In the case of Mark Foley, I was given the opportunity to witness how a staunch right-winger who visits my discussion forum changed his tune once he found out who was involved. When I first posted about the case, it had not made the mainstream media yet, and I didn't mention he was a Republican. How things changed once the story broke.
When I first read the Foley story, on a liberal blog (I forget which) I was sure that story would go nowhere. I thought it was just our eagerness to defeat a Republican incumbent and nothing would come of it. So, in order to avoid a discussion on politics, I posted this in my blog with the title of "Friendly or Inappropriate?":
This man, give or take a couple years, is around 50. Some group that outs gays has identified him as being gay but he denies it.
The man receives an email from a boy who once worked for him but the man doesn't really remember him. They trade emails and the man responds 3 times. Each email is a line or two, basically asking how the kid was, if he's safe after a storm passed by, and other normal pleasantries. The first email ends with the man asking the boy "how old are you now". [The boy is 16 years old] The second emails ends with the man asking the boy "what do you want for your birthday...what stuff do you like to do". The third email ends with "send me an email pic of you".
Would you think the man is just being friendly or do you feel this correspondence is inappropriate?
The very first person to respond was my right-winger visitor. He said:
I would call it inappropriate. I was a scout leader for a very long time and such a string of emails would set off all sorts of red flags for me. Appropriate social interaction between a man and someone elses son happens in a setting of family, or family activity.
After a couple of other people posted similar views, and just to play devil's advocate, I posted:
Maybe he wanted a picture to try and remember the kid? After all, the kid is the one who emailed him saying he used to work for him.
Then I posted that more information came out, including Mark Foley's name, party affiliation, the first IMs that were made public and that Foley resigned. The right-winger says:
He should resign, and be prosecuted as a child predator.
Then I asked:
What should be done about those colleagues and Congressional leaders who knew about his emails a year ago and not only kept him in the committee, but covered-up for him?
By now, two days have gone by and my guess is that he had realized this was a Republican scandal. He starts changing his tune. Notice that according to him, democrats are to blame:
How extensive was their knowledge? How much did they know about the actual content of the communication. I can't imagine a child predator sharing his exploits with the people around him. The whole "scandal" and "coverup" suggestion sounds like democrats trying to fabricate a bit before an election. Such behavior isn't above them.
As usual, the attempt was to change the subject from Foley's and Republican leadership actions to something else (Democrats). I don't take the bait and continue to ask the question. So he comes back with exactly what you'd expect:
Like I said, it depends on what they knew. Your hypocricy here is beyond blatant victor. Having read the reports, it seems that it is you who has a double standard. In your initial post, you left me with the impression that the kid was in junior high or middle school, not high school. Correct me if I am wrong, but don't you favor letting high school girls make the decision to kill thier children if they choose and in doing so, refuse to go after, and prosecute the men (if they are over 18) who get them pregnant?
I thought that you were ok with sex between powerful men and those who work for them. I mean, really. The president and an intern, blatant lies, perjury, disbarment etc. etc. etc and to you, it was just sex.
Isn't this a personal issue? Does this have any bearing on his ability to get his job done? I could contniue, but it makes me just a bit ill posing the same sorts of questions and defenses that democrats used to protect a predator and rapist.
I believe that the man should be investigated and charged unlike democrats who made complete fools of themselves protecting their own sexual predator and rapist. And what of the people who went to the press and protected clinton? The list was long and distinguished. What should have happened to them?
To put this into perspective consider congressman Gerry Studds (D-Mass) who in 1983 was found to have actually had sex with a 17 year old congressional page. There were calls to put him out of congress but the body (democrat majority) voted to simply censure him. He made no offer to leave, was not apologetic and in fact, evencalled a press conference with the former page, in which both stated that they were consenting adults at the time of the relationship (the boy was 17) and that it was therefore not the business of others to censure them for their private relationship. His constituents continued to reelect him until he retired in 1997.
Haul yourself off your highhorse and consider a bit of history.
I know all he wants is to change the subject. I don't bite:
The first post said the boy was 16.
Noticed that I have not made any statements about what I thought about this issue. I merely posted the situation and asked a question. I even made a post considering that maybe there was no malice, that he just wanted to know what the boy looked like. And I already knew I was talking about a Republican. You were the one that was very quick to form a judgment without even asking more questions.
Tell me, what high horse position have I stated here? Truth is, I have not stated any position; I've done nothing but ask questions. But now that it's a Republican issue, even just asking questions seem to offend you and set you off on a tirade.
This has nothing to do with R vs D. It's right versus wrong. But you can't see that anymore, can you?
Well, there was some more give and take of this sort... I'll spare you, but he comes back with:
It appears that democratic operatives have sat on knowledge of a child predator for 3 years, keeping it secret so that they could release the information at a politically opportune time. If they knew that the man was a predator, how do they justify endangering who knows how many other children, for years, just for the sake of political gain?
