Kids and Values

Kids are the theme today — first we looked at our home grown predators, while the week’s brought us a new rash of school shootings, and today a truly tragic story about a wingnut who took over a one-room schoolhouse in Amish country and shot all the little girls. Hard stuff; we love our kids. They ARE our family values.

The Bush administration is wobbling all over the place now, accused of being ineffective … I beg to differ; they’ve been remarkably effective in tearing this nation to shreds, following their own personal plan for privatizing, theocratizing, gutting services and protections and rerouting funds. So it’s not their ability at question — it’s their “values.” And that strikes me funny, sorta — since values has been the whole nut to crack, these last years. The last piece here by Krugman addresses the values issue … clearly, the us/them is morphing; it’s not so much Red v. Blue, today, as “who we are now” v. “who [we thought] we used to be.”

So it falls to the Left to point out that the radical Right’s values and the values the rest of us appreciate are growingly dissimilar … the voters will have to decide which is which. The Right is imploding with regularity now — Woodward inadvertently gave us some 9/11 information in his newest offering and folks are connecting those dots. He’ll be on CNN’s Larry King Live tonight … he usually drops some tidbits, so that’s a Don’t Miss.

And the Bushies never have a good defense, ya know? They haven’t read the memo, the article, the analysis … or they simply don’t remember. Condi doesn’t remember today — I’ll bet George Tenent does!

A good many citizens of this country are parents — they wouldn’t accept that kind of lame excuse from a kid coming home late, why do they take it as gospel from the government? Remember that old saw your Dad or Mom laid on you — “As long as you’re living under my roof, you’ll obey the rules of this house!”

Dub and Rummy and Uncle Dick and Condi are living in OUR house, dearhearts! Running out the clock with adolescent fantasies and non-sense dreams of grandeur. It’s time to look at our values again, reach over to grab hands with the Republicans who believe that rule of law still means something — and kick the renegade kids out to fend for themselves. I’m not big on “tough love” … love that’s conditional ain’t worth a pfffft! But these brats are burning the house down! And there should be enough grown up’s out there by now to do the job.

Jude

Condi Rice, 9/11 and Another Nest of Lies
William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 02 October 2006
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100206X.shtml

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may have committed perjury in her testimony before the 9/11 Commission in May of 2004. At a minimum, her testimony was a convenient mishmash of half-truths and omissions which served to paint the White House as innocent bystanders as the attacks of 9/11 unfolded. Certainly, her testimony omitted the fact that the two most senior intelligence officials in the nation delivered a stern warning regarding an impending terror attack two full months before 9/11.

Sunday’s edition of the Washington Post carried a story titled “Two Months Before 9/11, an Urgent Warning to Rice.” The story described a desperate attempt by CIA chief George Tenet and CIA counterterrorism chief J. Cofer Black to draw Rice’s attention to the looming threat of an al-Qaeda strike against the United States. Tenet and Black insisted on a meeting with Rice on July 10, 2001. This meeting was first reported by Bob Woodward in his new book, “State of Denial.”

“Tenet had the NSA review all the intercepts,” read the Post story, “and the agency concluded they were of genuine al-Qaeda communications. On June 30, a top-secret senior executive intelligence brief contained an article headlined ‘Bin Laden Threats Are Real.’ Tenet hoped his abrupt request for an immediate meeting would shake Rice.

He and Black, a veteran covert operator, had two main points when they met with her. First, al-Qaeda was going to attack American interests, possibly in the United States itself … Second, this was a major foreign policy problem that needed to be addressed immediately. They needed to take action that moment - covert, military, whatever - to thwart bin Laden.”

The meeting, according to Tenet and Black, went nowhere. “Tenet and Black felt they were not getting through to Rice. She was polite, but they felt the brush-off. President Bush had said he didn’t want to swat at flies,” the Post story reported. “Rice seemed focused on other administration priorities, especially the ballistic missile defense system that Bush had campaigned on. She was in a different place.”

“Tenet left the meeting feeling frustrated,” continued the Post story. “Though Rice had given them a fair hearing, no immediate action meant great risk. Black felt the decision to just keep planning was a sustained policy failure. Rice and the Bush team had been in hibernation too long. Afterward, Tenet looked back on the meeting with Rice as a tremendous lost opportunity to prevent or disrupt the Sept. 11 attacks.

Black later said, ‘The only thing we didn’t do was pull the trigger to the gun we were holding to her head.’”

The Post story concluded with a remarkable Editor’s Note: “How much effort the Bush administration made in going after Osama bin Laden before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, became an issue last week after former president Bill Clinton accused President Bush’s ‘neocons’ and other Republicans of ignoring bin Laden until the attacks. Rice responded in an interview that ‘what we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years.’”

