Due to the fact that I am unable to talk in anything above a whisper, The Rick Moran Show will not be heard this morning.
Join me Monday morning 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM central time when I hope to hell that my health will have improved dramatically.
I apologize for my enforced absence.
Fox News says that internal polls show “massive losses” for GOP if Hastert stays:
House Republican candidates will suffer massive losses if House Speaker Dennis Hastert remains speaker until Election Day, according to internal polling data from a prominent GOP pollster, FOX News has learned.
“The data suggests Americans have bailed on the speaker,” a Republican source briefed on the polling data told FOX News. “And the difference could be between a 20-seat loss and 50-seat loss.”
Mark Coffey rightly views the polls with a grain of salt:
Remember, folks - the Republicans may very well lose, but this has been a possibility for months, well before most people ever heard of Mark Foley. People don’t vote for a generic Republican or a generic Democrat - they vote for specific candidates. Does the Foley scandal make a Democratic takeover more likely? Yes, marginally…but at the levels speculated on here, and with the resignation of Dennis Hastert as the ‘hinge’?
A word about the difference between “internal” polls and the polls that are conducted by media outlets in association with polling firms like Gallup.
The internal polls are much more detailed and nuanced. They ask the same question 3 or 4 times in different ways to make sure they get the true feelings of the voter. They generally focus on larger themes rather than specific issues or candidates - the favored themes giving scientific pollsters a good idea about the respondents position on issues.
They are best at identifying trends. And my guess is that some numbers dropped through the floorboards over the past week most probably questions relating to trust and right track/wrong track. As Democratic pollster Charlie Cook has pointed out, in a Democratic blowout, Republican incumbents who garnered as much as 57% of the vote in the last off year election could be vulnerable. Also sophomore and freshman members are extremely at risk.
If you take those factors into account, that puts the number of GOP seats in play in November at around 70 - making a 50 vote pick-up by the Dems certainly within reach.
But the question as to whether it depends on Hastert staying or going is, as Mark points out, not very relevant to individual races. Much more important to the voter will be how Republicans own up to their mistakes and try and make amends.
This scandal will not change many minds about the GOP. What it will do - what it is being orchestrated to do - is to depress the turnout of the core GOP evangelical vote on election day. If the Christians stay home in sufficient numbers, it will be a wipeout.
The leaking of the poll to Fox News appears to be some kind of power play by a Hastert rival to gin up the panic and force the Speaker’s hand. Hastert has performed miserably this week, contributing in no small way to the impression that the GOP leadership should have done more with Foley. If this second level of vulnerable GOP candidates start to panic, they may put pressure on Hastert to resign. Look out then because there could be a full scale war that erupts between Hastert loyalists and upstarts like Boehner and Pence who wish for real reform of the Caucus.
My predictions over the past 3 weeks have been for a Democratic gain of 9-11 seats in the House and 3-4 seats in the Senate. We’ll have to wait until next week to see some real trends in the public polls (we need at least 4 or 5 polls on the same question to get a feel for where the electorate is) but my sense is that this scandal will have little effect in the northeast where there are several Republican seats in play but could have devastating consequences in the south and midwest. Indiana alone has 4 tight House races that could all tip to the Democrats if my sense of this thing is correct. And Illinois has 2 more toss up races where evangelicals will make or break the Republican candidate.
The way the news on this scandal is breaking, it’s hard to predict what Hastert will do. If he goes, it probably won’t be until the weekend.
The votes are in from this week’s Watchers Council and the winner was “Unhinged or Calculated” by Soccer Dad.
Finishing in a tie for second were “No Commitment!” by the Sundries Shack and “A Real Peace Proposal for the Middle East” by Joshuapundit.
Coming out on top in the Non Council category was “Fear and Loathing in the Land of the Pure” by Isaac Schrödinger.
If you’d like to participate in the weekly Watchers Vote, go here and follow instructions.
While it may change the dynamic of the scandal, news that one of the young pages who was a recipient of raunchy instant messages from Congressman Foley set up the lawmaker as part of a prank doesn’t really change the facts of the matter.
According to two people close to former congressional page (name withheld), the now famous lurid AOL Instant Message exchanges that led to the resignation of Mark Foley were part of an online prank that by mistake got into the hands of enemy political operatives, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal.
According to one Oklahoma source who knows the former page very well, (name withheld), a conservative Republican, goaded an unwitting Foley to type embarrassing comments that were then shared with a small group of young Hill politicos. The prank went awry when the saved IM sessions got into the hands of political operatives favorable to Democrats.
The primary source, an ally of (name withheld), adamantly proclaims that the former page is not a homosexual. The prank scenario was confirmed by a second associate of (name withheld). Both are fearful that their political careers will be affected if they are publicly brought into the investigation.
