Cong. Foley is a disgrace and should be hung at the nearest Capitol tree. (Do we hang people criminals anymore?)
No mercy. Foley has no excuses. He is a member of Congress and we expect our public servants to behave responsibly.
Get the rope and find the tree. I won't cry any tears! I won't even bring up "habeas corpus"!
Now, let's deal with Democrats! How did this scandal break 5 weeks before an election? Am I supposed to believe that?
Something stinks here. I smell a rat or a skunk.
At least, Republicans resign when confronted with scandals. Republican newspapers don't hesitate to put principle over party. Check out Resign, Mr. Speaker from the The Washington Times.
IBD questions the timing of this scandal with Did Democrats Page Mark Foley?:
"Despite this, the immediate take by Democrats and much of the mainstream media was that this was a classic example of Republican hypocrisy talking "morals" and "values" while all the time shielding a child predator. But it was nothing of the kind.
If anything, the episode reveals the Democrats' hypocrisy about their own behavior. The fact that Foley resigned virtually within minutes of being told that ABC News had copies of his salacious e-mails and text messages indicates he at least felt shame for his actions. Can the same be said for Democrats?
Sadly, it doesn't seem so. How else can you explain the following?
In 1983, then-Democratic Rep. Gerry Studds of Massachusetts was caught in a similar situation. In his case, Studds had sex with a male teenage page something Foley hasn't been charged with.
Did Studds express contrition? Resign? Quite the contrary. He rejected Congress' censure of him and continued to represent his district until his retirement in 1996.
In 1989, Rep. Barney Frank, also of Massachusetts, admitted he'd lived with Steve Gobie, a male prostitute who ran a gay sex-for-hire ring out of Frank's apartment. Frank, it was later discovered, used his position to fix 33 parking tickets for Gobie.
What happened to Frank? The House voted 408-18 to reprimand him a slap on the wrist. Today he's an honored Democratic member of Congress, much in demand as a speaker and "conscience of the party."
In 2001, President Clinton, who had his own intern problem, commuted the prison sentence of Illinois Rep. Mel Reynolds, who had sex with a 16-year-old campaign volunteer and pressured her to lie about it. (Reynolds also was convicted of campaign spending violations.)
You get the idea. Democrats not only seem OK with the kind of behavior for which Foley is charged, but also they protect and excuse it. Only when it's a Republican do they proclaim themselves shocked when it comes to light."
Yes, Republicans are the party of family values. This is why we force our bad guys to resign. We do not send them to The Ophra Winfrey Show for tears and emotional apologies.
We kick our bad guys out!
So please hang Foley. Then tell Democrats to shut up and concentrate on giving us a plan for Iraq and the War on Terror.
1 comment:
I find it so interesting that you spend so much time criticizing democrats for years' old indiscretions in the middle of a republican scandal. (1) Your beloved Moonie-cult paper, The Washington Times, may indeed be a "republican newspaper," but there are many others out there, none of which called for any resignation. So, get off your high horse about that (2) even your beloved Moonie-cult The Washington Times did not go off on the democrats about old, old, old irrelevant news (3) You are correct; the NYT did not call for Clinton's resignation, nor did the Los Angeles Times (never mentioned the Los Angeles Times; you have a New York Times fetish), but more than 100 other newspapers did; among them USA Today, The New Orleans Times-Picayune, The Seattle Times, The Des Moines Sunday Register, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The San Jose Mercury-News, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution; only one lonely "republican newspaper" has called for any resignations in this scandal (4) As for "republican newspapers," most daily newspapers consistently endorse republican candidates for president; see the article below, an example from the last election (5) As for Barney Frank, you imply these activities took place with his full knowledge and endorsement (see historical except below); further you imply it was the democrats fault the 101st United States Congress voted to "slap him on the wrist," when in fact, most republicans cast the same vote as most democrats, since the 101st had 261 democratic members and 174 republican members (60 percent to 40 percent); both of your implications are misleading at best, if not just outright distortions of the facts; further, you fail to mention that despite these circumstances, the people of Frank's district re-elected him and continued to do so by ever increasing margins of victory.
Shame on you.
Cheers,
Jerome Bailey
Barney Franks
In 1990, the House voted to reprimand Frank when it was revealed that Steve Gobie, a male prostitute that Rep. Frank had befriended after hiring him through a personal advertisement, had conducted a prostitution ring from Frank's apartment when he was not at home. Frank had dismissed Gobie earlier that year after learning of Gobie's activities.
