A Deeper Foley Scandal Brewing?

I know this is short, but the diaries are coming so fast and furious, that I thought I would throw this in the ring:

Something struck me in reading the [http://news.yahoo.com/...] story, and in particular, the Fordham comments.  This one stood out to me:

"The fact is even prior to the existence of the Foley e-mail exchanges I had more than one conversation with senior staff at the highest level of the House of Representatives asking them to intervene when I was informed of Mr. Foley's inappropriate behavior," Fordham said.

Hmmm.  

"Prior to the existence" of the current emails seems to indicate that he knows a great deal more about previously unknown behaviour on Foley's part than has come out thus far.  I can only wonder what he is sitting on regarding past complaints and if that shows a proveable pattern willful disregard by the GOP leadership to address it.  That quote sounds pretty threatening to me...

As Fordham has stated that he intends to fully cooperate with the investigation, I can only fathom that this comment above would indicate there is even more dirt, and allegations on the way...

Thoughts?

•  Somebody has a diary

  about Foley going to the dorm drunk.  Can't look now, but it's out there.

  by egarratt on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:23:35 PM PDT

  •  Top of Recco list.

    by RichM on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:27:43 PM PDT

  •  Saw it

    But I'm talking about Fordham and the indication he knows a great deal more than has been reported.

    by Brubs on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:28:59 PM PDT

    •  that statement was a job application

      Look for him on K street.

      Hastert ought to be a little more cautious when selecting scapegoats and sacrificial lambs and not just fire the first aide in sight.

      by Tulip on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:50:16 PM PDT

      •  I don't think it was the selection

        of the scapegoat - I think it was the "anonymous Republican Sources" trashing him after he'd taken the hit for the team.

        That's a lot to ask of a guy - even a corrupt one.

        by hopesprings on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 03:34:17 PM PDT

•  Ask Hayden.

  He has total information awareness (and shares computer files with shit-flower).

  by Yellow Canary on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:25:06 PM PDT

•  He notified the leadership 2 years ago

  That was DeLay, not Hastert.

  A LOT more people know about this.

  by johnsonwax on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:30:28 PM PDT

  •  Um...

    Delay was never Speaker of the House.  He was House Majority Leader.  Denny has been Speaker for awhile.

    by RichM on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:35:32 PM PDT

    •  Oh, right... my mistake. n/t

      by johnsonwax on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:39:30 PM PDT

•  more from the article

  Fordham said he was serving as Foley's chief of staff when he was told about the lawmaker's inappropriate behavior toward pages more than three years ago. He said he had "more than one conversation with senior staff at the highest level of the House of Representatives asking them to intervene" at the time.