I stick to the question at hand:
I have seen no such report. Care to provide a link?
The leadership knew the three emails you knew after the first post here. The IMs only surfaced because the reporter, after seeing the emails, dug a little bit, and within days he had the IMs. If the Republican leadership had wanted to, they would have found them too. The fact is that they have known for YEARS about his behavior and did nothing. They just turned a blind eye. Now they are trying to cover-up.
You are once again choosing to be on the wrong side of what's right. What a bad habit.
He persists:
Shallow thinking again victor. It will be your downfall. As I have always said, democrats are the kings of unintended consequences for exactly that reason.
Exactly where does a reporter dig in order to get 3 year old IM's? You certainly couldn't find them on my computer, could I get them from yours? I doubt it. Someone, however has had them and known of their content for 3 years and used this reporter to make it public after the primaries in florida. That constitutes aiding and abetting if indeed a crime was comitted by foley.
Foley has admitted his actions and no one is suggesting that the Republican leadership had any knowledge of the content of the IM's. The investigation is going to inevetably turn towards who had these IM's and withheld their content for 3 years for nothing more than a political ploy. The FBI have already stated that they are very interested in that bit of information.
I refuse to bite on his attempt to change the subject and bring it back to his personal belief:
You didn't need the IMs to make up your mind. I ask you, if you were in Hastert's shoes, and you were shown the three emails, would you let the man continue to be the chairman of a committee dealing with internet safety issues dealing with underage kids? Would you allow him to continue to deal directly with the Pages and taking them out to dinner one-on-one on his BMW? Would you at least have looked further into his behavior?
His response:
For me, in my position, I look into it, but then I don't have a great deal of responsibility piled on my shoulders. I have myself and my family to look out for. If I have the entire congress to look out for and the never ending fabrications of a left leaning press and the elections, I don't know if the content of those emails would be enough to get through the rest of the crap.
It seems that no one is saying that the man actually did anything to the boy except for the explicit IM's that some democrat operative sat on for about 3 years waiting for a politically opportune time to make them public. If the content of those IM's had been brought to the attention of the leadership, the man would have been dealt with way back then as there would have been no doubt that there was no place for him within the republican party. That isn't what happened though, because someone thought that it woud be best to keep it secret until the best time politically to let it out... The real question now is who kept sexually explicit IM's between a congressman and a boy secret for years, waiting for a good political time for the democrats to bring it to the public.
We went back and forth some more than I posted:
OK, let me put it in the context of non-politics.
You're the manager of a department and a woman comes to you saying her supervisor asked her questions that 'feel' inappropriate. He didn't touch her, but she feels he was inappropriate. Would you call the police? I wouldn't! Would you fire him? I wouldn't, not if he was a good worker and all I had were her feelings. Would you try to assign her to another supervisor? If possible, I would. Would you make sure to exercise better supervision over his attitude with her and other women? I would. Would you try to ascertain if he made other women in the office feel the same way? Yes, I would! Would I inform Human Resources? YES, I would!
The House leadership did none of the above. The leadership continued to let Foley be involved with Pages, kept him as the chairman of the committee dealing with child safety, asked no further questions and in fact, if you believe Bob Novak, Foley didn't want to run for office again but he was pressured by the leadership to ran again EVEN AFTER THEY KNEW FOR YEARS ABOUT HIS INCLINATIONS AND ATTENTION TO MINORS AND HAD SEEN THE SAME EMAILS YOU SAW!!! You reached the conclusion you did not even knowing that Foley had a reputation that goes back YEARS. They don't even have that excuse; they knew about his reputation!
What we have here is basic disregard for the safety of the Pages purely to stay in power. That is wrong! This isn't about Republicans or Democrats, it's about a few men who didn't take their responsibilities correctly and proved to have total disregard for high school kids they have a duty to protect. Purely and simply, they failed at being the leaders they claim to be. Yes, this could happen to Democrats. Yes, maybe it even happened with Democrats before. Heck, who knows, maybe it'll turn out Democrats are also involved. So? Does that make these guys' behavior tolerable then?
I say, based on what we already know, the leadership of the House -- Foley's "bosses", if you will -- failed miserably. And I'm not the only one saying it. A boat load of Republicans and conservatives say the same thing and they are, properly so, abandoning this boat. Only a few rats are left aboard.
He replies:
Spin it however you like victor, as is your nature but only two crimes have been comitted here, if indeed any crime at all has been comitted. The first being foley's predation on children. The second being whoever withheld the sexually explicit IM's from the authorites thus aiding and abetting his behavior while they waited for a politically advantageous time to make them public.
Well... it goes on and on... and it's still going on. I keep refusing to take his bait and he keeps making excuses for the Republican leadership.
Oh well, you should see our debates on Global Warming (no such thing, he says), Abortion (I'm a baby-killer), Iraq (things are going well), etc. At least I learn a lot about how a right-winger thinks. One thing you can tell: they get their talking points and stick to them.