Mark Foley says he is gay and that he never had sex with a minor and that he was molested by clergy as a young teen. Is He saying that being molested made him gay?
Also, Foley isn't the only one remembering molestation. The killer at the Amish school says he was a molester and was dreaming of doing it again.
I'm officially depressed.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
I just want to get this straight (pardon the pun)
Hastert on Rush
He isn't resigning. Good on him.
If you are innocent stand firm. Listen to the audio. Hastert explains exactly what happened. You can believe him or not. But there it is.
Move America' Forward's New Ad
website here.
I don't know. It's pretty simple without much meat. But maybe that is what non-political people respond to. I was expecting more.
Cardinal blogging!
Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the Archbishop of Boston, Massachusetts, is now blogging. He is in Rome now and has awesome pictures.
How cool is that? He accepts comments too! (please, my leftie commenters, be respectful)
The Democratic Playbook
Remember in my last post how I said the Democrats were purposely trying to spin things as if there were no distinction between the non sexual e-mails that Hastert saw and the sexually explicit instant messages that he didn't?
This is from The Democratic Playbook, literally:
1. Pay no heed to the distinction between the e-mails and IMs. There's no evidence (yet) that any Republican leaders knew about Foley's cybersex IMs. There's plenty of evidence that they knew how uncomfortable the "overly friendly" e-mails made at least one page. So the Dems will press the GOP on what they knew about the former and will constantly, in their press releases, refer to the "GOP's knowledge of the sexually explicit e-mails."
I rest my case.
More on the Democrats talking points:
2. Enlarge the wedge between House leaders. The tension this weekend between Speaker Dennis Hastert and NRCC chair Tom Reynolds was thick. Dems want it to suffocate the party and throw the Republicans even further off their game.
3. Be aggressive about how Dems will -- and are -- protecting children. Dems want to keep the issue poisonous in a way that's clear and direct to middle America. (In other words: this ain't earmarks.)
Yeah, let's "keep the issue poisonous." That's the ticket. Use a scandal that both Republicans and Democrats agree on, but push it to make it "poisonous" because we can't win if we agree, right?
Ugh.
via Townhall
Monday, October 02, 2006
I am so angry
This whole Foley thing has made me so angry. Angry about many things. But when I thought about it I realized what made me angriest of all.
The entire blogopshere is just beating it's chest in indignation and anger over what Foley did. It seems writing dirty messages to a 16 year old is something we can all agree is wrong, wrong. Oh, the screaming of "child predator" and "pedophile" could be heard from one end of the blogosphere to the other.
But then I started thinking about the blogopshere's reaction to the teacher who had sex with a 14 yr old boy. Debbie Lafave. Also someone who had authority over youth and took advantage of it. But she didn't just instant message this boy with sexual suggestions. She actually seduced and had sex with him. Many times. Yet the reaction then was very different.
Oh so different.
All I read on blogs (both right and left) was how lucky this boy was. How they wished they had a teacher like that in Jr. High. About how stupid he was to have told.
And adult seduced a child, and in this case it was not only a minor, but it WAS below the age of consent. And yet the men of the net (with few exceptions) could only talk about how hot the teacher was. There was a whole lot of cyber winking and "you know what I'm, saying?" going on. Do we remember this??
Just for a taste, check out the comments here and here. (left or right, all the same)
The hypocrisy of the reaction to Foley compared to the teacher isn't all that ticks me off. I read on my libertarian blogs how awful the Foley thing is. I have news for you. If your 13, 14, 15, or 16 yr old is on the computer EVER with out you right there I guarantee he or she have read and seen MUCH MUCH worse than anything Foley wrote to that boy.
So some of you can spare me your indignation. You don't care how our children are hurt on the net by what they see or who IM's them. It's only the parents responsibility, right? I mean we all know that at least one parent is home all the time with their older kids, right?? We all know that kids never get on other children's computers where the parents don't care, right? Because it's all about free speech and the smut and porn that pops up to your 12 yr old is just a part of that, right? It's what our forefathers fought for, right?
So if you are going to get mad and disgusted at Foley, get mad at the hundreds of thousands of porn and smut sites that target our kids everyday. One click and they are there. One innocent looking ad or pop up and our kids are THERE, seeing and reading far worse things than Foley every thought about.
Today, I am just sick and mad at the world.
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.