  — Delvin Barrett, AP

  ```
  peace
  
  

  by peace voter on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:31:37 PM PDT

•  Yeah ....

  much more to come out. No question. Think of all the pages that are going to start talking. The networks are probably calling every congressional page going back 10 years.
  On top of that, there is major heinie-covering going on in the upper echelons of the House GOP leadship. The finger pointing will continue and with that comes additional leaks.  

  by Mahler3 on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:31:59 PM PDT

  •  If the press is calling pages

    you better believe the Repub leadership (and dirty tricksters) are calling those same pages.  Telling them if they ever want to set foot in Washington again, they won't talk.

    Remember Velvet Underground (?)'s diary - the pages are the children of the True Believers and the Power Elite, who usually grow up to be True Believers and Power Elites themselves.  

    I wouldn't count on many of them to stick their necks out and rock the boat, no matter what happened to them.

    PLUS - there will be a big shame component to admitting some of these things.  

    by hopesprings on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 03:37:33 PM PDT

•  I just hope to god...

  ...Foley doesn't try to hurt himself, both because I'd like to see him get help and because of the political implications.  If he does something like that, heaven forbid, the scandal turns on a dime and becomes about the ruthlessness of the "witch hunt."  I hope he has his family around him.

  by scorponic on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:34:20 PM PDT

  •  me too

    i think it's a very good thing he's checked into rehab. whether it was meant to provide cover or not, i'm glad he's somewhere being supervised by medical professionals.

    by isis2 on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:44:00 PM PDT

    •  No medical professionals please

      His is not a disease.  He belongs in a jail cell.

      You can not explain away all deviant behavior as victim of disease.

      by manyoso on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:48:05 PM PDT

      •  i'm thinking of the political implications...

        heartless as that may be. i don't want to see him off himself.

        as scorponic says:

        If he does something like that, heaven forbid, the scandal turns on a dime and becomes about the ruthlessness of the "witch hunt."

        by isis2 on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:57:07 PM PDT

        •  If he 'off's' himself...

          That would be regrettable, but he'd only have himself to blame.  No one forced him to do the things he did.

          Mark Foley is not a victim of anyone other than himself.

          And were he to commit suicide that would not change.

          by manyoso on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 03:03:35 PM PDT

          •  In your mind, it might not change.

            In the public mind, I think it would.  We can always agree to disagree.

            by scorponic on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 03:04:53 PM PDT

            •  I really very much doubt that.

              I think you'd find that most would likely say 'good riddance'

              But, yah, we can disagree about that.  Hopefully we will not have the opportunity to find out who is correct.

              by manyoso on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 03:06:53 PM PDT

            •  i agree with you.

              i think in the public mind, it would change. and that would be tragic because it's about more than foley and what he's done.

              it's also about the complete and utter institutional failure of Congress at the hands of the Republicans. and that damage affects millions.

              by isis2 on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 03:10:41 PM PDT

          •  What would change is the narrative

            ... in that the news-cycle coverage would thenceforth be about him, and what happened to him when his reprehensibilities were brought to light. Were the media [and we] too aggressive, too indifferent to our own unintended consequences, &c. Suicide would be tabloid gold the RWCM could spin for at least a month. We have just that month to keep the spotlight on Hastert, Boehner, Shimkus and the others.

            The story that matters in the political sense is the cover-up. For the greater good, I wish Foley a slow and extremely quiet rehab.

            Then a bright future in telemarketing.

            by Prof Haley on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 03:23:12 PM PDT

            •  Wonderfully said. n/t

              by scorponic on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 03:33:03 PM PDT

    •  I have heard the rumor

      and I stress RUMOR - that he's in a Scientology narcanon-type facility.  Which is a pretty scary place to be.

      by hopesprings on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 03:40:34 PM PDT

  •  PLEASE!!!!

    Absolutely NO sympathy for that asshole.  He was a predator of young kids.

    The only sympathy he deserves is a very basic level of human dignity.  That's it.  In other words, no I don't wish he'd commit suicide, but he DOES deserve no better than to rot in a jail cell somewhere.  Preferably for a very long time.

    by manyoso on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:46:59 PM PDT

    •  If the Amish can forgive...

      ...a man who murdered their children, I can express a wish that Foley not harm himself.  I'm not even talking forgiveness, so it doesn't seem to be over the top.  Sexual compulsions are illnesses.  Sure, he deserves punishment for breaking the law, but we're liberals, remember?  We believe in rehabilitation, or at least its potential.  Or did I not get the memo that liberalism jettisoned that idea sometime in the last few days?

      by scorponic on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:50:45 PM PDT