This comment suggests the entire Post story was inspired by former President Clinton’s remarkable denunciation of the Bush administration’s efforts to thwart bin Laden in a recent Fox News interview. The seriousness of this meeting, however, goes far beyond political sniping and gamesmanship.

Peter Rundlet served as counsel to the 9/11 Commission, and has accused the White House of hiding the meeting between Tenet, Black and Rice from the commission. Rundlet practiced at the influential law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and was formerly associate counsel to the president and a White House Fellow, serving in the Office of Chief of Staff to the President, before joining the commission.

Writing for the online news magazine Think Progress, Rundlet stated, “Many, many questions need to be asked and answered about this revelation, questions that the 9/11 Commission would have asked, had the commission been told about this significant meeting. Suspiciously, the commissioners and the staff investigating the administration’s actions prior to 9/11 were never informed of the meeting. As Commissioner Jamie Gorelick pointed out, ‘We didn’t know about the meeting itself. I can assure you it would have been in our report if we had known to ask about it.’”

This is a remarkable revelation in and of itself. The head of CIA and the head of CIA’s counterterrorism branch delivered a warning in the strongest possible terms to Ms. Rice two months before the attack, yet this meeting was not revealed to the 9/11 Commission. It may well have remained a historical non-event had Woodward not written about it.

Which brings us to Ms. Rice’s sworn testimony in May 2004 before the commission.

At one point in this hearing, Commission Vice-Chair Lee Hamilton directly asked Rice about the so-called intelligence failures leading up to 9/11: “At the end of the day, of course, we were unable to protect our people. And you suggest in your statement - and I want you to elaborate on this, if you want to - that in hindsight it would have been - better information about the threats would have been the single - the single most important thing for us to have done, from your point of view, prior to 9/11, would have been better intelligence, better information about the threats. Is that right? Are there other things that you think stand out?”

Rice responded, “Well, Mr. Chairman, I took an oath of office on the day that I took this job to protect and defend. And like most government officials, I take it very seriously. And so, as you might imagine, I’ve asked myself a thousand times what more we could have done. I know that, had we thought that there was an attack coming in Washington or New York, we would have moved heaven and earth to try and stop it. And I know that there was no single thing that might have prevented that attack.”

Not only did Rice fail to mention the dramatic warnings given to her by Tenet and Black, she goes on to flatly state that neither she nor the administration had a clue that an attack was coming. Further, she claims that “no single thing could have prevented that attack.”

“The July 10 meeting between Tenet, Black and Rice went unmentioned in the various reports of investigations into the Sept. 11 attacks,” read the Post report on Sunday, “but it stood out in the minds of Tenet and Black as the starkest warning they had given the White House on bin Laden and al-Qaeda.”

Combined with the August 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Briefing delivered to Bush, which explicitly stated that bin Laden intended to attack the United States, the revelation of this meeting between Tenet, Black and Rice indicates that the Bush White House should have and could have made a far greater effort at thwarting the 9/11 attacks.

Rice’s testimony before the 9/11 Commission on the matter may rise to the level of perjury. At a minimum, it exposes yet another nest of lies delivered by a member of this administration.

“A mixture of shock, anger, and sadness overcame me,” wrote Peter Rundlet in his Think Progress article, “when I read about revelations in Bob Woodward’s new book about a special surprise visit that George Tenet and his counterterrorism chief Cofer Black made to Condi Rice, also on July 10, 2001. If true, it is shocking that the administration failed to heed such an overwhelming alert from the two officials in the best position to know.”

Indeed. ++

Rice: No Memory of CIA Warning of Attack
Rice says she cannot recall CIA warning of coming al-Qaida attack in the U.S.
ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer
Oct. 2, 2006
http://tinyurl.com/e7cdy

SHANNON, Ireland (AP) — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she cannot recall then-CIA chief George Tenet warning her of an impending al-Qaida attack in the United States, as a new book claims he did two months before the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

“What I am quite certain of is that I would remember if I was told, as this account apparently says, that there was about to be an attack in the United States, and the idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find incomprehensible,” Rice said.

Rice was President Bush’s national security adviser in 2001, when Bob Woodward’s book “State of Denial” outlines a July 10 meeting among Rice, Tenet and the CIA’s top counterterror officer.

“I don’t know that this meeting took place, but what I really don’t know, what I’m quite certain of, is that it was not a meeting in which I was told there was an impending attack and I refused to respond,” Rice said.

Speaking to reporters en route to Saudi Arabia and other stops in the Middle East, Rice said she met with Tenet daily at that point, and has no memory of the wake-up call from Tenet described in the book.

“It kind of doesn’t ring true that you have to shock me into something I was very involved in,” Rice said.

