I do believe that Mark Foley’s depravity has reached or surpassed Clinton’s use of Monica as a humidor or getting “serviced” while on the phone with a Congressman.

Former Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) interrupted a vote on the floor of the House in 2003 to engage in Internet sex with a high school student who had served as a congressional page, according to new Internet instant messages provided to ABC News by former pages.

ABC News now has obtained 52 separate instant message exchanges, which former pages say were sent by Foley, using the screen name Maf54, to two different boys under the age of 18.

This message was dated April 2003, at approximately 7 p.m., according to the message time stamp.

Maf54: I miss you
Teen: ya me too
Maf54: we are still voting
Maf54: you miss me too
The exchange continues in which Foley and the teen both appear to describe having sexual orgasms.
Maf54: ok..i better go vote..did you know you would have this effect on me
Teen: lol I guessed
Teen: ya go voteÂ…I don't want to keep you from doing our job
Maf54: can I have a good kiss goodnight
Teen: :-*
Teen:

The House voted that evening on HR 1559, Emergency War Time supplemental appropriations.

According to another message, Foley also invites the teen and a friend to come to his house near Capitol Hill so they can drink alcohol.

Teen: are you going to be in town over the veterans day weekend
Maf54: I may be now that your coming
Maf54: who you coming to visit
Teen: haha good stuff
Teen: umm no one really
Maf54: we will be adjourned ny then
Teen: oh good
Maf54: by
Maf54: then we can have a few drinks
Maf54: lol
Teen: yes yes ;-)
Maf54: your not old enough to drink
Teen: shhhÂ…
Maf54: ok
Teen: that's not what my ID says
Teen: lol
Maf54: ok
Teen: I probably shouldn't be telling you that huh
Maf54: we may need to drink at my house so we don't get busted

I am horrified and disgusted.

And I want to know who knew of these actions or had copies of these messages and did nothing to safeguard the young people involved.

And regardless, I want to see the sick freak go to jail for a very long time.

Posted by: Greg at 10:38 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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IÂ’ve liked almost every Mormon IÂ’ve ever met. They are among the kindest, most decent folks I know or have known.

At the same time, I do look askance at Mormon theology. I made a serious study of the religion years ago (while dating a Mormon girl – I’ll own that motivation), and I find it impossible to buy into some of the more unusual aspects of Mormon teaching.

But theological differences alone will not keep me from voting for a candidate I otherwise believe to be well-qualified. And that leads me to Dr. James DobsonÂ’s comments on Gov. Mitt RomneyÂ’s religion and its effect on his candidacy.

A prominent and powerful evangelical Christian leader, James Dobson, said yesterday that the Mormon faith practiced by Governor Romney of Massachusetts could pose a serious obstacle if Mr. Romney makes a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.

"I don't believe that conservative Christians in large numbers will vote for a Mormon but that remains to be seen, I guess," Mr. Dobson said on a syndicated radio program hosted by a conservative commentator, Laura Ingraham.

Mr. Dobson, the founder of the Colorado-based Focus on the Family, did not say why Christians would fail to support Mr. Romney. Mr. Dobson also acknowledged that the governor's stands on social issues are similar to those of many religious conservatives.

"He's a nice guy. He's a very attractive man. He's got a beautiful wife and a lot of his principles and values are consistent with ours," Mr. Dobson said. A spokesman for Mr. Romney, Eric Fehrnstrom, had no immediate comment.

In 1960, this country put the “Catholic issue” behind it by electing John F. Kennedy to the presidency. Let’s hope that we can place the “Mormon issue” behind us in 2008. That doesn’t mean electing Romney because of his faith, but it does mean that Americans should give him a respectful hearing and thoughtful consideration as a part of his run for office.

And I believe that many -- indeed, most -- among the Christian Right will give him a decent hearing.

"If he's pro-life, pro-family, I don't think he'll have any problem getting the support of evangelical Christians," a founder of the Moral Majority, Rev. Jerry Falwell, told the Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mo. earlier this year.

IÂ’m with Falwell on this one.

* * *

Greg Pierce of the Washington Times offers some reasons why Romney would be a good choice for the GOP.

Posted by: Greg at 10:28 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Proving that the conservative paper is just as capable as the liberal media of entering the Alice in Wonderland world of "First the sentence, then the trial", the Washington Times has called for the resignation of Speaker Dennis Hastert over the Tom Foley case.

The facts of the disgrace of Mark Foley, who was a Republican member of the House from a Florida district until he resigned last week, constitute a disgrace for every Republican member of Congress. Red flags emerged in late 2005, perhaps even earlier, in suggestive and wholly inappropriate e-mail messages to underage congressional pages. His aberrant, predatory -- and possibly criminal -- behavior was an open secret among the pages who were his prey. The evidence was strong enough long enough ago that the speaker should have relieved Mr. Foley of his committee responsibilities contingent on a full investigation to learn what had taken place, whether any laws had been violated and what action, up to and including prosecution, were warranted by the facts. This never happened.