Back at Bill
Did any of you see Fox News Sunday yesterday with Chris Wallace? He showed that part of the clip in his interview with Bill Clinton where Clinton gets in his face and with a big smirk and asks Chris if he ever asked the Bush administration if they were soft on terror before 9-11? Remember that part? Bill looks so self satisfied that he "got" Chris Wallace.
Well, Wallace said he looked through his interviews and then showed 3 or 4 clips where he did exactly that. On Rumsfeld he was especially harsh and asked directly if the Bush administration ignored terrorism before 9-11.
So there's that. And then there is this. Move America Forward isn't letting Clinton get away with trying to re-write history either. The Washington Times has this:
"If you think former President Bill Clinton has been in a sour mood, what with all the finger-pointing of late surrounding his administration's reaction (or lack thereof) to global terrorism, wait until he sees three television ads that will start airing in the coming days. The group Move America Forward, based in Sacramento, Calif., says it's had enough of Mr. Clinton and his loyal lieutenants trying to "rewrite history" about the war on terrorism and goes so far as to call the former commander in chief "shameless."
This ad will join two other ads on the war on terrorism. It's seems to be a way to tell "the rest of the story" that the media is not telling.
I can't wait for Clinton's reaction to it. Oh boy.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
"Pay attention to the better angels of our nature"
Hugh Hewitt has the best view of this whole Mark Foley scandal.
It's excellent.
"All of us have an appetite for sin. Part of the human drama and every life's challenge is to manage those appetites, to control them and vanquish them. It's something that most of us get much better at with age, which is why our truly hideous deeds are usually confined to our youths.
Politicians are often figures with outsized supplies of vanity and pride. It's not surprising considering how they give into these sins that they have appetites for other sins that are greater than the normal man's, and that they also grant those appetites more license than the normal man does."
Hugh chronicles a few well known politicians who have given in to their appetite for sin and he makes a bigger point. The Democrats misjudge the American people who will see Foley as a Republican scandal:
"His party identification will be a non-factor. He will be just another politician who indulged his appetites for sin without any apparent regard for the import of his job or the hundreds of thousands of people that he represented."
As Hugh points out:
"Normal people aren't like this. Most people don't closely identify with either party and they view political obsessives the same way they view avid stamp collectors or grown-ups who play with model trains. In other words, they view political junkies as freaks. Perhaps benign freaks, but freaks nonetheless."
So we, who are "the freaks" need to chill out on not just stories like these, but all the stories where the blogopshere goes crazy with stupid details, misinterpretations, and distortions.
Hugh ends with this truth:
"We all walk a tightrope trying to pay more attention to the better angels of our nature than the devils on our shoulder. When someone else fails, we might criticize him and his actions but we also think to ourselves, "There but for the grace of God go I."
Which is why Gerry Studds and Bill Clinton and Teddy Kennedy were re-elected. Especially when it comes to sexual sin, people don't want to judge because they themselves might be judged and found wanting.
That's what I believe anyway.
Someone please tell me.....
Why, in the Democrat"s view, what Mark Foley did was worse than what Gerry Studds did?
Gerry Studds actually had sexual relations with a minor who was a page.
Because Gerry Studds basically said "forget you" to those who judged him and went on to be re-elected five more times.
Now, I realize why Republicans wouldn't stand for Foley, but why did Democrats stand for Studds?
Anyone?
via Ace
The left side of smear and hate.
It's what they do best.
If you can't win in debate, just smear the the one who can.
What scum they are.
Should McCain be watching his back?
Times Online says yes.
Do I love his stand on the issues? Yes. But can he beat Hillary? I don't think so.
Because Mitt Romney is like me. He is a hard right religious fanatic that would take us back to segregation and back alley abortions. Oh...you didn't know that about me? Well, it's not true of course, but that is how the left sees me. And that is the brush they will paint Mitt with as well. And he is just a bit too perfect looking. He almost looks like a televangelist.
What I am saying is this. I love Romney on the issues. If I thought he could beat Hillary I'd be for him, but HE CAN'T. This is the same country that elected Bill Clinton twice and then George Bush twice. The issues don't matter as much as the perception of the person. Hillary has spent her time in Congress being Miss. Moderate. They can't touch her there, even on the issues. Mitt has spent his time in service being true to what he believes in, which is conservative values. The snarling monster of the left will eat him alive.
