Scouts reference in Ann Coulter Commentary

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Like they say, talk is cheap. So far, Hastert has been all talk.

[Gonzo1]

Hastert just announced it. The reporter (and Soros) had it for about 3 or 4 years.

 

I think in the end, Foley will go to jail.

 

[BrentAllen]

Gern,

You should check your facts. It appears the really sick IM's were sent to former pages - those age 18 and older. The emails were sent to pages. Also, the age of consent is not the same in all states - in many states, it is 16 years of age. So, even though what Foley did was disgusting to most of us, it may not have been against the law.

 

Comparing Foley to Clinton - so far, we have no evidence of Foley having any physical contact with any page or former page. We have plenty of evidence of Clinton having sex and performing other sexual acts with Lewinsky. Also, Foley is not married, while Clinton is, at least on paper (sanctity of marriage?). I haven't seen or heard Foley, wagging his finger in the face of the American people, lie about what he did.

 

Now if you want to talk about ironic, how about Dirty Harry Reid, vice-chair of the Senate Ethics committee, taking home a cool $million on property he didn't own. Where are the front page stories on this one??? If he was a Republican, the press would be all over him like ticks on a hound!

[GernBlansten]

Brent, you really need to broaden your news sources beyond Dr. Dobson's radio broadcasts and FoxNews.

The most salacious IMs between Foley and one of his victims were the ones where Foley is masturbating before a house vote and IMing a page. Since to be an active page, you must be high school-er. Careful deduction allows one to conclude that page is 16 years old. About the same age as several Life scouts and a couple of Eagles in my troop.

 

Now what would you think of your Committee Chairman if one ASM told him another ASM was a bit too "friendly" with a scout? What if that occurred months if not years ago and the ASM is still around. Then all the sudden it was revealed that the "friendliness" when way beyond that. Would you want the CC to resign? How about the other ASMs who allowed it go on even after they knew it? How about change out the entire committee and leadership? Or would you blame it on the ACLU because that's exactly what they would like to embarrass the BSA and further their agenda?

[BrentAllen]

Gern,

I tried to be nice by saying you need to check your facts. Here is the harsh truth - you need to go to respectable sources for the news, instead of just reading DemocraticUnderground, Huffingtonpost and DailyKos. Because once again, you are absolutely wrong!

 

Here is the news from ABC (one of many sources I use). The IM's were not with a page as you state, but with a former page. Please, get your facts straight. Don't just repeat leftist, liberal spin.

"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."

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/10/new_foley_insta.html

 

As to whether Foley committed any crimes, unless you know more than the FBI, I suggest you wait for the investigation to take its course.

"The FBI also is investigating, trying to determine whether any crimes were committed by Foley."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/12/politics/main2084565.shtml

[GernBlansten]

This is really sad.

 

I'm hearing excuses from folks who I thought you would never hear such things...

 

"Its just a prank" (Great, lets blame the victims)

"In some states, age of consent is 16" (Depends on the definition of IS is)

"There's a secret society of gays behind this" (Opus Gay?)

"I told my boss and thought he was taking care of it" (The buck stops where?)

"The democRATs knew about!" (Look! Over there!)

and the ever popular but ageless

"Clinton did it too!" (My personal favorite)

 

So much for the party of personal responsibility and morality.

 

Foley is toast. I hope they prosecute him using the same laws he championed. Anyone who suppressed information that kept these kids in danger of this predator for even 1 hour because they were putting party over responsibility should resign immediately. I don't know how they sleep at night. For that matter, I don't know how any of these apologists sleep either.

 

[packsaddle]

Gern,

They sleep easily because they have honed deception into a way of life and are comfortable with nothing else. You wonder how they do it because you don't understand the comfort and arrogant certainty of self-deception...because you don't practice it.

[BrentAllen]

Gern,

I guess it is just too hard for you to say my favorite words "You are right." Nice try at a dodge, though.

 

Which states have age of consent at age 16 (or younger)? Try Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Conn., Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Mass., Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Penn, R.I., South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.

http://www.amber-net.org/amberstatutes.htm

 

Might be hard to prosecute Foley, if he didn't actually break any laws, eh?

 

"Anyone who suppressed information that kept these kids in danger of this predator for even 1 hour because they were putting party over responsibility should resign immediately. I don't know how they sleep at night. For that matter, I don't know how any of these apologists sleep either. "

 

I agree with you here. That would be interesting, considering ABC and other news sources sat on this story since August and earlier. Remember - several have said it was a Democrat operative who was shopping the story around.