The prank scenario only applies to the (name withheld) IM sessions and does not necessarily apply to any other exchanges between the former congressman and others.
Those facts are simple; Foley sent at least 60 IM’s to former pages, many of them sexually explicit in nature; that the Republican leadership knew of Foley’s interest in male pages for at least a year possibly more and did nothing concrete to address the problem; and that Democrats have orchestrated the timing and pace of the scandal to maximize its political impact.
Only a fool now believes that this scandal exploded when it did as the result of fate. This story from The Hill about the original source of the emails being a longtime Republican raises some interesting questions, not the least of which could the identity of the “longtime Republican” be none other than former Foley Chief of Staff Kirk Fordham?
The source who in July gave news media Rep. Mark Foley’s (R-Fla.) suspect e-mails to a former House page says the documents came to him from a House GOP aide.
That aide has been a registered Republican since becoming eligible to vote, said the source, who showed The Hill public records supporting his claim.
The same source, who acted as an intermediary between the aide-turned-whistleblower and several news outlets, says the person who shared the documents is no longer employed in the House.
But the whistleblower was a paid GOP staffer when the documents were first given to the media.
The source bolstered the claim by sharing un-redacted e-mails in which the former page first alerted his congressional sponsor’s office of Foley’s attentions. The copies of these e-mails, now available to the public, have the names of senders and recipients blotted out.
These revelations mean that Republicans who are calling for probes to discover what Democratic leaders and staff knew about Foley’s improper exchanges with under-age pages will likely be unable to show that the opposition party orchestrated the scandal now roiling the GOP just a month away from the midterm elections.
First, as former Chief of Staff, Fordham would certainly be in a position to know Foley’s logon information and password. Secondly, as the article says, the GOP staffer is no longer working on the Hill. Third, as Chief of Staff for Tom Reynolds, Fordham would have had access to the other emails mentioned in the article - the ones sent by the young page calling Foley’s emails “sick.”
Finally, Fordham has been chummy with one of the prime suspects in this whole orchestrated affair; John Avarosis of Americablog.
Fordham was semi-outed two years ago by The Washington Blade where he told the gay newspaper that he was “out in the community but not in the press.” This was just after he had been named on “The List” by notorious gay activist Michael Rodgers who has made it his life’s work to out gay Republicans, even if it’s against their will. “The List” names GOP lawmakers and staffers who Rodgers claims are gay. Both Foley and Fordham are on The List.
Rogers frequent partner in outing Republicans has been Avarosis. The blogger claims in this article from 2004 that Fordham told him that Foley was indeed gay.
Foley responded to the reports by initiating a telephone press conference among non-gay Florida media and called discussion about his sexual orientation “revolting.†He declined at that time to answer questions about his sexual orientation and subsequently abandoned his bid for the Senate, citing concerns over his father’s health.
Aravosis said he obtained the latest information about the five-term congressman from Foley’s former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham.
Fordham, who is gay, headed up fund-raising efforts for Foley’s aborted Senate campaign and is now the finance director for one of the remaining GOP primary candidates in that race: Mel Martinez, George W. Bush’s former Housing & Urban Development secretary. Martinez has come out in favor of the Federal Marriage Amendment.
Fordham denied ever speaking with Aravosis and said, “I just don’t discuss Congressman Foley’s personal life with reporters, but I’m not sure what their motive is in outing him, other than to draw attention to themselves. Foley has a good track record with gay issues and opposes the FMA.â€
Why would Fordham hand over the emails last July to Rodgers/Avarosis who are believed by many - based on past history and boasts made in public more recently - to be hip deep in the campaign to orchestrate this scandal? Perhaps Fordham, a moderate gay Republican, decided to bring down the anti-gay GOP. Or perhaps he genuinely was concerned both for Foley and the pages and wanted to stop the Congressman before he got into real trouble.
Whatever the reason, the FBI will interview Fordham to determine his role in this scandal. There is also word that the FBI is looking very closely at Messrs. Rogers and Avarosis as well and the Soros funded CREW.
Besides Foley two names that have come into play are Rogers and John Aravosis of America’s Blog. Both are gay activists who on many occasions have threatened not only Foley and Fordham with outing, but others as well. These guys are what we call “Political Thugsâ€, the only thing they don’t use is guns, but they do nearly as much damage. Others call it by it’s real name - blackmail.
Again, the FBI - and I have this on good source - are aware of both individuals and looking into their involvement as well. As I said before we cops aren’t so stupid as to just look at an IM log or an email and say, “Oh look at that?, case closed!â€
You have to prove that they originated on a specific computer, from a specific individual. If they weren’t they you have to find out who did create them. In any case are evidence, and as such if they were, as is apparent at this point, withheld from authorities for five months, one year or twenty five minutes, that’s breaking the law and such individuals could be charged for that.