I'm sorry -- the initial emails were not sufficient to take any such actions. Indeed, media outlests that had them found them to be insufficient to even write stories about them. Rather than blame those who found the emails "overly friendly" until the disgusting IMs came out last week, I think it is more important to find out who has had the clearly inappropriate IMs and why they were held back from the authorities untim now. After all, some of them date back a couple of years, which means that they, not the Speaker or any other member of the leadership team, endangered every page.

By the way, what did the initial FBI inquiry into the initial batch of emails conclude last summer?

An FBI official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said the field office concluded that the e-mails "did not rise to the level of criminal activity." The bureau announced Sunday that it would begin a preliminary investigation into Foley's more explicit electronic exchanges with teenagers.

In other words, the FBI concurred with the judgement made by Hastert and others (including members of the media who had the emails but chose not to run them) -- there was nothing in the emails that needed to be pursued. So what you had with the original batch of materials was a unanimous conclusion by the House Leadership, the FBI, and the press that there simply was not anything in the emails that rose to the level of misconduct.

The release of the IMs changes that.

Unfortunately, it may be a while before the results of the investigation of this matter come out. Let's behave like rational adults and wait for those results rather than engaging in hysterical recriminations over a couple of emails (absent the IMs) that seem less like a sexual predator seeking a victim and more like a responsible adult expressing concern about a young man whose family had just survived one of our nation's biggest natural disasters.

Posted by: Greg at 10:39 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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When I first read about the emails by Rep. Mark Foley to a congressional page, I dismissed the matter as unimportant and not worthy of comment.

After all, this was not a stranger seeking out kids on the internet -- this was a known, trusted adult. And the information he sought, which his staff claimed was for a letter of recommendation, I routinely ask kids for full name, address, phone number, date of birth, and information about extracurricular information when I write them letters of recommendation for college, and keep that information (and the letters) on file for a couple of years for future reference. And I can't tell you the number of pictures of former students I have around my classroom.

And while I found the question about what the young man wanted for his birthday to be a bit odd, if you consider that the kid lives in the area hit by Hurricane Katrina it looks like an act of kindness subject to wild misinterpretation.

And then the IM came out -- and Foley rightly resigned.

But we are now faced with the question of who knew what and when.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) was notified early this year of inappropriate e-mails from former representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.) to a 16-year-old page, a top GOP House member said yesterday -- contradicting the speaker's assertions that he learned of concerns about Foley only last week.

Hastert did not dispute the claims of Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), and his office confirmed that some of Hastert's top aides knew last year that Foley had been ordered to cease contact with the boy and to treat all pages respectfully.

* * *

Hastert's aides learned in the fall of 2005 only of e-mail exchanges that House officials eventually deemed "over-friendly" with the Louisiana teenager, the speaker's office said yesterday in a lengthy statement. "While the Speaker does not explicitly recall this conversation" with Reynolds, the statement said, "he has no reason to dispute Congressman Reynolds's recollection that he reported to him on the problem and its resolution."

Boehner and Reynolds said their offices learned of the Foley e-mails months ago from Rep. Rodney Alexander (R), who sponsored the page from his northeastern-Louisiana district.

"Rodney Alexander brought to my attention the existence of the e-mails between Mark Foley and a former page of Mr. Alexander's," Reynolds said yesterday. "Despite the fact that I had not seen the e-mails in question, and Mr. Alexander told me that the parents didn't want the matter pursued, I told the speaker of the conversation Mr. Alexander had with me."

Now if all they had were the initial batch of emails, I think the matter may well have been handled appropriately. Hastert, a former teacher and coach, likely would have looked at them exactly as I did. And he did exactly what I believe iIwould have done in that situation -- tell a colleague to be more aware of appropriate boundaries and to cease contact with the boy. Otherwise, there was nothing to the matter to be done. No law appeareds to be broken based upon the facts as initially known.

But unless someone can demonstrate that the IMs were known to congressional leaders or their staffs, Democrat politicization of Foley's misdeeds is inappropriate. Not that it will stop statements like this.

With his statement, [Rep. Tom] Reynolds, who is locked in a difficult reelection campaign, signaled he was unwilling to take the fall alone amid partisan attacks that were becoming increasingly vituperative. The Democratic National Committee yesterday issued a statement asking "Why Did Tom Reynolds Cover Up Congressman's Sex Crimes?" It continued: "While the shocking [online] exchanges produced an immediate uproar that cost Congressman Foley his job, at least one member of the House Republican leadership had known about the situation for months and did nothing about it: . . . Reynolds."

Now I agree with people on both sides of the aisle that this matter needs further inquiry. But absent evidence that the sexually-charged IMs were known before last week, I have to argue that this is a scandal without substance.

UPDATE: GOPBloggers asks What Did The Media Know About Foley And How Long Did They Know It?

Everyone from the St. Petersburg Times to the Palm Beach Post to Roll Call to the Washington Post had the emails that were released by ABC this past Thursday, and none of them went with the story. It seems rather odd now that those same reporters are asking Hastert and others, what did you know and when did you know it?

An interesting question, given that the St. Petersburg Times admits to having the original emails back in November. If they were not significant enough for them to run the story back then, how is it they can damn the GOP leadership in Congress for also finding them to be less than compelling?

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Posted by: Greg at 12:49 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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