The Boston Globe, among others, called on Frank to resign, but he refused. The House Ethics Committee recommended Frank be reprimanded because he "reflected discredit upon the House" by using his congressional office to fix 33 of Gobie's parking tickets. Attempts to expel or censure Frank failed; instead the House voted 408-18 to reprimand him. This condemnation was not reflected in Frank's district, where he won re-election in 1990 with 66 percent of the vote, and has won by larger margins ever since.
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36 Papers Abandon Bush for Kerry
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 27, 2004; Page A13
The Orlando Sentinel has backed every Republican seeking the White House since Richard M. Nixon in 1968. Not this time.
"This president has utterly failed to fulfill our expectations," the Florida paper said in supporting John F. Kerry, prompting some angry calls and a few dozen cancellations.
"A lot of people thought they could trust that the Sentinel would always go Republican, and when that didn't happen, they felt betrayed," said Jane Healy, the paper's editorial page editor.
The Sentinel is among 36 newspapers that endorsed President Bush four years ago and have flip-flopped, to coin a phrase, into Kerry's corner. These include the Chicago Sun-Times, the Los Angeles Daily News and the Memphis Commercial Appeal, according to industry magazine Editor & Publisher. Bush has won over only six papers that backed Al Gore, including the Denver Post, which received 700 letters -- all of them protesting the move.
Nine more papers, including the Cleveland Plain Dealer yesterday, abandoned Bush after four years but did not support the Massachusetts senator. Instead, these papers -- the Detroit News, the Tampa Tribune and the New Orleans Times-Picayune among them -- threw up their collective hands and made no endorsement.
"We have decided not to add one more potentially polarizing voice to a poisoned debate," the Plain Dealer editorial said. Amid reports that Publisher Alex Machaskee, who chairs the editorial board, wanted to back Bush, the Ohio paper acknowledged that a majority of the board favored Kerry.
Even many editorial page editors say they do not believe their endorsements move many voters in an age of round-the-clock opinion-slinging on television and online. But the Bush defections may reflect a degree of disillusionment with the president, at least among opinion leaders, principally on Iraq but on domestic issues, as well.
"I've always argued that presidential endorsements, which may mean a lot to political activists and groupies, are the least important endorsements big-city newspapers make," said Brent Larkin, the Plain Dealer's editorial page editor, whose paper has backed a candidate in every election since at least World War II. "People make up their own minds and do not need our nickel's worth."
Nolan Finley, who runs the Detroit News editorial page, disagrees: "I've heard people speculate they don't mean as much anymore, but I think they're influential still, particularly in close races. Voters are looking for answers in an election like this one." The decision not to endorse was "an agonizing process," he said, noting that the News has backed every Republican seeking the White House since Ulysses S. Grant.
All told, Kerry leads Bush 142 to 123 in endorsements, and when measured by circulation, 17.5 million to 11.5 million, Editor & Publisher says. The Massachusetts senator has won the backing of the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Detroit Free Press, the Miami Herald, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Des Moines Register and both Seattle newspapers. The president has the support of the Chicago Tribune, the New York Post, the Arizona Republic, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Columbus Dispatch, the Dallas Morning News, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Washington Times and both Cincinnati newspapers.
Others that switched from Bush in 2000 to Kerry in 2004 include the Morning Call of Allentown, Pa.; the Idaho Statesman in Boise; and the Bangor Daily News in Maine.
Kerry won over some editorial boards through personal campaigning. Earlier in the year, said the Sentinel's Healy, she believed that "Kerry was too liberal for us as a senator from Massachusetts." But through an hour-long interview with the board and the presidential debates, "we became convinced he would be moderate as president, and more moderate than President Bush in terms of fiscal responsibility and the war, in terms of bringing in international cooperation."
Kerry also spoke by phone with the Plain Dealer's Larkin and Machaskee.
In its no-one-to-endorse editorial, the Tampa Tribune put it this way: "We cannot support Bush because of his mishandling of the war in Iraq, record deficits pending, assault on open government and failed promise to be a 'uniter not a divider,' but what Kerry stands for is unclear."
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
In 1990, the House voted to reprimand Frank when it was revealed that Steve Gobie, a male prostitute that Rep. Frank had befriended after hiring him through a personal advertisement, had conducted a prostitution ring from Frank's apartment when he was not at home. Frank had dismissed Gobie earlier that year after learning of Gobie's activities.
The Boston Globe, among others, called on Frank to resign, but he refused. The House Ethics Committee recommended Frank be reprimanded because he "reflected discredit upon the House" by using his congressional office to fix 33 of Gobie's parking tickets. Attempts to expel or censure Frank failed; instead the House voted 408-18 to reprimand him. This condemnation was not reflected in Frank's district, where he won re-election in 1990 with 66 percent of the vote, and has won by larger margins ever since.
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