But they won't eat McCain alive. McCain knows what it is like to fight a snarling monster. He's an expert at it. And he knows how to fight Hillary, a wolf in sheep's clothing. The one who beats Hillary is the one who knows what it is like to go up against what is wrong and valueless and win.
McCain knows.
That's all I am saying.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Breaking News Baghdad.
Iraq The Model says there is a total curfew there until Sunday morning.
Small Dead Animals thinks that this might be the anticipated showdown between Muqtada Al-Sadr and the Iraqi government.
BBC has more.
h/t Dave
The shame of Mark Foley
Rep. Mark Foley resigns after sending provocative e-mails to a male page. The whole thing is sick. There was no way we would have allowed him to continue.
Good riddance.
What is it with seduction and power? Does it create stupidity?
Update: I just remembered something. I was a page in the Mississippi State legislature when I was 16. There were wildly inappropriate comments to me as I recall. A young legislator (I can't remember his age, but in his 20's) not only asked me out, but followed me home one day and drove by my house several times until my father put a stop to it. At the time I was too young to realize how really wrong many of the comments were. (not as sexual as they probably are today, but more the leering type comments like "you should wear shorter dresses with those legs" type of thing.
I hadn't thought of that for years. I guess some things never change.
My John McCain Crush Post #25
RCP interviews McCain. My favorite parts:
"By the way, I don't mean to stray from the subject but a really entertaining thing happened day before yesterday. The Democrats had this hearing with two generals and a colonel, and it was a Rumsfeld-as-pinata encounter. But the interesting thing is that at the very end they made a terrible, cardinal error: they asked the generals and the colonel what we should do and they answered "stay the course," "more troops," "can't afford to lose." Oops. Hearing over. I thought it was wonderful. I'm sure they weren't pleased to hear the generals say we need more troops and we have to stay the course and we can't afford to lose. I'm sure some staffer probably got reprimanded or fired for allowing such a question to be asked."
He get's what the American people are feeling about the war:
"But I want to mention this about the war. Americans are frustrated, they're saddened, and they want to get out. But they don't want to get out according to a calendar. They want to get out according to conditions on the ground. And still, significant majorities, although frustrated and may think that we shouldn't have gotten in there in the first place, still don't agree with this set a date with for withdrawal. Thank God."
On Immigration:
"Here's how I think the compromise comes out. We set up a framework that all of the necessary measures to secure our border - not seal, by the way, the Israelis found out you can't seal a border - to secure our borders have been taken. In other words, authorize increased number of border patrol, facilities that need to be built, a fence, and the money appropriated so that we can go to our constituents and say "look, here's what every expert says is necessary to secure our borders, and these are the measures we've taken. " And that's going to take us a couple of years - to build the fence, install the sensors, build the towers and hire the border patrol, etc- and now we're going to try to address a temporary worker program and somehow dispose of the 11 or 12 million people who are already here. Just, for example, the temporary worker program. Suppose tomorrow we said "ok, anybody who works here as a temporary worker is going to have to have a biometric tamper proof visa." It would take us a year and half or two years anyway to set up such a program, starting from scratch. So our proposal is: take the steps necessary to secure the border, have it in place, but also start trying to address these other two issues, because the great fear of our base, and it's understandable and legitimate, is that we do what we did in the 1980s: promise to secure the borders, give amnesty, and yet the flow continues."
More:
"So this is a bridgeable gap. But again, the fear of our Republican base, and it's legitimate, because of what happened in the 80's is we say: OK, now we're going to give these people a path to citizenship and we're going to have a temporary worker program, but we don't secure the border so 10 years from there are 12 million more who've come across the border. They want a commitment to make the border secure. I understand that."
He gets why we are angry about spending:
"But there's one other aspect of this that doesn't get discussed and should be. Every time I talk to the party faithful about spending, they get angry. They are angry. They don't get angry, they are angry. The part of our base that has to do with fiscal discipline is angry at us - and they should be. There's no reason why they shouldn't be. When I mention the Bridge to Nowhere, they know it. They know it. And so, one of my major concerns is that - they won't vote Democrat, that doesn't bother me - but they might stay home. That's a concern that I have in talking to all these Republican audiences."
This warms the heart in a cold region of our country...
4 villages shun gift of free oil
"Leaders from four Western Alaska villages have rejected an offer of free heating oil from a Venezuelan- owned company because that nation's president this month called President Bush "a devil" and made other inflammatory comments about the United States.