There was near constant discussion of possible attacks overseas, and high alarm, Rice said.

The meeting between Tenet, Rice and Cofer Black of the CIA was not mentioned in the reports from several investigations of the Sept. 11 attacks, but Woodward wrote that it stood out in the minds of Tenet and Black as the “starkest warning they had given the White House” on al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and his network.

Tenet asked for the meeting after receiving a disturbing briefing from Black, according to the book.

But though Tenet and Black warned Rice in the starkest terms of the prospects for attack, she brushed them off, Woodward reiterated Monday. He told NBC’s “Today” show that Black told him the two men were so emphatic, it amounted to “holding a gun to her head” and doing everything except pulling the trigger.

Black reportedly laid out secret intercepts and other data “showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaida would soon attack the United States.” Tenet was so worried that he called Rice from his car and asked to see her right away, the book said.

“Tenet and Black felt they were not getting through to Rice,” Woodward wrote of the session. “She was polite, but they felt the brush-off.”

Rice referred to the session as “the supposed meeting” and noted that it is not part of the independent Sept. 11 Commission’s report.

“I remember that George was very worried and he expressed that,” Rice told reporters. “We were all very worried because the threat reporting was quite intense. The problem was that it was also quite nebulous.”

Rice, who was promoted to secretary of state in Bush’s second term, also said she never argued that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should be fired. The book’s suggestion that Rumsfeld would not take her calls is “ludicrous,” Rice said.

Rumsfeld and Rice are not close, and he is often considered her rival in administration decision making. Woodward wrote that then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card twice tried to get Bush to sack Rumsfeld and replace him with Bush family counselor James A. Baker III, and that both then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and Rice backed the plan.

Woodward interviewed Rice for his new book.

Rice’s latest Middle East trip is focused on strengthening support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other moderate Arab leaders after a series of setbacks for democratic and moderate forces in the region.

Her trip includes visits to allies Saudi Arabia and Egypt and a meeting of other friendly nations that ring the Persian Gulf, before visits to Israel and the West Bank.

Rice is looking for new ways to improve Abbas’ standing in his standoff with Hamas radicals trounced Abbas’ secular Fatah Party in Palestinian elections in January. Abbas was elected separately and retains his position, but he has been hamstrung by the divided government and a cutoff of Western aid.

The Bush administration and Israel are increasingly convinced Hamas will crumble, and look to Abbas to capitalize. Rice may ask other countries to do more to bolster Abbas’ security forces, and she hopes to breathe life into stalled agreements and talks that would help Palestinians move more freely across their borders with Israel.

Iran’s nuclear ambitions will also be part of Rice’s discussions, as an unofficial deadline passes this week for Iran to heed a U.N. Security Council demand to shelve disputed nuclear activities.

Rice said Sunday she may close her trip Friday with a meeting of world powers in Europe to look at what to do next. The United States wants to press for U.N. Security Council sanctions, but it is not clear she has full support from other permanent members of the council. ++

Tenet Warned Congress in February 2001 About al-Qaeda
Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report
Monday 02 October 2006
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100206Y.shtml

In February 2001, seven months before 9/11, George Tenet, then the director of the CIA, testified before Congress and told lawmakers that the single greatest threat to the United States was Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, according to a little known copy of Tenet’s Congressional testimony.

During his report to Congress, Tenet eerily described a scenario that seven months later would become a grim reality.

“Terrorists are also becoming more operationally adept and more technically sophisticated in order to defeat counter-terrorism measures. For example, as we have increased security around government and military facilities, terrorists are seeking out “softer” targets that provide opportunities for mass casualties,” Tenet said, according to a transcript of his testimony.

“Employing increasingly advanced devices and using strategies such as simultaneous attacks, the number of people killed … Usama bin Ladin and his global network of lieutenants and associates remain the most immediate and serious threat. Since 1998, Bin Ladin has declared all U.S. citizens legitimate targets of attack. As shown by the bombing of our embassies in Africa in 1998 and his Millennium plots last year, he is capable of planning multiple attacks with little or no warning.”

But instead of heeding the CIA’s warnings about al-Qaeda, the Bush administration brushed it off, and instead turned its attention toward Iraq, claiming Saddam Hussein was stockpiling a cache of weapons of mass destruction that threatened the security of the United States and Iraq’s neighbors in the Middle East, and urged Tenet’s CIA to find the evidence to support the administration’s agenda.

With Monday’s publication of Bob Woodward’s book “State of Denial,” questions about what the Bush administration knew about the 9/11 threats and when they knew it have once again resurfaced.

In February 2001, while Tenet was building a case against bin Laden and al-Qaeda, Colin Powell, then secretary of state, was trying to steer the White House away from taking action against Iraq, which administration officials immediately began to focus on just one month after Bush was sworn into office.