"In May, a source put me in touch with a Democratic operative who provided me with the now-infamous emails that Foley had sent in 2004 to a sixteen-year-old page."

Ken Silverstein, Harper's Magazine (not exactly a right-wing publication)

 

I say let this investigation run from coast to coast. I've heard more than one Democrat keep saying "I never SAW the emails and IM's" when asked "Were you AWARE of the emails and IM's." As they get pressed about whether they were AWARE of them, not if they SAW them, they keep using the word "SAW." Sounds like a very carefully worded dodge. Put them all on the stand, under oath, and find out who knew what, and when.

 

[yellow_hammer]

GernBlanston said,

 

"Foley is toast. I hope they prosecute him using the same laws he championed. Anyone who suppressed information that kept these kids in danger of this predator for even 1 hour because they were putting party over responsibility should resign immediately. I don't know how they sleep at night. For that matter, I don't know how any of these apologists sleep either."

 

This is unbelievable... we actually agree on something in a political discussion. Any of the Republican leadership that knew about Foley's antics and did nothing about it should go with him. But it won't happen because too many of them are unprincipled and believe that the ends justify the means.

[yellow_hammer]

sr540beaver said,

 

"Did you actually type that in reference to Coulter with a straight face? I consider myself conservative and my eyes will NEVER, EVER, NEVER read any of the tripe she produces. Conservatives should be as ashamed of Coulter as liberals should be of Michael Moore. Both of them are laughing all the way to the bank and are just opposite sides of the same coin."

 

I did actually type that with my own little fingers. Just because you don't like some things that she says doesn't mean that they are lies.

 

Time magazine, hardly a bastion of conservative apologetics, did a cover story on Ann Coulter. The author, John Cloud, makes the following observation:

 

Coulter has a reputation for carelessness with facts, and if you Google the words "Ann Coulter lies," you will drown in results. But I didn't find many outright Coulter errors.

 

There are many flavors of conservative. Some just want a little more sanity in the world, just want to slow down the pace of change. Others want to correct the insanity that has plagued us for decades and point out the absurd logic of the left. Ann is the latter type.

[LongHaul]

Politics sure does make strange bed fellows I have to agree with BrentAllen on this one. Id like to see a coast to coast, one side of the Capitol Building to the other investigation. This takes me back to the late 60s when drugs were everywhere. I knew who the dealers were, my friends knew who the dealers where, my mother knew who the dealers were, how come the police were the only ones seemingly not in the loop? (They knew, I know, because I told them) With all the people, lobbyists, congressmen and congresswomen, pages, secretaries, and janitorial staff why is it that we only want to know when Hastert knew? Lets put aside for one moment the gender issue and the age of consent debate, lets table the notion that Foley was an authority figure to these pages and their wanting to gain his favor may have lead them to make questionable decisions. Lets talk ethics. Did Foley breach congressional ethics? If a person thinks he did nothing wrong that person, if in the public trust as an elected official Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Independent or whatever, should be willing to take the stand and say that they knew about them and saw nothing wrong with Foleys actions. If, on the other hand, this person does feel that Foley has done something wrong then they should be held accountable for not forwarding information about the ethics violation when they became REASONABLY SUSPICIOUS that a transgression had occurred. The easiest way to make a point is sometimes to take it to an extreme. If this had been a murder, how much information would have to be gathered before someone were expected to go to the police? Because no one died does not make it any less a breach of public trust to have concealed or withheld information. Most of us would not want to make accusations about misconduct without sufficient proof but this is CONGRESS for gods sake! These people will trash each other at the drop of a hat, why didnt some Democrat blow the lid off this long ago for political gain if nothing else? For those on the hill who claim they were totally clueless as to what was going on I ask how they justify making laws for the Nation when they have no idea of what is going on around them.

LongHaul

 

[SR540Beaver]

yellow_hammer: "There are many flavors of conservative. Some just want a little more sanity in the world, just want to slow down the pace of change. Others want to correct the insanity that has plagued us for decades and point out the absurd logic of the left. Ann is the latter type."

 

Sorry, but Coulter is not an intellectual like a Pat Bucahnan or George Will and brings nothing to the table in the way of ideas. She is an entertainer who uses insults and invective. Would you want your daughter to act like her? Tell me how these kinds of typical Coulter statements point to absurd logic on the left and seeks to correct the insanity that has plagued us for decades?

 

Without affirmative action, African-American Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA): couldn't get a job "that didn't involve wearing a paper hat."

 

"If Gore had been elected president, right now he would just be finding that last lesbian quadriplegic for the Special Forces team."

 

"There are a lot of bad Republicans; there are no good Democrats."

