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October 05, 2006
Final thoughts yet?
For the umpteenth time, I think Foley is an indefensible jerk and an asshole who betrayed the public trust and resigned as he should have. But if it's true that the young men were cynically playing with him... While that might not change the nature of what went on in Foley's mind, it hardly puts them in a moral position of being "child victims." As to whether "Foley the Child Predator" did anything that will "damage these children for the rest of their lives," if it does turn out that they were in fact playing some sort of joke on "that old queer" (or whatever they called him) I think the country is mature enough to dispense with the moral lectures. But regardless of whether the Foley scandal has in fact been deflated into the original (relatively innocuous) emails, this post at American Thinker is well worth reading: It had all the earmarks of a classic Democratic Party plan to depress Republican turnout. Take a barely disguised homosexual Republican Congressman, add salacious electronic messages that included masturbation, sex and other lurid flourishes, push the story to their eager and willing accomplices in the media right before an election, and as quick as you can say LBJ an instant scandal is created.That's just the beginning. It gets much better. And bear in mind that it was written before the latest development. I'll stay tuned, but what this is becoming? The comedy channel? MORE: The page reported by Drudge to have engaged in a prank denies it was a prank, and ABC News claims that more pages (whose names are being withheld) have come forward. CORRECTION: Reading the above closely, it doesn't appear they're denying the Drudge Story; they're just denying their own IMs were pranks: The three new verbal accounts are in addition to two sets of sexually explicit instant messages provided to ABC News by former pages.Have the verbal accounts been verified? Were the alleged prank IMs? MORE: Via Glenn Reynolds, Bob Owens of Confederate Yankee has been trying -- repeatedly -- to get ABC to answer two simple questions: Excellent questions. So why is ABC deleting them? I'm joining Glenn in asking: "What did Brian Ross know and when did he know it?" I'd also like to know why they're being released in piecemeal fashion. You'd almost think they were being held in reserve. MORE: Here's The Corner's Mark Levin: ...the reason ABC News looks foolish is because the story it originally broke was apparently based on Edmund's prank. Again, Foley's comments in the communications are indefensible. We all know that. But wouldn't it also have been useful to know that the page in question (who was almost 18 years old, if not 18 years old at the time) was knowingly provoking a rather ill member of Congress for kicks. But the reporter, Brian Ross, was so committed to promoting the "Republican scandal" aspect of this, including focusing attention on Hastert, that he took the Edmund e-mails and ran with them without much, if any, curiosity about their author and his motivations. MORE: More ABC shenanigans via Newsbusters: A blogger, William "Wild Bill" Kerr of Passionate America, using clues gleaned from ABC's own website, reveals the name of one of the "victims," and the fact that he was not, as reported by ABC, under 18 at the time of the Instant Message exchange. AND MORE: According to Wizbang, Betsy Newmark predicted the prank revelation. MORE: Plenty of inside information here. MORE: Don't miss the ongoing Pajamas Media Roundup. posted by Eric on 10.05.06 at 05:09 PM |
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Harm them for life? Flirting in IM when they were 16??? I was saying things at least as bad in BBS chatrooms when I was 14, back in the old days.
People think 16 year olds are babies or something, I guess. More infantilization of the youth.
I mean, I think it's wrong to use your position of power to try to gain a physical relationship with someone below you, and Foley is a schmuck.... but I hardly think anyone would be damaged for life, you know?