Behind the scenes that month, hardliners in the Bush administration were privately discussing ways to remove Saddam Hussein from power, virtually ignoring credible intelligence about the pending threat posed by al-Qaeda.

Privately, Powell disagreed with the administration’s stance on Iraq. In interviews, Powell said that the US had successfully “contained” Iraq in the years since the first Gulf War and that, because of economic sanctions placed on the country, Iraq was unable to obtain WMD.

“We have been able to keep weapons from going into Iraq,” Powell said during a February 11, 2001, interview with “Face the Nation.” “We have been able to keep the sanctions in place to the extent that items that might support weapons of mass destruction development have had some controls on them … it’s been quite a success for ten years …”

Moreover, during a meeting with Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister, in February 2001 - the same month Tenet testified before Congress about bin Laden and al-Qaeda - Powell said the UN, the US and its allies “have succeeded in containing Saddam Hussein and his ambitions.”

Saddam’s “forces are about one-third their original size. They don’t really possess the capability to attack their neighbors the way they did ten years ago,” Powell said during the meeting with Fischer, a transcript of which can be found here.

“Containment has been a successful policy, and I think we should make sure that we continue it until such time as Saddam Hussein comes into compliance with the agreements he made at the end of the (Gulf) war.”

Powell, who a year later would publicly support the administration’s case for war, added that Iraq is “not threatening America.”

Indeed, a day after Powell’s “Face the Nation” interview, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in an interview with Fox News that “Iraq is probably not a nuclear threat at the present time,” according to a copy of the transcript of Rumsfeld’s February 12, 2001, interview with the cable news channel.

By mid-February 2001, the sudden shift in policy toward Iraq was apparent. Bush administration officials went from describing Iraq as being a threat only to its own people to now posing an imminent threat to the world. By focusing heavily on regime change in Iraq, the White House ignored documented warnings about the al-Qaeda terrorist organization from career intelligence officers.

Even after 9/11, the administration still could not shake off its obsession with launching a war against Iraq. Immediately following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, CIA intelligence reports on Iraq radically changed from previous months, which said Iraq posed no immediate threat to the US, to suddenly showing that Iraq was stockpiling chemical and biological weapons and was in hot pursuit of a nuclear bomb. The Bush administration, linking Iraq to 9/11, seized upon the reports to build public support for the war and used the information to eventually justify a pre-emptive strike against the country in March 2003.

Intelligence reports released by the CIA in 2001 and 2002 and more than 100 interviews with top officials in the Bush administration, including Powell, Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, given to various Senate and Congressional committees and media outlets prior to 9/11 show that the US had never believed Saddam Hussein to be an imminent threat other than to his own people. Moreover, the CIA reported in February 2001 that Iraq was “probably” pursuing chemical and biological weapons programs, but that it had no direct evidence that Iraq had actually obtained such weapons.

“We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since [Operation] Desert Fox to reconstitute its WMD programs, although given its past behavior, this type of activity must be regarded as likely,” CIA director Tenet said in an agency report to Congress on February 7, 2001.

“We assess that since the suspension of [United Nations] inspections in December of 1998, Baghdad has had the capability to reinitiate both its [chemical and biological weapons] programs … without an inspection monitoring program, however, it is more difficult to determine if Iraq has done so,” Tenet added. “Moreover, the automated video monitoring systems installed by the UN at known and suspect WMD facilities in Iraq are still not operating, according to the 2001 CIA report. Having lost this on-the-ground access, it is more difficult for the UN or the US to accurately assess the current state of Iraq’s WMD programs.”

In October 2002, when the CIA issued another report, it told a dramatically different story, that this time included details of Iraq’s alleged vast chemical and biological weapons.

The October 2002 CIA report into Iraq’s WMD identifies sarin, mustard gas, VX and numerous other chemical weapons that the CIA claimed Iraq had been stockpiling over the years, in stark contrast to earlier reports by Tenet that said the agency had no evidence to support such claims. And unlike testimony Tenet gave a year earlier, in which he said the CIA had no direct evidence of Iraq’s WMD programs, the intelligence information in the 2002 report, Tenet said, was rock solid.

“This information is based on a solid foundation of intelligence,” Tenet said during a CIA briefing in February, a transcript of which can be found here.

“It comes to us from credible and reliable sources. Much of it is corroborated by multiple sources,” Tenet said, in statements and intelligence that would later be proven false.

Rumsfeld’s attitude toward Iraq also changed. Rumsfeld testified before the House Armed Services Committee on September 18, 2002 - 19 months after he said Iraq was not a nuclear threat - that Iraq was close to acquiring the materials needed to build a nuclear bomb.

“Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent - that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons,” Rumsfeld testified before the committee.

“I would not be so certain,” Rumsfeld said. “He has, at this moment, stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and is pursuing nuclear weapons.”

Rumsfeld never offered any evidence to support his claims, but his dire warning of a looming nuclear catastrophe was enough to convince most lawmakers, both Democrat and Republican, to take swift action against Iraq. Shortly after his remarks before the House Armed Services Committee, Congress passed a resolution authorizing President Bush to use “all appropriate means” to remove Saddam from power. ++

Book and e-mails hit Republican nerves
Caroline Daniel and Guy Dinmore, MSNBC
13 minutes ago
http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=tnaszybab.0.l9kszybab.ruvvpabab.4911&ts=S0206&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmsnbc.msn.com%2Fid%2F15106645%2F

US Republicans are facing challenges to their credibility this week on two of their strongest themes – family values and national security – with questions on whether the leadership had covered up a scandal involving a congressman sending explicit e-mails to teenage boys, and whether the White House has covered up rising problems in Iraq.

The FBI said it would look into e-mails sent to under-age congressional pages by Mark Foley, a 52-year-old Republican congressman from Florida who resigned on Friday. The real political damage could arise from concern that the Republican leadership, including Dennis Hastert, the House speaker, had been slow to investigate the allegations fully and had failed to remove Mr Foley as chairman of the House caucus on missing and exploited children.

In an effort to contain the fall-out, and with Democratic critics asking, “Why did GOP leaders sit on Foley e-mails?” Mr Hastert called for an internal review and a Justice Department inquiry into who had seen the messages that Mr Foley had sent. An initial review by the leadership – which did not include the most explicit e-mails disclosed last week – had concluded that his messages were simply “over-friendly”.

“Initially I just thought that this would cost thema seat and the publicwould just chalk it up to yet another sleazebag politician,” said Charlie Cook, publisher of the Cook Political Report. “As articles turned toward cover-up/inaction, it’s just one more nail in the coffin for this majority.”

Republicans had hoped to make national security the dominant election issue and had been poised to exploit last week’s victory on Capitol Hill – approval of new rules on interrogations and military tribunals – to paint Democrats as weak on national security.

That plan for this week has been thrown off course by the publication of Bob Woodward’s book State of Denial, which revealed an administration divided and disorganised over Iraq, and a new biography of Colin Powell, which says the former secretary of state warned the president of the growing insurgency.

One of the most damaging allegations from Mr Woodward is that Condoleezza Rice, the present secretary of state, brushed off warnings of a possible al-Qaeda attack on the US delivered by George Tenet, then chief of the CIA, and Cofer Black, head of counter-terrorism, at an emergency meeting on July 10 2001.

On her way to the Middle East, Ms Rice told reporters that she could not specifically recall a meeting, and flatly denied being warned by Mr Tenet of an attack on the US. “What I am quite certain of, however, is that I would remember if I was told – as this account apparently says – that there was about to be an attack in the United States. The idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find incomprehensible.”

Ms Rice said that Philip Zelikow, her senior policy adviser on the region and the former executive director of the 9/11 commission, had stayed in Washington “to help reconstruct from the commission side what happened”.

Mr Zelikow was quoted by the New York Times as saying no witness before the 9/11 commission had drawn attention to such a meeting as described by Mr Woodward.

Mr Cook said the events of the last few days marked an inflection point. “The spotlight is shifting away from terrorism, 9/11, national security and falling gasoline prices back on to Iraq, how we got there and mistakes made by the Bush administration on how we have waged the war.

“The Foley scandal exacerbates a situation that had already turned bad. Had the spotlight remained on terrorism, the GOP would have held majority, though with some losses. This new shift may well force a different result.” ++

Things Fall Apart
October 2, 2006
PAUL KRUGMAN
http://tinyurl.com/rss8k

Right after the 2004 election, it seemed as if Thomas Frank had been completely vindicated. In his book “What’s the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America,” Mr. Frank argued that America’s right wing had developed a permanent winning strategy based on the use of “values” issues to mobilize white working-class voters against a largely mythical cultural elite, while actually pursuing policies designed to benefit a small economic elite.

It was and is a brilliant analysis. But the political strategy Mr. Frank described may have less staying power than he feared. In fact, the right-wing coalition that has spent 40 years climbing to its current position of political dominance may be cracking up.

At its core, the political axis that currently controls Congress and the White House is an alliance between the preachers and the plutocrats — between the religious right, which hates gays, abortion and the theory of evolution, and the economic right, which hates Social Security, Medicare and taxes on rich people. Surrounding this core is a large periphery of politicians and lobbyists who joined the movement not out of conviction, but to share in the spoils.

