Mark Foley and You Tube

A video clip of Mark Foley and Bill O'Reilly back in May discussing the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act which was being held up in the Senate.  Watch the conversation and be prepared to be appalled by Foley's holier than thou words which have now come back empty.  He may be the first name entered onto the list.

Its time that Foley called out from the depths of his rehab center and take public responsibility for his own failings and admit that he lied and deceived his colleagues as he did O'Reilly.

You Tube video via Wonkette.

Comments

[ron]

Disgusting! Republicans should be appalled and find out everthing about this case to find out who knew what and when.

[KUKIMBIA]

EVERYONE should be appalled. This case and the equally disgusting cover-up are eerily similar to what the archdiocese in Chicago and several other cities have been facing (or should I say avoiding).

[ron]

although, it is equally disgusting the democrats have turned this into a political issue. there have much worst incidents of democratic congressmen behavior related to sex and boys and immoral behavior in the past.

[john]

Oh too funny... Democrats yelling about Republicans behaving badly... have they forgot about Barney, Ted, Bill, and numerous others who were worse than Foley? I'm not a member of either party as both are filled with hypocrites and accusers. Both are also filled with irresponsible leaders, and let's not leave out those sanctimonious Catholics.

[rand]

Who is holding Shimkus responsible? He knew about it months ago and buried his head in the sand.

[diane]

What is it you have against Shimkus?

[Bill Baar]

I'm not certain Shimkus buried his head in the sand, as much as warning signs went right over his head. Hastert's too.

I watched Cong. Reynolds last night on c-span. He was surrounded by kids taking questions on the story. I hate it when Pols use there kids and families as props and this was the worst circumstance to do that in.

[rand]

Shinkus is the Republican IN CHARGE OF pages. His job is to protect them and accepting Foley's explanation without further investigation would be like the police accepting OJs explanation and doing
no further investigation. He failed miserably, presumably to protect political interests. Read on:

Washington Times Calls on Hastert to Resign

The conservative Washington Times is calling on House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) to resign his leadership post following his mishandling of the Foley scandal: "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."

I think Shimkus is evry bit as accountable as Hastert.

[Bill Baar]

And the warning signs are: the closeted (but known) gay man being too friendly with a teenage boy.

As far as I can tell, that's what Hastert and Shimkus were confronted with here.

Easy to say they handled it badly in hindsight, but if this becomes the standard warning, Gay's are in for real trouble.

John Dickerson explained where Democrats are in danger of going with this over at Slate http://www.slate.com/id/2150807/nav/tap1/

[ron]

rand where was dick durbin and you when bill clinton took advantage of an intern, barny frank, Democrat, let his homosexual lover run a prostitution ring out of his house,and gerry studds, democrat, was censured by the house for have sex with a 17 year old intern and still refused to resign?
rand get off the stover for congress campaign band wagon. wait until the facts are presented before asking for action. what i presented above are facts.

[ron]

i wonder if the democrats, are you listening dick durbin, would propose all homosexual and lesbian congressman(ladies) and senators, whether out of the closet or in the closet, have all their communications monitored by and outside entity. an assumption of guilt before anything crime or misdeed was done. i don't think the homosexual constituents and liberals would favor this. what would they do? they never have an answer? just criticism.

[KUKIMBIA]

I've never understood the "my party, right or wrong" mentality. The comments above simply confirm it; the political party's standing is more important than who's right or wrong, better or worse. Just throw out the "race" (i.e., party) card. Priceless.

[rand]

As a Gay man and a Democrat I was equally appalled at the behavior of Frank and Studds.

Ron - as for Stover; I assume he is Shimkus' opponent. I wouldn't know, I live in San Diego (tho still a Cards fan) and have never heard of him. No bandwagon here. I visit this blog to see what's happening in the old neighborhood.

Why would you propose monitoring all gay emails - the VAST MAJORITY of pedofiles are straight. (Have you seen Dateline recently?) How twisted your thinking that all gays are attracked to young men. Sorry, it's just not true. In fact, a number of studies have shown pedofilia to be no more common with the gay men than it is with heterosexual men. But some how, people with your twisted thought process want to make it a much bigger deal if it's a man on boy situation. All pedofilia is disgusting, sick and criminal, and should be treated equally harsh.