I wonder how hard the MSM will be working to get leaks on the case from the FBI regarding the Democratic activists who have nursed this scandal baby for so long and now see the fruits of their labors plastered all over the newspapers of the world?
Join me this morning from 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM Central Time for The Rick Moran Show on Wideawakes Radio.
Today I’ll have some words about the outing of the former Page by one of my co hosts here at WAR radio. I’ll also have some general thoughts on the Foley scandal as well as some ideas about the political fallout. And we’ll look at Somalia and how dangerous that place is becoming.
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I am grateful to Michelle Malkin for giving me something to write about this morning. She reminds us that tomorrow is a very special day for those among us who become unhinged at the very thought of George W. Bush’s existence.
It is being billed as “A Day of Mass Resistance.” Methinks they cut that thought a little short. Perhaps a more accurate description of tomorrow’s festivities would be “A Day of Mass Resistance to Reality” or perhaps “A Day to Indulge Oneself in an Orgy of Self Pleasuring.” The movement bills itself as “The World Can’t Wait” and they seek to “Drive out the Bush Regime:”
World Can’t Wait is organizing people living in the United States to take responsibility to stop the whole disastrous course led by the Bush administration. We seek to create a political situation where the Bush administration’s program is repudiated, where Bush himself is driven from office, and where the whole direction he has been taking U.S. society is reversed.
We seek to mobilize millions to express their outrage, to speak the truth, to act with urgency and form an organized political resistance. We welcome any individuals and groups who agree that the Bush Regime should be driven out, whatever their political party affiliation or lack thereof. We reach out to people who have been fooled by Bush, and to those who have been most seriously affected by the outrages inflicted by the Bush Regime.
How this “political resistance” will “drive Bush from office” is left kind of vague. Given the self-loving proclivities of this self-important, self-serving, self-dramatizing bunch of dim witted nincompoops, perhaps they plan a “stroke in” of some kind. They seem to be so in love with their own towering conceits regarding Bush, America, and those of us who have been “fooled” by the President that it wouldn’t surprise me if they practiced a little self-actualization by having a “diddle-off” - sexual energy being such a positive force to throw against the evil madness of tyrant George.
Nothing gives the BDS crowd more orgasmic satisfaction than fantasies of having the power to bring down and grind into the dust with their jackboots the object of their obsessive hate. It is not unusual for Presidents to engender strong feelings of intense dislike amongst their ideological and party opponents. Goes with the job. Just ask Roosevelt who, despite a popularity with the general public that any President would envy, nevertheless raised the hackles of a goodly number of hard core Republicans to his dying day. Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, and Bill Clinton also elicited strong feelings of hate and loathing among a sizable segment of the the population.
Part of the reason for this hate has to do with the times they lived in, of course. Some of it was personality driven. Much of the unreasoning hatred directed at Bill Clinton was generational.
But BDS is an entirely different animal. Part of the reason for it must certainly include the fact that the hard left feels itself powerless, having been summarily given the boot from American politics for much of the last quarter century. Most Democrats today tend to trim their sails toward the center whenever they can thus enraging the netnuts and filling the intellectual left with disgust. For that reason, it appears that they must overly dramatize in their own minds how truly bad things are in America. The “Not in Our Name Statement of Conscience” reveals a mass delusion of jaw dropping proportions:
“No election, whether fair or fraudulent, can legitimize criminal wars on foreign countries, torture, the wholesale violation of human rights, and the end of science and reason.”
“It is our responsibility to stop the Bush regime from carrying out this disastrous course. We believe history will judge us sharply should we fail to act decisively.”
“The end of science and reason?” This should come as news to to the two Americans who just won the Nobel Prize for Physics. And despite the pitiful attempts of creationists and ID’ers to overturn rational thought, the inroads they have made in the last 6 years have been few and far between. More worrisome has been the politicization of science - not in the name of religion but in the name of advancing a specific political agenda. This is not new, by the way, as the government has bullied nutritionists, tobacco companies, Kyoto skeptics, and others for 30 years. But as long as you agree with that kind of interference, it apparently places the government on the side of the angels of science when in fact, it has constituted a war against reason that has been fought by both liberals and conservatives since the 1970’s.
The bottom line to all this drama is that for these, the most unbalanced of Americans, only by fantasizing that liberty and freedom have been snatched away by the Dark Lord Bush can their own overly heroic self image be justified. This is much more than derangement. It is a challenge to rationality itself.
Think about it. A sizable segment of the population has substituted a reality so out of kilter with observable truths that they seem to be willing to take extra-constitutional measures to overturn a fantasy world they have created in their own minds. Any challenges to this worldview is seen as trickery - either the “lapdog” press is deliberately withholding the “truth” of what’s going on or there is a conspiracy among the elites to keep the people in ignorance. No contrary information is allowed to penetrate the ongoing narrative that posits a belief in the heroic nature of those privileged enough to be in the know, blessed with that special knowledge that their fellow citizens are either too blind or too stupid to grasp. Such counter-arguments are heresy and not to be allowed to shed light into the shadow world their minds inhabit.