Together, these groups formed a seemingly invincible political coalition, in which the religious right supplied the passion and the economic right supplied the money.

The coalition has, however, always been more vulnerable than it seemed, because it was an alliance based not on shared goals, but on each group’s belief that it could use the other to get what it wants. Bring that belief into question, and the whole thing falls apart.

Future historians may date the beginning of the right-wing crackup to the days immediately following the 2004 election, when President Bush tried to convert a victory won by portraying John Kerry as weak on defense into a mandate for Social Security privatization. The attempted bait-and-switch failed in the face of overwhelming public opposition. If anything, the Bush plan was even less popular in deep-red states like Montana than in states that voted for Mr. Kerry.

And the religious and cultural right, which boasted of having supplied the Bush campaign with its “shock troops” and expected a right-wing cultural agenda in return — starting with a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage — was dismayed when the administration put its energy into attacking the welfare state instead.

James Dobson, the founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, accused Republicans of “just ignoring those that put them in office.”

It will be interesting, by the way, to see how Dr. Dobson, who declared of Bill Clinton that “no man has ever done more to debase the presidency,” responds to the Foley scandal. Does the failure of Republican leaders to do anything about a sexual predator in their midst outrage him as much as a Democratic president’s consensual affair?

In any case, just as the religious right was feeling betrayed by Mr. Bush’s focus on the goals of the economic right, the economic right suddenly seemed to become aware of the nature of its political allies. “Where in the hell did this Terri Schiavo thing come from?” asked Dick Armey, the former House majority leader, in an interview with Ryan Sager, the author of “The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians and the Battle to Control the Republican Party.” The answer, he said, was “blatant pandering to James Dobson.” He went on, “Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies.”

Some Republicans are switching parties. James Webb, who may pull off a macaca-fueled upset against Senator George Allen of Virginia, was secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan. Charles Barkley, a former N.B.A. star who used to be mentioned as a possible future Republican candidate, recently declared, “I was a Republican until they lost their minds.”

So the right-wing coalition is showing signs of coming apart. It seems that we’re not in Kansas anymore. In fact, Kansas itself doesn’t seem to be in Kansas anymore.

Kathleen Sebelius, the state’s Democratic governor, has achieved a sky-high favorability rating by focusing on good governance rather than culture wars, and her party believes it will win big this year.

And nine former Kansas Republicans, including Mark Parkinson, the former state G.O.P. chairman, are now running for state office as Democrats. Why did Mr. Parkinson change parties? Because he “got tired of the theological debate over whether Charles Darwin was right.” ++

What’s right and good doesn’t come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does. Allow yourself that conceit - to believe that the flame of Democracy will never go out as long as there’s one candle in your hand.
~ Bill Moyers

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

1 comment October 2nd, 2006

The Chickenhawk Chronicles: following the engorged naughty parts

Sleaze, today, Jude? With all that’s breaking right now why are you spending time on the Foley story?

Easy. It’s the lowest common denominator, it’s a vital piece of the “wake up” call for a public customarily too lazy to do it’s homework — and the message is loud and clear: these people ARE NOT WHO THEY SAY THEY ARE. This is not the first time that somebody in the political arm of Bush’s Army of God has solicited a child via e-mail, either.

[Now ex-] Representative Mark Foley is quite a piece of work — and although I am mortified that the [a]merican public is ho-hum-dumb about the rape of the United States Constitution, they are eager for the details of the molesting of Congressional pages. That’s the “Nancy Grace” syndrome — we’re fascinated by the salacious. The man/woman hijinks’s of Slick Willy so captivated the country that when the Pub’s stood on his neck to wave their “virtue” flag, everybody stood up with them … the Dem’s were derelicts to continue to support Bill, because they obviously did not support national “values.” [And let me say clearly that the childish hypocrisy of the
[a]merican public is stunning — “let he who is without sin,” yadda.]

So what will we all do now that the man/man-child dialogues about monkey spanking are getting around? What will we all say when we find out that the Pub leadership KNEW about this guy for YEARS … even as Foley served as Chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus?

Most of us are grown ups — we understand that power and sex are bed mates, as it were — and politico’s have a tradition of taking advantage of both. It’s another of the illusions being shattered by the Neptunian energies. The Pub lethargy in policing this guy is being outed [pun/no pun] today and they’re swarming like ants at a picnic trying to cover their lack of ethics … demanding investigations, calling in the FBI … while Foley himself has checked himself into treatment for alcoholism.

It was evil demon drink that made him do it? Get thee to a rehab? Pffffft!

There have been clear bi-sexual signals sent out from both George [H.W.] the Formers White House [with male prostitutes caught wandering the halls in the early hours of the morning] and George the Lessor’s [recalling the easy access of would-be journalist and nekkid leather escort Jeff/James annon/Geckert.]