      •  The Amish think the children are better off;

        We don't.

        by jeff in nyc on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:57:06 PM PDT

        •  And if you actually read my

          comment, you'll see I'm not talking about forgiveness.  Your point?

          by scorponic on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:58:29 PM PDT

          •  Chill. I read your post. And I had a thought

            to add. Sorry. I won't comment/recommend your posts in the future, if I remember.

            by jeff in nyc on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 03:28:59 PM PDT

            •  Sorry....

              I realized after responding you were enhancing, not disagreeing.  My apologies.  You get a recommend for your class.

              by scorponic on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 03:34:14 PM PDT

      •  It is not an ILLNESS!

        You can say he's 'sick', you can say he has something wrong in the 'head', but when you conjure up the word ILLNESS you imply that he is a VICTIM.  He is not.

        Forgive him all you want, but don't turn him into a victim with careless use of words.

        by manyoso on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 03:05:36 PM PDT

        •  What's careless about it?

          Sick people do sick things.  Philosophers and psychologists have pondered for thousands of years where personal responsibility ends and mental illness begins.  In US law, we've made a choice to punish sick people for doing sick things, except in very, very limited circumstances, into which Foley would never fit, but that doesn't mean he doesn't deserve help as well as punishment.  It certainly doesn't mean we can't express a desire that he get whatever help he can get, especially because he'll be back on the street after some number of years even if he does go to jail.  Without help, he'll be preying on boys all over again.

          by scorponic on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 03:09:22 PM PDT

          •  Again

            It is careless precisely because you are conflating who the victim is here.  You are suggesting that Foley should be thought a victim every bit as much as the true victims of his actions: the teens.

            This might seem a sophisticated view to you, but it is short on one very important thing: personal responsibility.  We can't turn all the world's crimes and injustices into a catalog of illnesses.  At some point human beings on this earth, regardless of their genes and their predilections must be held responsible when they injure others.

            Thinking of Mark Foley as a victim does a disservice in the immediate to the people he has actively harmed.

            by manyoso on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 03:24:15 PM PDT

            •  I'm sorry....

              ...but that's so reductionist to the point of being right-wing.  Rush says the same thing about liberals who "whine" that we're criminalizing the underclass when we merely punish them and not try to do something about the conditions that lead to crime, societal or psychological.  And I can tell you this, if my father or brother or son had done or ever does what Foley did, I would/will not just insist on punishment, but on treatment.  I have no doubt you would, too, if someone close to you did such things.  We don't triumph in any way by reducing such complex questions to an either/or between punishment and treatment.  And for the record: I have not implied, nor do I think, that Foley is as much a "victim" as the boys he preyed on, though he, too, if he is to be believed, was once preyed on as a child, as were most child molesters (which might suggest it's worth considering the psychological component beyond simply pronouncing a predator as pure "evil").

              by scorponic on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 03:41:29 PM PDT

              •  I'm sorry...

                But that is an ABSURD analogy.

                You do realize don't you that you just compared child molesters with the poor.

                I have no idea how you can make such an analogy and then claim that I'M being right-wing.

                by manyoso on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 03:49:40 PM PDT

                •  This is beyond tiresome.

                  Either you don't want to listen, or you're deliberately trying to misrepresent my argument (like you tried to slip in earlier that I had advocated "forgiveness" for Foley when I explicitly said the opposite).

                  I'll spell it out for you.  Poverty, lack of economic and educational opportunity, parental substance abuse and even poor nutrition (the latter two of which are more rampant, not surprisingly, among the poor) are all correlated with violent criminal activity -- i.e., murder, attempted murder, assault, rape, armed robberty, etc.  This is a fact.

                  The violent crime rate in poor communities is much higher than in more well-off communities.  This is also a fact.

                  So, the analogy is not between "child molesters" and "the poor," as you absurdly pose it, but between "child molesters" and poor people who commit murder, assault, armed robbery, rape, etc.  There may be relevant factors -- other than "he's an evil, bad person" -- that are worth understanding in both contexts.

                  While I, as a liberal, insist on punishment for all of these crimes, I am also not too stupid to have more than one thought in my head at a time and recognize there are personal psychological and social circumstances that increase the likelihood that a person will commit criminal acts.

                  To the extent we can do something about those circumstances -- such as, for example, offering treatment, etc. where it promises some non-negligible prospect of success -- it would be both stupid and inhumane not to.  Stupid because we want to try to lower the likelihood that someone sitting in prison will commit the same kind of acts that put him there when he gets out, and inhumane because, if we recognize that certain factors increase the likelihood that someone will commit a crime, it would be cruel not to address those factors if we can.  There but for the grace of god go you or I, and all that.