We can laugh at them - while shuddering with disgust at their hubris. In the end, they are harmless clowns whose act has a limited run. On January 20, 2009, they will be able to fold their tents and go back to their dull, dreary existence as ordinary citizens with fond memories of their time when they saw themselves as saviors of the Republic.
Well here we are - another post defending pedophiles, excusing GOP coverups, enabling child rapists, and may I throw in a little gay bashing too, please?
You lefties are no fun at all…
Actually, the scandal involving Congressman Foley was in desperate need of some fresh outrage, what with most of us having reached the point of outrage fatigue about 48 hours ago.
Never fear. More dirty IM’s and this time…PRESTO! We Got Orgasm!
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.
Maf54: I miss you
Teen: ya me too
Maf54: we are still voting
Maf54: you miss me tooThe exchange continues in which Foley and the teen both appear to describe having sexual orgasms.
I fully expect that by Friday, we will have solid evidence that Foley had personal, inappropriate sexual contact with a teenager. The revelation will occur when the story once again needs a boost to gin up the outrage, it not being enough that Foley is a criminally debauched scumbag who is now practicing the fine art of damage control by claiming 1) It was the booze; and 2) I was molested myself as a teenager by a priest. Excuse us while we collectively gag on the bile rising in our throats as we witness once again that time honored technique, honed to perfection by the high and mighty, who try and elicit sympathy for themselves by attempting to prove that their dastardly deeds were really not their fault.
It was Demon Rum or the Siren’s Song of Drugs or My Daddy Beat Me or My Momma Slept With Me or I Was a Victim Myself Once and on and on…
Predictable. And contemptible.
Speaking of contemptible, here’s a little bit of hypocrisy brought to you by that bastion of truth, justice, and the anti-American way at Daily Kos. Is it important in the scheme of things regarding Foley and the Republicans? Naw. But it sure is fun to make the left look more idiotic than they already are.
You may be aware that the Kos Kids have their very own liberal encyclopedia called “dKosopedia.” This saves them time and effort when needing to quickly identify what the party line is on any given historical event or individual in politics as well as giving them a shared narrative that surrounds them and binds their universe together. Kind of like the Force but without all those nasty religious overtones.
A good friend of this site who blogs at Superfun Power Hour has dug up some information that shows how very seriously the Kos Kommunity is taking this Foley business - so seriously that they have amended the entry in the dKosopedia describing the only similar incident in Congressional history - the Gerry Studds disgrace (or triumph depending on your point of view).
Here’s the original entry on the Studds Stud Scandal via a cached version:
On July 20, 1983, Gerry was censured for having an affair 10 years earlier with a male page. He turned his back as the charges against him were read. The anti-gay crew had worked hard to demonize him (as they would Barney Frank several years later over allegations of a male prostitute having clients in Frank’s apartment). Gerry held a press conference with the page and admitted to a relationship. They each firmly stated that what had gone on in their bedroom was their business, and absolutely no one else’s.
Now here is the version as it appears today after having undergone a slight revision - namely the highlighted section above disappears down the rabbit hole:
On July 20, 1983, Studds was censured for having an affair 10 years earlier with a male page. At the same time, Rep. Dan Crane (R-IL) was censured for having a relationship with a female page in 1980. Studds refused to apologize for his conduct and turned his back as the charges against him were read. He later held a press conference with the page and admitted to a relationship, and they each stated that what had gone on in their bedroom was their business, and absolutely no one else’s.
It seems that there are people who defend pedophiles like Studds by calling their accusers “the anti-gay crew” and people who condemn pedophiles like Foley unequivocally - except one of the groups gets to erase history whenever it’s convenient to do so. After all, it just wouldn’t do to apologize for one pedophile while putting on your outrage suit to condemn another.
Again, not particularly relevant to anything except its fun to catch the liberals with their pants around their ankles. And besides, its been 24 hours and no one has called me any vile names. I sorta miss it…
While attention in Washington has been riveted on the Foley mess, a significant development was occurring outside of the Capitol that makes the back and forth between the two parties seem very small indeed.
At a meeting of what is described as our “senior operatives and outside experts from the intelligence community,” it seems that a decision of sorts has been reached regarding stopping the Iranians from getting nuclear weapons; it can’t be done:
Bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities was rejected on the grounds that the intelligence needed for successful air strikes was lacking. “We only have an imperfect understanding of the extent and location of the Iranian programme,†said one source with knowledge of the meeting. “Even if we got the order to blow it up, we wouldn’t know how to.â€
The White House’s earlier enthusiasm for military strikes if all else failed has cooled after warnings from the Pentagon and intelligence analysts that the risk to reward ratio of taking action was too high. At best 80% of the targets are mapped out and then only sketchily. The “collateral damage†to civilians could be considerable, sources say.
