the teenage pages, and that poor Mr. Foley was trapped by these kids?

 

I don't know how putting quotes around kids turns this into blaming them. Perhaps I missed that day in reading comprehension (we haven't used that phrase around here in a while).

I think what he's saying is that they weren't kids. Doesn't make it any less gross (especially considering he was 51 years old). Even if they could legally consent and did consent I would have a problem because it's an abuse of power to put them in that situation. It's the same problem I had with the Clinton/Lewinsky thing. When you're in a position of power, you have to be careful to not abuse that power.

Even if these kids "tricked" the guy into it, which I'm not saying they did, he still did what he did. It's no different than MSNBC tricking people into coming to their house (how do people still fall for that, btw?) in their "Catch a Predator" shows. If he did it when tricked, it's a matter of time before he would have done it voluntarily.

 

My question is why didn't you list the democrats who resigned after scandals (Jim McGreevy) and the republicans who have refused to (Hastert, Hyde, the list goes on and on)....no real need to answer though.

 

It's been a couple of days. Don't speak too soon. You may get what you wish for.

 

You can pretend like it is absurd for me to think someone might be blaming the kids, but both Rush and Drudge have done exactly that. So it isn't out of the question that I would ASK if giddy was doing the same.

But the fact that at least one kid was only 16 does indeed make them just a kid. I don't see how anyone could argue against that. And if, as you say, it doesn't change how gross it was, then why bring it up and try and portray the teens as less than innocent or call them beasts or anything like that?

I just want to make it clear that I was asking giddy if that was why he put "kids" in quotes. I didn't say he was doing that? I asked if he was and then proceded to mention others that have already passed the blame to the victim.