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Comments from an AP history
and government teacher in Raleigh, NC.
e-mail betsynewmark AT gmail.com
Commissions earned from selling items through Amazon will go towards buying materials for my classes. Thank you.
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Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Podcast on the Foley Scandal
Last night I participated in a podcast at GOPUSA about the political implications of the Mark Foley scandal with three of my very favorite bloggers, Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters, Lorie Byrd of Wizbang, and John Hawkins of Right Wing News. You can go here to listen to it - it's about a half hour long.
Mostly, we all agreed that Foley is a sleaze who should get whatever he deserves. Lorie, John, and I didn't think that Hastert should have to resign over this scandal - that he basically did what seemed reasonable with the information he had about the one set of inappropriate, yet innocuous emails. Captain Ed disagreed and feels that Hastert showed incompetence in how he and the lead Republicans handled it and so should resign.
What I didn't get around to saying was that they should have not kept this within the GOP family, but should have informed the Democratic member who is on the committee overseeing the pages. They should have done this on a nonpartisan basis.
The other thought I've been having is that this reminds me of the turmoil we went through day after day with the Gary Condit/Chandra Levy story right before 9/11. The media is focusing on this story like it is so much more than the sad and disturbing story of one congressman with some real problems.
I don't think it is indicative of the page program as a whole having some big stink about it or some level of corruption in the GOP leadership closing their eyes to a middle-aged congressman treating the pages as his personal supply of sex objects. I just don't think that Hastert and the GOP leadership would have ignored that scandal if they had known what was going on. It doesn't impress me that the pages knew that Foley was a creep who was getting too close to some of the pages. I teach in a high school with kids of this age and I know that there are a whole lot of things going on that the kids know about and that the teachers are oblivious to. So just because some pages passed the word on to other pages doesn't mean that the leaders of the page program knew. If you want to be cynical, you can say that they know that Foley's district is a safe Republican seat so they could have pressed him to resign a year ago if they had really known what was going on and not have risked losing the seat and having the scandal coming out at election time.
Perhaps they should have. Perhaps they should have gone to all the pages and asked them if anyone on the Hill was speaking or communicating with them in an inappropriate manner. They might be doing that now, but I don't fault them for not thinking of that before.
And I would place a lot more credence in the Democrats' outrage if they had expelled Mel Reynolds for having sex with an underage campaign worker. Instead Bill Clinton pardoned the guy. And what about when Juanita Broadrrick went on NBC and had a credible story about Bill Clinton raping her. The Democrats weren't ready to mount a campaign outrage about that story. We should be able to equally condemn a politician actually having sex with a minor, raping a woman, or exchanging salacious IM messages with a page. The Democrats are all insisting that the GOP give back all the money that Foley had donated to their campaigns. What about all the money that Bill Clinton has raised and continues to raise for Democrats?
As even the Washington Post pointed out in this story, there does seem a general pattern of Republicans suffering more for their sex scandals than Democrats do. I don't buy that it's a bigger story if the guy was hypocritically condemning such behavior, as Foley was, just as he was committing it. If the behavior is disgusting and contemptible, does it become more or less so by what the guy was saying previously? The behavior is either worth condemning or not. It shouldn't matter that the guy had said hypocritical things before.
And, finally, I don't care that Mark Foley has problems with alcoholism and was molested as a teenager. Having the lawyer say that it's not an excuse and then bring it up in his announcement is such an obvious PR ploy. What's next - an autobiography and an interview with Oprah? Yech!
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Comments:
Last night I participated in a podcast at GOPUSA about the political implications of the Mark Foley scandal with three of my very favorite bloggers, Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters, Lorie Byrd of Wizbang, and John Hawkins of Right Wing News. You can go here to listen to it - it's about a half hour long.
Mostly, we all agreed that Foley is a sleaze who should get whatever he deserves. Lorie, John, and I didn't think that Hastert should have to resign over this scandal - that he basically did what seemed reasonable with the information he had about the one set of inappropriate, yet innocuous emails. Captain Ed disagreed and feels that Hastert showed incompetence in how he and the lead Republicans handled it and so should resign.
What I didn't get around to saying was that they should have not kept this within the GOP family, but should have informed the Democratic member who is on the committee overseeing the pages. They should have done this on a nonpartisan basis.
The other thought I've been having is that this reminds me of the turmoil we went through day after day with the Gary Condit/Chandra Levy story right before 9/11. The media is focusing on this story like it is so much more than the sad and disturbing story of one congressman with some real problems.
I don't think it is indicative of the page program as a whole having some big stink about it or some level of corruption in the GOP leadership closing their eyes to a middle-aged congressman treating the pages as his personal supply of sex objects. I just don't think that Hastert and the GOP leadership would have ignored that scandal if they had known what was going on. It doesn't impress me that the pages knew that Foley was a creep who was getting too close to some of the pages. I teach in a high school with kids of this age and I know that there are a whole lot of things going on that the kids know about and that the teachers are oblivious to. So just because some pages passed the word on to other pages doesn't mean that the leaders of the page program knew. If you want to be cynical, you can say that they know that Foley's district is a safe Republican seat so they could have pressed him to resign a year ago if they had really known what was going on and not have risked losing the seat and having the scandal coming out at election time.