“Unless you can be 100% effective and set the programme back by two decades, you’ll just get a short-term delay and you may not produce a result that is better than the current one,†an intelligence analyst said.
General John Abizaid, commander of US forces in the Middle East, has warned that striking Iran could cripple oil supplies, unleash a “surrogate†terrorist army and lead to missile attacks on America’s regional allies. The army is particularly concerned about Iran’s ability to destabilise an already chaotic Iraq.
Whether or not this is a case of “cooler heads prevailing” with regards to military action against Iran it certainly is welcome news. Even if you support bombing the Iranians, what the intelligence community has been trying to impress on the President and his men is that we have time yet to deal with Iran via diplomacy:
John Negroponte, director of national intelligence, has told President George W Bush that there is no rush to use force as Iran’s nuclear programme is beset with technical errors. “He has been saying, ‘Slow down, it’s not an immediate problem’,†said Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, has staked her reputation on achieving a negotiated settlement with the help of the “EU3†nations of Britain, France and Germany.
“President Bush is not going to take military action against the advice of the secretary of state, US generals and the director of national intelligence,†Clawson said.
Actually, Clawson may be talking through his hat about Bush. I have no doubt that if George Bush feels it is in the best interest of the United States to bomb Iran, he will do so regardless of who tells him otherwise. This is one of Bush’s greatest faults as well as one of his greatest strengths. Certainly not Carteresque in his decision making as the ex-President would agonize for days, sometimes weeks, over minor matters that were best left to subordinates in the first place. Once Bush decides on a course of action, it is near impossible to deflect him until the goal is achieved. One sees immediately the strengths and weaknesses such a personality trait brings to the table.
Having said that, it would seem improbable that Bush could ignore the entire military/diplomatic establishment’s advice on such an important issue. The bombing option was always going to be a temporary solution anyway since the liklihood of degrading the Iranian program significantly has always been doubted. The most optimistic estimates were that it could delay their program by as many as 5 years. And that would be after weeks of sorties and probably many thousands of civilian casualties.
In other words, our intel professionals as well as most professional soldiers have come to pretty much the same conclusion; the costs of such a campaign would significantly outweigh the benefits. The sad fact is, we just don’t have much we can offer the Iranians or threaten them with:
Intelligence analysts concluded at last week’s meeting that there were no negotiating carrots or sticks, such as sanctions, capable of persuading Iran to halt its pursuit of nuclear know-how — which it maintains is for peaceful energy purposes.
“The sobering view is that even if there is a deal, the Iranians would cheat,†another source said.
“The conclusion is that America is going to have to live with the bomb unless there’s some miracle, such as a major accident, a major defector or an orange revolution,†the source added, referring to the people’s protests that brought reformers to power in Ukraine. None of these scenarios is considered likely.
Ted Koppel comes to the right conclusion but, like a typical lefty, for the wrong reasons:
If Iran is bound and determined to have nuclear weapons, let it.
The elimination of American opposition on this issue would open the way to genuine normalization between our two nations. It might even convince the Iranians that their country can flourish without nuclear weapons.
But this should also be made clear to Tehran: If a dirty bomb explodes in Milwaukee, or some other nuclear device detonates in Baltimore or Wichita, if Israel or Egypt or Saudi Arabia should fall victim to a nuclear “accident,†Iran should understand that the U.S. government will not search around for the perpetrator. The return address will be predetermined, and it will be somewhere in Iran.
Is it really too difficult for a liberal to understand that if a nuclear device detonates in Baltimore or Wichita (much more likely Washington or New York) that BY THAT TIME IT IS TOO LATE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT? Retaliation is meaningless. And, as Allah points out, Koppel would be one of the first to say so:
If a dirty bomb went off in Milwaukee and Bush answered with a nuke on Tehran, the left would start shrieking instantly about genocide, disproportionality, and the lack of evidence of culpability. Same playbook as their carping about “collective punishment†of Palestinians by Israel, only writ much, much larger. And they’d have a point: a dirty bomb could just as well come from AQ using material obtained from North Korean or Russian agents, with no assistance from Iran. It wouldn’t bother me if we held them responsible anyway. But I bet it’d bother Ted Koppel.
Nightline might even run a special two-hour episode where they read the names of some of the Iranian dead.
There has never been a country that pursued nuclear weapons and was deterred from getting them by anything but force or the threat of force. Only the Israeli attack on the Osirak reactor prevented Saddam from getting a nuke back in the 1980’s. And our invasion of Iraq along with the toppling of Saddam convinced Qadaffi to give up on his nuclear ambitions (we also interecepted nuclear hardware on its way to Libya which the frightened Libyan strongman believed gave the US an excuse to invade).
