Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Very Interesting Tidbits.

From Media Blog:

"ABC reporter Brian Ross, who broke the Mark Foley story, hinted to The New York Times that his sources on the story have come from the Republican Party:

Mr. Ross dismissed suggestions by some Republicans that the news was disseminated as part of a smear campaign against Mr. Foley.

“I hate to give up sources, but to the extent that I know the political parties of any of the people who helped us, it would be the same party,” Mr. Ross said, referring to Republicans.

In this context, it's worth remembering the Rep. Rodney Alexander — who sponsored the page who received the e-mails that started all this — was a Democrat until he switched parties in 2004. What happened to his staff?"

Even more interesting from NRO:

"I do not trust Dick Morris. Period. But here's what he said on Hannity & Colmes last night, in context:

HANNITY: All right, perhaps, but we'll examine that in the next segment. But I think more importantly here there's some fundamental, I think, fairness issues here.

Everybody that I know is glad Foley is gone, but there seems to be an issue here to purposefully politicize this issue, and I find that equally repugnant to me. And, more importantly, I think this takes on a whole new dimension, and this is it, that, if in the pursuit of political power you are going to falsely accuse individuals of knowing things about horrible scandals like this, you better have evidence, because we live in America, and those American people you're describing are fair-minded.

MORRIS: And that's going to back fire.

HANNITY: And when innocent people are smeared, Dick, I've got to believe that people would tend to side with the people that are being smeared. And I see that this is happening more and more in this scandal.

MORRIS: And that's going to back fire on the Democrats by focusing on what did Hastert know, because you know that some of the Democratic congressmen knew. I had a reporter who told me today that she knows that one very prominent member of the Democratic leadership knew about this for months. And it came out through...

HANNITY: That's a big story.

MORRIS: ... a left-wing — came out — yes, but it's up to her to break it. And came...

ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: But, Dick, it's the Republican leadership we're dealing with here. It's their leadership.

MORRIS: Yes. I mean, the Democratic leadership knew, was what she told me. And I think that, obviously, it came out through a liberal Web site, and obviously it was fed to ABC through one of their more liberal channels. And obviously there were Democratic fingerprints on it.

But I don't think that the public is going to care much about what Hastert knew and what the Democratic leadership knew and any of that. They are going to focus on the details of this scandal, and they'll be very glad that it came out, and they will feel that it epitomizes what's wrong with Congress.

COLMES: All right, Dick, we only have a few moments here before we have to break again. But, look, this actually appeared on a Web site, "Stop Sexual Predators." I don't know that that's a liberal Web site.

We know that the Democrat in the page program in Congress was not informed. Only the Republicans knew. To actually put any blame for this on the Democratic leadership, as if they should have done something, when it's clear the Republican leadership didn't, is really not taking responsibility where it belongs.

MORRIS: Listen, I hate to take both of you on at once, but you're both missing the point. This is not a Democratic or a Republican scandal. It's a congressional scandal."