I think the emails Shimkus knew about should have raised a more serious inquiry. Shimkus says he took Foley at his word. Come on, who does that? Do you want the Collinsville Police to take every suspect at his word?

A 50 year old man and a 16 year old page? Not even from his own district or state? It just demands more attention than Shimkus gave it. If it was your 16 year old would you be satisfied with Shimkus' response?????

&BTW Ron, just a guess: last inital "J", CHS class of '68?

[ron]

rand my point about monitoring gay emails was the criticism directed towards shimkus was that many in congress knew foley was gay. therefore, shimkus should have known the emails foley sent meant he was up to no good. that is guilt by association and , which i would assume you are against. the first emails contained nothing explicit, just overly friendly. should ever conversation between a congressman and page be a red warning flag!!?? foley never publicly stated he was gay. just because someone thinks someone else is gay or someone states that about someone else doesn't mean they should be stereotyped. that's what many of the democrats and liberal pundits were saying shimkus should have done. he should have investigated further because people knew(?) foley was gay. i don't think anyone, including you wants that to be the norm in congress or anywhere else. the democrats set a double standard as the most often do. should everyone in congress,including staffers, should have all their communications monitored with the pages? is impossible and leads to infringement on privacy rights. the fbi reviewed the first emails and found nothing that warranted further investigation. i can just image what would have happened if shimkus had made this public a couple of years ago, when nothing was overtly wrong in the email. he would have been accused by the gay community of going after this congressman, becuase of him being gay, and not one democrat would have come to shimkus' defense.

[KDM]

LAMO...like Republicans wouldn't beat the crap out of a Dem that did this. OMG--the whole "Family Values" idiots would be up in arms, dragging the guy's body through the streets! Implosion. IMPLOSION! I can smell it now!!!!!!!

[rand]

The emails were social in nature, Foley going out of his way to make a socila 'connection' and that email was inappropriate. Does he ask ALL pages what they want for their birthday?? It was inapropriate enough for Shimkus to question Foley about it. I just think Shimkus was to ready to accept whatever excuse Foley was offering and that Shimkus did not do his job in this case.

Hastert seems to be taking most of the heat, and that doesn't bother me. But from what I've seen in the national media Shimkus isn't being held accountable.

I'll listen to the KMOX interview when I get home from work to see what Shimkus had to say this morning.

that's SOCIAL connection; not socila. I need to proof my posts.

[ron]

rand you still don't address the question. at what point does shimkus or any other congressman make allegations against another congressman and that warrants an investigation or formal inquiry? let's say a congressman, maybe a republlican, sees nancy pelosi talking with a page and has her arm around her or him and the page is shaking her or his head no and walks away looking distressed. should congressman shimkus now go to pelosi and then inform the speaker of what took place? you are setting the stage for political witch hunts. the major miami newspapers and the major media were aware of the earlier emails and they all did nothing with it until the text messages came out. then people knew there was a problem. you are creating an issue that will come back to haunt the homosexual community,if you expect all cases to be fully investigated based on what you and the democrats define as OVERLY friendly emails, but the mainstream media, including the nyt and wash post didn't think were overly friendly.

[rand]

He didn't need to make allegations, he's in charge of the pages. He should have investigated further. Since evidence is now coming forward that pages knew about Foley as far back as 1995.

If I were a parent of a page I would have expected him to at least have talked to the pages, asked some questions to see if these overly friendly emails were common or were troubling to other pages.

This could have been done while protecting the identity of the page and his family, as they requested.

Maybe just a general meeting with pages to discuss the issue of appropriate and inappropriate behavior of members of Congress and how they should go about reporting anything they thought was inappropriate.

HE DID NOTHING, that was wrong.

And why are you so fixated on the Gay Community; if Foley had been approaching female pages would you be worried about the Breeder Community?