Israel, South Africa, and North Korea ignored international conventions, pressure, and pleadings on their way to building their own nukes. And now apparently Iran will get its chance to impoverish its people even further and try its hand at pulling the nuclear rabbit out of a hat.
Fortunately, the technical challenges are such that they are still at least 3 and more likely 5 years from having the ultimate defense against slanderous Muhammed cartoons. While diplomacy will probably be futile, the mullahs have more immediate concerns; the Israelis are most likely not going to be deterred as they see Iranian nukes as a threat to their national existence:
The biggest deterrent might come from the Israelis, not the Americans. Israeli defence sources are increasingly convinced that it will fall to them to stop a nuclear Iran. In their view Iran should not be allowed to get to the “point of no return†where it has the know-how to build a bomb.
“The Israelis are going to have to make a decision earlier than we do,†Clawson said. “That’s a real problem for us.â€
Indeed. The tiny nation of Israel going up against a regional power with hundreds of missiles capable of reaching their vulnerable cities not to mention enemies who would strike at her back while she was engaged in the life and death struggle with Iran would almost certainly draw the US into the conflict in some meaningful way. And the fact is Iran is getting stronger every year, their conventional arms are being modernized thanks to their friends in Russia and China. Israel’s overwhelming material superiority is diminishing. The Jewish state is very aware of this and will almost certainly strike sooner rather than later.
And when that happens, will the American President, whoever it may be, stand behind Israel?
In what has to be considered something of a shocker, the Washington Times is calling on House Speaker Dennis Hastert to resign for his inaction and dissembling over the Foley matter:
Now the scandal must unfold on the front pages of the newspapers and on the television screens, as transcripts of lewd messages emerge and doubts are rightly raised about the forthrightness of the Republican stewards of the 109th Congress. Some Democrats are attempting to make this “a Republican scandal,” and they shouldn’t; Democrats have contributed more than their share of characters in the tawdry history of congressional sexual scandals. Sexual predators come in all shapes, sizes and partisan hues, in institutions within and without government. When predators are found they must be dealt with, forcefully and swiftly. This time the offender is a Republican, and Republicans can’t simply “get ahead” of the scandal by competing to make the most noise in calls for a full investigation. The time for that is long past.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert must do the only right thing, and resign his speakership at once. Either he was grossly negligent for not taking the red flags fully into account and ordering a swift investigation, for not even remembering the order of events leading up to last week’s revelations — or he deliberately looked the other way in hopes that a brewing scandal would simply blow away. He gave phony answers Friday to the old and ever-relevant questions of what did he know and when did he know it? Mr. Hastert has forfeited the confidence of the public and his party, and he cannot preside over the necessary coming investigation, an investigation that must examine his own inept performance.
Hastert has presided over what will probably go down in history as the most inept, corrupt, cynical, and arrogant Congress since perhaps near the turn of the 20th century when the robber barons held sway in Washington and openly bought and sold votes on the floor.
Hastert himself - a genial, if clueless sort - is probably one of the least blameless members in this camper’s stew of corruption and irresponsible lawmaking. His leadership style has been one of staying above the fray while allowing his whips full reign to twist arms and necks to get Republican majorities on major legislation. This allowed stronger personalities like Tom DeLay and Roy Blunt to dominate at times, making Hastert appear to be an appendage, especially to the publicity hungry DeLay. In short, Hastert never really seemed to be in charge - something that was exposed during the Foley matter as it still isn’t clear whether anyone ever bothered to inform the Speaker personally about Foley’s emails to the former page, telling his staff instead who may or may not have informed him.
I’m not sure the resignation of Hastert is either necessary or desirable. The voters will almost surely take care of Mr. Hastert and the Republicans come November. In fact, it seems pretty much of a lead pipe cinch at this point as the universal disgust over Foley and the leadership’s tone deaf response to the emails and their potential import becomes widely known. The only question now is how big a majority the Democrats are likely to be handed as the new Congress sits next January.
It should go without saying that if the Democrats presented anything like a positive agenda for the country, their victory would be of historic proportions, almost certainly surpassing the Republican gains of 1994 and approaching their own electoral tidal wave of 1974. But a combination of Republican advantages in redistricting and voter doubts about their national security bona fides will probably hold Democratic gains to a narrow majority in the House and a possible one seat advantage in the Senate, the latter by no means a certainty but the polls breaking that way of late.