While I don’t care a whit who does whom among consenting adult, there are questions of pedophilia here. And since this party has put homosexuality — hell, the repression of sexuality itself — at the forefront of its policies and hype, the public needs to get a really good look at all this.

Thanks to our “salacious” nature, that’s happening. Looks like a gift from God/dess, five weeks before the mid-terms. The Dems are running with it and turning attention to Republican Denny Hastart, who had allegedly looked into this problem [without reading any of the e-mails] and passed on it — some are calling for his head. He’s on CNN now, telling us how he didn’t know, back-peddling and saying how Foley “duped a lot of people.” Too late, I’d think — headlines trump defense. Hastert and Boehner, House and Senate, both knew — both demured. Meanwhile, the entrepreneur’s are already on it with T-shirts of a smiling Foley and quoting one of his im’s — “Do I make you a little horny?” A selection of goods with the slogan: “Please! Leave the children behind.” Greeting cards with a cartoon of the Pub elephant captioned ” G.O.P. - Grand Old Perverts.”

Having captured the public imagination, this story has legs — it will work for the Blue, considering the extraordinarily low opinion the country holds of legislators, with the Red leading the way on graft and corruption. But there is more … much more … to discover in the halls of Congress. It’s not specifically a Republican problem — it’s a systemic problem — and it’s one of those larger issues that we pretend isn’t there, hope will go away, but is clearly abuse of power; that’s what we’re looking at in all the aspects of politics today. Authority … political, religious, legal, social … has misused power — and will continue to do so as we unearth the sludge of Old Paradigm sociology.

Foley is just our newest wrinkle … and speaking of wrinkles, if you doubt that power and sex work in tandem, think about the dismay a teen would feel having to visualize this too-friendly old dude waving his woody with any expectation that it would be welcomed. One kid calls it, in an article below: “I was disgusted….”
Jeez — me too!

Tony Snow, the presidential mouthpiece, calls this “naughty emails.” I’d call it them the delusions of a sick old chickenhawk … the kind of “personal problem” that can’t be tolerated in a leadership position among the nations lawmakers.

Personally, I’m just tired of this kind of thing — these stories don’t reflect kindly on male energy. Isn’t it time to put the pretensions of the Power of the Penis in perspective, people?? [Gosh -- that was several too many P's! But just let me add one more -- pissed! We ALL ought to be!] And I’ll leave you with this last thought — gives a whole new meaning to Member of Congress, doesn’t it!

Here’s a collection of MSM, interviews with the kids, fear and trembling from the Pub’s — particularly good blog bits, last three pieces, including text from an IM exchange.

Jude

Foley And GOP Values
John Nichols
October 02, 2006
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/10/02/foley_and_gop_values.php

Mark Foley’s sexuality was never much of a secret to those who served with him in the House.

The New York Times and every major newspaper in Florida had been writing articles on the congressman’s agonizingly inept attempts to remain closeted for years. Indeed, it was the embarrassing manner in which he had attempted to cloak his sexuality that prevented Foley from securing his party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2004 and again this year.

Tragically, as a Florida Republican, Foley felt that if he wanted to remain a political player he needed to live a lie. He was probably wrong; Republicans who have come out of the closet, such as retiring Arizona Congressman Jim Kolbe, have often thrived politically. Openly gay men and lesbians have been elected and reelected to the House as Democrats and Republicans, and Foley—whose relatively moderate voting record could have appealed to both Main Street Republicans and Democrats—might well have broken the barrier in the Senate.

But Foley didn’t trust Florida Republican voters to accept him for who he was, so this otherwise personable and capable congressman engaged in an increasingly challenging and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to hide a huge part of his identity.

The pressures imposed by such secrecy appear to have been too much for Foley. Unlike the vast majority of homosexuals—who, as a group, are less likely to be attracted to children than heterosexuals—the congressman began to engage in activities that were inappropriate and potentially illegal. Details that have surfaced in recent days suggests that Foley had made a mess of his life—a mess that exploded on him and his party when it was revealed that the co-chair of the Congressional Caucus for Missing & Exploited Children had sent “Do I make you a little horny?” e-mails to teenage boys.

Foley’s Republican colleagues, who are champions when it comes to shooting the wounded, immediately began trashing him. “This type of behavior is what I try to protect my grandchildren from,” snarled Clay Shaw, the GOP representative from a neighboring Florida House district. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Illinois, House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, issued a statement condemning Foley’s behavior as “an obscene breach of trust.”

“His immediate resignation must now be followed by the full weight of the criminal justice system,” Hastert, Boehner and Blunt said of Foley.