"Despite the critical need for fuel in our region, the Unangan (Aleut) people are Americans first, and we cannot support the political agenda attached to this donation," read a statement from Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association released late Thursday."
America first. How about that?
Awesome.
h/t Dave
Update: These fine Alaskan people aren't the only ones having 2nd thoughts about Chavez's "gift" of heating oil:
"Last winter, Crosson enrolled in a heating oil program backed by CITGO Petroleum, controlled by the Venezuelan government, to fill her 250-gallon heating oil tank. She saved $200 on the purchase.
Despite the savings, Crosson is having second thoughts about re-enrolling this year after reading about Chavez's speech last week at the U.N. General Assembly. Chavez called President Bush "the devil" and U.S. policies "genocidal."
"I'm not a Bush person, believe me," said the trim, 75-year-old widow, "but I really resented that."
That's fine sweetie, don't be a "Bush person," Be an "American person." You get it.
Heck, even some Democrats get it:
"Still, the U.N. speech has cost Chavez support. Rep. Bill Delahunt, the Democrat who represents Quincy and a backer of the heating oil program, co-wrote a letter with Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., condemning the "gratuitous personal attack" on Bush as "a direct insult to the people of the United States."
John Baldacci, the Democratic governor of Maine, which received 8 million gallons of discounted heating oil last winter, said that "based on current events," he won't renew his agreement with CITGO."
Ed Koch..unplugged.
Years ago if you had told me that I would agree with everything in a speech that Democrat Ed Koch gave, I would have laughed. But former Mayor Koch spoke on first day of Rosh Hashanah at his Synagogue and his remarks were profound and full of wisdom. Here are some snippets:
"During the service this morning an elderly man came over to me and said, "Tell the Jews how foolish they are not to appreciate how good and supportive the President has been to the Jewish community. When I look back on the Nazis and remember what they did, I know how important it is for the President to stand up for Jews and others who are being terrorized throughout the world."
I replied, "I have and I will."
More:
"President Bush needs continued strength and courage to protect our country from the Islamic terrorists who want to kill us. Their goal, as clearly stated in the words of Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq before he was killed by an American bomb, is "Killing the infidels is our religion, slaughtering them is our religion, until they convert to Islam or pay us tribute." The infidels alluded to are you and I as well as other Jews, Christians (called Crusaders), Hindus and dissenting Muslims who disagree with them on religious or political issues.
I admire the strength and intelligence of Pope Benedict XVI. He understands the Muslim threats of violence against people unwilling to convert to Islam. He has called for a dialogue with the Muslim world."
Referring to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez addressing the General Assembly of the UN as he vilified President Bush, referring to him as "the devil:"
"What offended me even more than Chavez's ludicrous remarks were the responses of the U.N. delegates. No one stood up and told Chavez that he was out of order and demanded that he stop or sit down. They should have told him he was a disgrace to the U.N. Instead they are reported to have applauded this monster and laughed with him, instead of at him. The Times reported:
"So while there was official outrage over Mr. Chavez calling Mr. Bush 'the devil,' there was also a lot of applause and giggling, from dignitaries including the president of the General Assembly herself, Haya Rashed al-Khalifa of Bahrain, who was caught chuckling from her seat on the dais behind Mr. Chavez."
And finally:
".... do you remember the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl who was taken hostage by the terrorists in Pakistan? They paraded him on television and forced him to say, "My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish." Then they slit his throat and decapitated him with the world watching the video of the murder.
The Rabbi told us this morning that we recite very important prayers today, and we should be conscious of their special significance. I hope that some day soon we will add Daniel Pearl's words to a special prayer to be said today, as I say it now, "My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish." And I am proud."
Whenever we wonder about this fight we fight, we need to remember Daniel Pearl. He wasn't a soldier. He had no political agenda. The terrorists hated him for the same reason Hitler hated so many before...because he was Jewish.
Today Pres. Bush said that we do not create terrorism by fighting terrorism. That idea, being promoted by Democrats, that somehow not fighting terrorists will make them hate us less, is simply disproven by the past.
It was our ambivalence that allowed 9-11.
When we are tempted to give up this fight, let us remember Daniel Pearl. We stand with our Jewish friends and they stand with us. Never again will we allow others to kill innocent humans for simply who they are. Never again.
h/t Errol Phillips
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