None of the blame for this should necessarily fall entirely on the shoulders of the Speaker. But as a symbol of Republican malfeasance in the Foley matter, it may be hard for him to escape walking the plank. Most conservatives have expressed disgust with the leadership over everything from earmarks to their curious incuriosity when it comes to oversight - my own beef being the horrific waste already revealed in war reconstruction spending. New leadership will hardly have time to get settled before their almost certain replacement by Democrats. So I suppose my point is - what’s the point?
If it is to make a statement that we won’t tolerate this kind of malfeasance then we are all a little late to that party. These people have been playing patty cakes with the truth, with parliamentary procedure, with House rules, and with the faith and trust of the American people for going on 6 years. It is a little late for resignations and mea culpas.
What is needed is a reckoning - a settling of accounts by the voters for all the broken promises, the wasteful spending, the arrogant mismanagement, and the irresponsible lawmaking which have combined to bring the Republican party to its sorriest state I’ve seen in my 30 years of membership.
Let the voters change the leadership in Congress. And then let the chips fall where they may.
I might as well make this clear at the outset. If I’ve learned anything over the last two days about lefty commenters who visit The House it is that their attention span and reading comprehension skills leave much to be desired. Therefore, I will write about the issues that we can all agree on right up front so that I don’t get idiots accusing me of supporting Foley or abetting a cover up by the GOP House leadership simply because they don’t take the time or make the minimal effort to actually read what I write.
This is what we know and what we can extrapolate from the facts:
* Foley is a pervert. And I cannot believe that these raunchy IM’s published so far is the limit of his perversion. Not only am I sure that there are more victims out there but that I think it possible that he has had physical contact with pages of an inappropriate nature. I base this on the fact that he showed an inordinate amount of interest in the pages throughout his career which would give him the opportunity and that the IM’s demonstrate the desire for such contact. I understand that the age of consent in Washington D.C. is 16 so it is probable that no laws were broken. But that doesn’t mitigate against the horrific violation of trust if such acts occurred.
* The House GOP leadership - indeed probably many on both sides of the aisle - knew of Foley’s predilections and did nothing about it. Are you trying to tell me that if Republican House pages were warned about Foley 5 years ago that at least some Democratic Pages weren’t also aware? That’s laughable. I’m sure the FBI will have some interesting conversations with former pages that will reveal not only that the Democratic pages had heard the rumors about Foley also but that they had dutifully passed them on to Democratic staffers.
* Foley’s sick behavior through the years was suspected, never proven. For that reason, when the email exchange with the ex-Page took place last year, the House leadership dropped the ball by not carrying out some kind of an investigation. Would that have revealed the existence of the IM’s and perhaps other things? Maybe not. But any such investigation would have ruined his career and left the leadership wide open to attacks by the left that they were persecuting a gay man. In effect, it was a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation which makes the smug charges by Democrats today - some of whom may have known about Foley as well - ring a little hollow. Nevertheless, to out a potential sexual predator in their midst should have overrode any other concerns.
* There will be a torrent of revelations over the coming weeks as the FBI investigation reveals all the seamy details as well as the extent of knowledge by both Democrats and Republicans about Foley’s perversion. Look also for an investigation in just how those emails and IM’s came into the possession of the mainstream media.
And it is on that front that I will address the remainder of this post. Because like it or not, this has become a political story. And certainly a large part of the politics of it is the growing realization that this story has been an electoral black bag operation, that it may have been planned for months, and that it was timed to explode for maximum political effect.
THE STRANGE GOINGS ON AT STOPSEXPREDATORS
Yesterday, I gave a detailed analysis of the blog that started the whole affair by publishing the emails of a former page from Congressman Foley last Sunday.
Since then several amazing things have come to light. First, and least importantly, the formatting of the email from Foley to the former page sent last year is different on the SSP website than those displayed on the CREW website.
First noticed by Barking Mad who left a link in my comments about it, a full analysis by Just One Minute commenter JM Hanes shows the discrepancy to be interesting :
The Foley messages themselves occupy the next 5 pages, which is where it gets interesting. It looks like the first message (which would logically be e-mail 1), in which Foley verifies the email address, is the only one which has actually been forwarded in its entirety. The remaining messages appear to have been pasted into separate emails of their own (hence the subject lines listing e-mail 2, etc), and not forwarded. I.E. they contain the putative text alone, without any headers attached.
It appears that the STOP blog took the header from the first message (p. 4), cropped out the redundant [Maf54@aol.com] in the “From” line, and eliminated the “To” line altogether — and then spliced it onto each of the other individual texts.
In other words, there’s no way of knowing whether the incriminating text provided to the recipient in the CREW pdf represents actual emails at all. It could have come from anywhere. It’s also possible that the young man didn’t want to pass on the emails in their entirety, opting instead to extract and paste in relevant material alone. One might wonder who was determining what might or might not be relevant — as well as wondering precisely who the redeacted recipient of this collection on Aug. 31, 2005 might have been.In any case, the only email which includes the Foley header is completely innocuous, and if you click on the individual emails at STOP, you’ll notice that, oddly enough, the jpeg titles include “cropped.”