Perhaps they should have. Perhaps they should have gone to all the pages and asked them if anyone on the Hill was speaking or communicating with them in an inappropriate manner. They might be doing that now, but I don't fault them for not thinking of that before.
And I would place a lot more credence in the Democrats' outrage if they had expelled Mel Reynolds for having sex with an underage campaign worker. Instead Bill Clinton pardoned the guy. And what about when Juanita Broadrrick went on NBC and had a credible story about Bill Clinton raping her. The Democrats weren't ready to mount a campaign outrage about that story. We should be able to equally condemn a politician actually having sex with a minor, raping a woman, or exchanging salacious IM messages with a page. The Democrats are all insisting that the GOP give back all the money that Foley had donated to their campaigns. What about all the money that Bill Clinton has raised and continues to raise for Democrats?
As even the Washington Post pointed out in this story, there does seem a general pattern of Republicans suffering more for their sex scandals than Democrats do. I don't buy that it's a bigger story if the guy was hypocritically condemning such behavior, as Foley was, just as he was committing it. If the behavior is disgusting and contemptible, does it become more or less so by what the guy was saying previously? The behavior is either worth condemning or not. It shouldn't matter that the guy had said hypocritical things before.
And, finally, I don't care that Mark Foley has problems with alcoholism and was molested as a teenager. Having the lawyer say that it's not an excuse and then bring it up in his announcement is such an obvious PR ploy. What's next - an autobiography and an interview with Oprah? Yech!
0 comments
Last night I participated in a podcast at GOPUSA about the political implications of the Mark Foley scandal with three of my very favorite bloggers, Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters, Lorie Byrd of Wizbang, and John Hawkins of Right Wing News. You can go here to listen to it - it's about a half hour long.
Mostly, we all agreed that Foley is a sleaze who should get whatever he deserves. Lorie, John, and I didn't think that Hastert should have to resign over this scandal - that he basically did what seemed reasonable with the information he had about the one set of inappropriate, yet innocuous emails. Captain Ed disagreed and feels that Hastert showed incompetence in how he and the lead Republicans handled it and so should resign.
What I didn't get around to saying was that they should have not kept this within the GOP family, but should have informed the Democratic member who is on the committee overseeing the pages. They should have done this on a nonpartisan basis.
The other thought I've been having is that this reminds me of the turmoil we went through day after day with the Gary Condit/Chandra Levy story right before 9/11. The media is focusing on this story like it is so much more than the sad and disturbing story of one congressman with some real problems.
I don't think it is indicative of the page program as a whole having some big stink about it or some level of corruption in the GOP leadership closing their eyes to a middle-aged congressman treating the pages as his personal supply of sex objects. I just don't think that Hastert and the GOP leadership would have ignored that scandal if they had known what was going on. It doesn't impress me that the pages knew that Foley was a creep who was getting too close to some of the pages. I teach in a high school with kids of this age and I know that there are a whole lot of things going on that the kids know about and that the teachers are oblivious to. So just because some pages passed the word on to other pages doesn't mean that the leaders of the page program knew. If you want to be cynical, you can say that they know that Foley's district is a safe Republican seat so they could have pressed him to resign a year ago if they had really known what was going on and not have risked losing the seat and having the scandal coming out at election time.
Perhaps they should have. Perhaps they should have gone to all the pages and asked them if anyone on the Hill was speaking or communicating with them in an inappropriate manner. They might be doing that now, but I don't fault them for not thinking of that before.
And I would place a lot more credence in the Democrats' outrage if they had expelled Mel Reynolds for having sex with an underage campaign worker. Instead Bill Clinton pardoned the guy. And what about when Juanita Broadrrick went on NBC and had a credible story about Bill Clinton raping her. The Democrats weren't ready to mount a campaign outrage about that story. We should be able to equally condemn a politician actually having sex with a minor, raping a woman, or exchanging salacious IM messages with a page. The Democrats are all insisting that the GOP give back all the money that Foley had donated to their campaigns. What about all the money that Bill Clinton has raised and continues to raise for Democrats?
As even the Washington Post pointed out in this story, there does seem a general pattern of Republicans suffering more for their sex scandals than Democrats do. I don't buy that it's a bigger story if the guy was hypocritically condemning such behavior, as Foley was, just as he was committing it. If the behavior is disgusting and contemptible, does it become more or less so by what the guy was saying previously? The behavior is either worth condemning or not. It shouldn't matter that the guy had said hypocritical things before.
And, finally, I don't care that Mark Foley has problems with alcoholism and was molested as a teenager. Having the lawyer say that it's not an excuse and then bring it up in his announcement is such an obvious PR ploy. What's next - an autobiography and an interview with Oprah? Yech!
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