                  You started this exchange by screaming that it was inappropriate to express the wish that Foley not harm himself, or that he get medical/psychiatric assistance.  I think you need to go back and look at what you wrote and see if it would stand this simple, very liberal litmus test: as I mentioned above, if he were your relative, you'd be doing everything you could to prevent him from harming himself and getting him the help he needed, even if you believed he should also be punished for any law-breaking.  If he were your relative, you certainly wouldn't have blasted others for trying to see him as a person in need of help in addition to someone deserving punishment.

                  I'm done with this exchange.  You've dug a hole for yourself and are too stubborn to crawl out or even stop digging.  I leave the last word to you.

                  by scorponic on Thu Oct 05, 2006 at 05:32:12 AM PDT

                  •  Spew...

                    Your response is puke worthy.  First, you whine that I have misrepresented your position and then you go on to spew this, "You started this exchange by screaming that it was inappropriate to express the wish that Foley not harm himself, or that he get medical/psychiatric assistance."

                    Please, sir, point out where I ever screamed that it was inappropriate!  Bullshit!  You will find, if you care to go back and look, that I myself expressed many times the wish that Foley not harm himself in this very thread.

                    You are a liar.

                    "If he were your relative, you certainly wouldn't have blasted others for trying to see him as a person in need of help in addition to someone deserving punishment."

                    Not only that, you are a miserable liar!  I never blasted you for trying to see Foley as a person.  In this very thread I put forth the unremarkable position that Foley should be treated with basic human dignity.

                    Again, you have lied!

                    My only beef with you is your insistence on labeling Foley a victim of illness.  For that, you've turned around and puked out nothing but lies.

                    Good riddance.

                    by manyoso on Thu Oct 05, 2006 at 03:03:12 PM PDT

        •  And by the way...

          ...I haven't said a word about "forgiving" him, as you suggest.

          by scorponic on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 03:12:09 PM PDT

    •  he deserves his day in court.

      no more. no less.

      by isis2 on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:58:30 PM PDT

•  Inappropriate behavior...

  Yeah, you're pointing at a huge question here. Who, what,
  why, where, when and how. There's bound to be answers
  coming the way the repubs are firing away randomly at each
  other.
   Maybe the reports of a drunken Foley turned away from the
  pages dorm are part of what Fordham is referring to?

  by leo joad on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:34:29 PM PDT

•  Maybe reporters, the media are no longer afraid

  to really report what is happening: the graft, lying, corruption and so on in Bush's regime.
  Rove's machine is damaged. The scandals are there--the media knows about them but they smell blood (money) and the people are restless and angry.

  Methinks there will be many more stories to come....

  by vassmer on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:37:39 PM PDT

•  There was a WAPO article yesterday

  in which a former Page was interviewed. He stated that as far back as 1996 when he was a page, they knew about Foley. At that time, he was a relatively new Congressman (1994 I think, part of the Repub. Revolution?).

  The Page said that Foley used to ask the pages to go 'have ice-cream' with them.

  I will look for the link to that article. This would mean that while Newt Gingrich et al were after Clinton, there had a predator in their midst. Newt was out front this past week defending Republicans. Maybe someone should ask him what he knew about Foley while he was speaker?  After all, several pages are saying it was fairly common knowledge as far back as 1995!

  So you were right to catch that phrase. It seems he knows how far back this goes .....

  by Catrina on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 02:44:03 PM PDT

•  Here you go:

  From the LA Times:

  WASHINGTON — Years before sexually explicit electronic messages sent by Rep. Mark Foley to teenage House pages became public last week, some on Capitol Hill say, the Florida Republican was known to have a special interest in younger men.

  ......

  "Almost the first day I got there I was warned," said Mark Beck-Heyman, a San Diego native who served as a page in the House of Representatives in the summer of 1995. "It was no secret that Foley had a special interest in male pages," said Beck-Heyman, adding that Foley, who is now 52, on several occasions asked him out for ice cream.

  Another former congressional staff member said he too had been the object of Foley's advances. "It was so well known around the House. Pages passed it along from class to class," said the former aide, adding that when he was 18 a few years ago and working as an intern, Foley approached him at a bar near the Capitol and asked for his e-mail address.

  Foley Saga No Shock To Some

  Good catch by you ~ it's going to be interesting to hear the excuses of the leaders of the House back then, so intent on going after Clinton, as to how it was they ignored what seems to have been pretty common knowledge regarding one of their own. Tom Delay, Henry Hyde, Newt Gingrich .... if Newt starts talking again, someone needs to ask him some questions, imo.

  by Catrina on Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 03:28:41 PM PDT