(See the whole comment for links to the emails found on the SSP site and a pdf filed of the CREW version of the emails)
What makes this little more than an historical curiosity is the fact that reporters for several news organizations - including the St. Petersburg Times - confirmed the authenticity of the emails with the former page himself thus making any effort to cast aspersions on this or that version of them moot.
The authenticity of the IM’s may be a different story. But the emails that were reported to the House leadership last year have been authenticated so that any attempt to debunk them is doomed to failure.
But that’s not the only thing about the SSP website that is curious. The entire website has vanished as of today. All 8 posts (as Tom McGuire sardonically remarked of the site “which started in July and brought down the Congressional leadership with its sixth, seventh and eighth posts.”) are gone along with the emails and all the archives. The domain name “stopsexpredators.blogspot.com” seems to have been taken over either by a strawman or someone who is genuinely concerned about stopping sexual predators.
Of one thing we can be absolutely certain; Stop Sexual Predators had nothing whatsoever to do with the issue of fighting child pedophiles and everything to do with publicizing the emails from Congressman Foley to the former page. There can be no other explanation for its disappearance. Why would it close up shop just when it had scored a great coup that advanced its reason for being?
This means, of course, that at least as far as the publicizing of the emails, this was a clandestine Democratic/leftist effort to at the very least, raise questions about Foley’s behavior. And given what happened less than 24 hours after the emails were brought to the attention of Brian Ross at ABC News - the revelatory and raunchy IM’s being given to ABC news - a genuine dot connecting exercise can be undertaken to link both events. While not a certainty, it is compelling evidence that whoever published the emails on the SSP blog was either aware of the incriminating IM’s or had both in their possession.
NOTE: The link above is to the site “Stop Sexual Predators” not Stop Sex Predators. I apologize for the mixup. Someone sent me an incorrect link.
Obviously, that weakens the case that SSP was definitely set up to dump the emails onto the blogosphere. However, I find it strange that the person in charge of the website has not posted anything else since aknowledging his coup with the emails. Mission accomplished, perhaps?
THE KOS CONNECTION
Almost a month ago, a “two comment wonder” at Daily Kos known as WHInternnow revealed that it was an “open secret” that Foley liked the young interns and pages on the Hill and at the White House. Blog PI picks up the story:
They are probably also the same person: On Sept. 24, WHInternNow posted a dKos diary about the SSP posts almost as soon as the scans went up, but claimed to have innocently stumbled upon them via Google. Yeah, right.
And earlier this last week, before ABC’s Brian Ross obtained the more-damning Foley IMs and took the story national, Wonkette’s Alex Pareene took notice of SSP’s e-mails, and was uncharacteristically constrained in deeming the e-mails false…
One immediately wonders where Wonkette would have gotten a hold of the emails (or at least directed to the incredibly obscure SSP website). Even though they believed them to be fakes, given the enormous readership of the blog, it is likely that this is what triggered MSM interest in the story.
THE STRANGE GENESIS OF THE RAUNCHY IM’S
Questions about the IM’s authenticity are already arising as a result of the altering of the emails. However, the WaPo story seems to indicate that it was common knowledge among pages that Foley sent raunchy IM’s:
Also yesterday, a former House page said that at a 2003 page reunion, he saw sexually suggestive e-mails Foley had sent to another former page. Patrick McDonald, 21, now a senior at Ohio State University, said he eventually learned of “three or four” pages from his 2001-2002 class who were sent such messages.
At the very least, this would seem to indicate that even if the IM’s are fakes, others will testify that they received such raunchy IM’s from Foley. This is probably why he resigned from office.
But how do you “save” an IM? I’m sure there’s a way to do it but it can’t be easy. A better question would be why hang on to the IM’s for 4 or 5 years? My guess would be that such personal messages from a person of such power could have come in handy if questions ever arose about a relationship with Foley. Not blackmail but protection.
If the IM’s were in the possession of the left wing Public Interest Group CREW who then handed them over to ABC News, a legitimate question can be raised about how long they had those IM’s and why they didn’t notify the FBI sooner. If they had them for months (and since the SSP website went up in July we can assume as much) then CREW should be severely criticized for holding back information that placed young lives at risk. In the end - if they did indeed hold on to the IM’s for months - CREW can be singled out for the harshest criticism for the preferment of political gain at the expense of the safety of the pages.
How much of a story will this black bag operation be? Since it was done partly in the cause of ridding the Congress of a pervert, one perhaps cannot condemn it completely. However, it does demonstrate a nauseating cynicism on the part of the left when it comes to electoral politics and makes the hypocritical charges of “cover-up” resonate all the more with those who are disgusted by such tactics.
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