Let's keep the Foley scandal honest

Good grief, it's one thing for the blogosphere to run with distortions, but quite another for the mainsteam media to do so regarding what Republican leaders knew about Congressman Mark Foley. Many of you may have been hearing that Republican leaders knew of e-mails between a former 16 yr old male page and Foley. They did, but it wasn't the sick instant messages that you have seen on the news of late. The Democrats only want you to think they were the same.

The e-mails sent in the fall of 2005 were initiated by the former page, Foley asks the former page how he is after Katrina (the boy was from Louisiana) and Foley asked for a photo. That was it. No sexual discussion occurred. These were the e-mails made known to Speaker Hastert. The former page contacted the St. Petersburg Times with an exchange of emails between himself and Congressman Foley. The editor said they never ran the story. They assigned 2 reporters. They interviewed several pages and spoke with the page of the e-mails mentioned above and he said that the asking for the photo had made him uncomfortable, but that was as far as they got. No other page they interviewed spoke to them about anything Foley had done inappropriate.

Now, if reporters had investigated and found nothing, don't you think it was probably the same with Speaker Hasert? If you click on the link below you will read how the Republican leadership acted on the innocuous e-mails. It was clearly acted upon by many. The Clerk of the House asked the family to see the e-mails and they assured the Clerk that it was not sexual in nature. The family did not want this incident to be made public either. The leadership still immediately spoke with Foley who denied anything inappropriate and was told by the Clerk to cease e-mails with the young page and Foley agreed.

Let's be clear. Speaker Hastert has stated that he never saw or knew of any sexual explicit instant messages between Foley and any pages.

The Democrats would love for this to be some sort of a coverup, but it simply isn't and it is unfair and demeaning to Speaker Hastert to keep mixing up the facts here to make it seem as if Hastert had seen the sexual instant messages when in fact it was the innocuous e-mails. I can't imagine what Hastert was expected to do with such little evidence.

What Foley did was sick and unacceptable and he is gone. That's what Republicans do with sexual immorality, we kick them out. Other politicans who are sexually immoral are luckier, like Bill Clinton, Gerry Studds, Barney Frank, and Ted Kennedy, they are Democrats.

The Democrats know that a sexual scandal, no matter how sick, is the responsibililty of the adult involved. They know that that would not be enough to change the course of the Nov. elections. But if they can paint the leadership as covering this up, then they can win more seats.

It is almost as dispicable as what Foley did. But I am not surprised.

source: American Thinker

crossposted at TexasSparkle

Update: The Gay Patriot wonders if the Democrats set Foley up and exposes leftwing sites that declared Foley gay in 2004 and were angry that he was a Republican and vowed to take him down. Notice that the "slur" was not that he was a pedophile, but that he was gay and Republican. Foley has no one but himself to blame here of course, but it is interesting how gay bashing is ok as long as you are a Democrat.