 

"The ethic of conservation is the explicit abnegation of man's dominion over the Earth. The lower species are here for our use. God said so: Go forth, be fruitful, multiply, and rape the planet--it's yours. That's our job: drilling, mining and stripping. Sweaters are the anti-Biblical view. Big gas-guzzling cars with phones and CD players and wet bars -- that's the Biblical view."

 

"They're [Democrats] always accusing us of repressing their speech. I say let's do it. Let's repress them. Frankly, I'm not a big fan of the First Amendment."

 

"Would that it were so! ... That the American military were targeting journalists."

 

"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building."

 

I could go on, but I think you can see the pattern here. Instead of pointing to absurd logic, she just throws chunks of meat to the folks who like to be hand fed "information". There is nothing there that speaks to the pressing needs or problems in our nation. She provides no solutions. She just makes absurd statements that she knows will get her name in the press and line her pocketbook a little more.

 

Conservatives should be ashamed to be lumped into the same label with her. I am.

[mmhardy]

What's strange about Coulter is that she is a University of Michigan grad. UofM is located in Ann Arbor, one of the most progressive cities in the state.

 

Maybe she went to the Flint campus. Flint, now there is a real garden spot of this state.

 

 

[GernBlansten]

Brent,

I don't accept your "facts" as facts. In fact, the facts are not available yet. We must wait.

You are parsing the headlines. The instance of the IMs during the voting, referenced a 2003 episode with a former page. Now was the page a former page in 2003 or is the page a former page now because he was an active page in 2003 but not now in 2006. To me it really doesn't matter. Foley was a predator to young male pages. This is without dispute. Parsing the details just goes to show how far the right will go to excuse this behaviour.

But if it makes you happy, I will say, I don't know if the IMs sent to the recipient by a Republican congressman who happened to be co-chairman of the committee to protect children from Internet exploitation, was sent to a 16 or 18 year old subordinate. Does that make you sleep better?

[BrentAllen]

Gern,

Please show me where anyone has excused his behaviour! I just like to deal in facts and the truth - something the left has little use for - why let the facts get in the way of a good story!

 

First, you accuse me of having a limited, right-wing only news source. Then, when I point out the facts, which don't fit your preconceived story, you claim my facts aren't facts. I guess we are back to using the argument "It depends on what the definition of "is" is." How sad.

 

If you followed the link I provided, you would have your answers. Since you apparently didn't, here they are, from Brian Ross himself, regarding the IM's during the House vote:

 

"This message was dated April 2003, at approximately 7 p.m., according to the message time stamp at a time when the teen had been 18 for just six weeks. (Some sharp online readers spotted that the boy was technically legal when the exchange took place)."

 

I guess that really took the air out of Brian Ross's balloon when the boy turned out to be legal. Now, what he has is the transcript of an electronic conversation that took place between two consenting adults (where have I heard that before??). An online reader figures this out, but Investigative Reporter Brian Ross couldn't? Gee, this is starting to sound familiar - kind of like readers noticing the forgeries Dan Rather was pushing.

 

I make no apologies or excuses for Foley. I think what he did was very wrong, and he should have resigned. The fact is he is gone, and his name is Mudd. Let's compare that to Clinton, who stayed in office and is championed as the great leader of his party. Yes, let's talk about the Party of morals.

 

Now, let's look back at how the two parties handled ACTUAL sexual relations with underage Congressional pages.

 

In 1983, two Congressman, Republican Dan Crane and Democrat Gerry Studds were both found guilty by the House Ethics Committee of engaging in sexual activity with 17-year-old congressional pages. Then-Congressman Newt Gingrich demanded their immediate expulsion but Democratic leaders instead led the vote for censure.

 

Dan Crane tearfully apologized for his actions, accepted his censure, and was promptly voted out of office.

 

Democrat Gerry Studds however stood by his relationship with a 17-year-old boy, refused to apologize, and even turned his back and ignored the official House censure being read to him. His Democratic colleagues gave him a standing ovation and even voted for him to chair a Congressional Committee. He served for 12 more years as Democrats in Massachusetts continued to elect this admitted pedophile.

 

Instead of accepting his censure in shame, Studds went on the attack and even held a press conference with his former teenage partner where he blamed others and said his actions were nobodys business but his own. In part Studds address to the House reads, It is not a simple task for any of us to meet adequately the obligations of either public or private life, let alone both, but these challenges are made substantially more complex when one is, as I am, both an elected official and gay.

 

Yes, I sleep fine at night.

 

(This message has been edited by BrentAllen)