Fair enough. But what do these Republican leaders think about those who knew about Foley’s undue interest in male pages, covered the fact up for months—perhaps years—and then lied about what they knew. Should they, too, face “the full weight of the criminal justice system”?

When the news of Foley’s emails broke in the media, Hastert declared, “I was surprised.”

Really? That’s strange.

Congressman Tom Reynolds, who chairs the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, revealed on Saturday that he had informed Hastert months ago about concerns regarding Foley’s habit of sending sexually suggestive—”strip down and get naked”—e-mails and instant messages to male congressional pages.

Congressman Rodney Alexander, the Louisiana Republican who brought those concerns to the attention of party leaders after learning about Foley’s e-mails from the family of a former page in 2005, has confirmed that his office contacted Hastert’s office regarding the matter. Additionally, Alexander personally discussed the issue with Reynolds and Boehner.

Another Republican with close ties to the House leadership, Illinois Representative John Shimkus, admits that he investigated the e-mail issue in 2005—apparently after it was reviewed by Hastert’s office and the office of the Clerk of the House—and says he warned Foley to break off contact with a particular teenager and, in a more general sense, to stop stalking male pages. Then, Shimkus dropped the matter—to the apparent satisfaction of Hastert, Boehner, Blunt, Reynolds and other House Republican leaders.

Some readers may be surprised that these top Republicans, who go on and on about the need to fend off supposed
“threats” posed by loving and responsible gay and lesbian couples, would be so accepting of Foley. The truth is that the hands-off approach to this whole scandal is entirely in character for the current crop of Republican leaders, who couldn’t care less about the sexuality of members of their caucus.

They only employ “moral values” appeals to scare up votes at election time; it’s never been something they believed in.

Hastert and his compatriots care only about winning elections and keeping power—even when that involves looking the other way after concerns have been raised about what a good many Americans see as the stalking of children.

Dennis Hastert and the other Republican leaders certainly were not surprised to learn last week that Mark Foley had acted inappropriately with male pages. They knew all about Foley’s e-mails and all the issues raised by those communications.

Hastert and his colleagues have gotten caught in a lie. And it’s a big one.

What’s the proper response? Hastert, Boehner and Blunt have got the right idea. Those who knew about Foley’s actions and failed to respond in any kind of serious manner are guilty of “an obscene breach of trust.”

Since they control the machinery of the House Ethics Committee, it is doubtful that Hastert and his colleagues will face a serious investigation—let alone “the full weight of the criminal justice system.” But this is an election year, and political campaigns can also extract a measure of justice.

Hastert and Boehner are scheduled to attend fundraising events on behalf of embattled Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Don Sherwood in coming weeks. Sherwood’s Democratic challenger, Chris Carney, a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy Reserve who served as a senior advisor on intelligence and counterterrorism issues at the Pentagon, has asked the Republican congressman to cancel the events. “Holding happy hour fundraisers with people who cover up the cyber-molestation of children should be below even the questionable morals of Don Sherwood,” explained Carney campaign manager Andrew Eldredge-Martin. “Sherwood should immediately cancel his upcoming fundraisers with Hastert and Boehner. Don Sherwood has already brought Washington’s values back to the district, now he wants to bring a depraved cover-up home.”

Ouch! There’s a new twist on the old Republican appeal to values voters that Hastert wasn’t counting on.

Foley’s sexual emails ‘just the tip of the iceberg’
M.E. SPRENGELMEYER AND AIMEE PARNES
October 2, 2006
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/content/2006/10/foleys_pedophil.html

Sexually-explicit messages from former Rep. Mark Foley to one former congressional page might be just the tip of the iceberg, the leader of an alumni association for former congressional pages said over the weekend.

While Foley was forced to resign this week after published reports of “friendly” e-mails to one 16-year-old male page and the pending broadcast of more sexually-explicit instant messages, similar, graphic messages from him were received by at least three other teenage males who once worked in page program, said Matthew Loraditch, a Maryland college senior who runs the U.S. House Page Alumni Association’s Internet Message board.

Loraditch, who served in the page program in the 2001-2002 session, said he has reviewed graphic messages sent by Foley to “three or four” other males from his page class.

“I’ve known about them for several years now,” Loraditch said Saturday.

“It was more like, hey, look at this,” said Loraditch, 21. “I don’t think the people in question felt that uncomfortable. It was more, ‘Ooh, look at that creepy guy.’ It was definitely crossing-the-line stuff. The instant message stuff, and stuff I’ve seen and heard about, definitely couldn’t be misconstrued” as merely “friendly” or innocent, Loraditch said. Fallout continued Saturday from Foley’s sudden resignation Friday as copies of his questionable communications with former congressional pages began circulating on the Internet.

A spokesman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement confirmed that the agency was deciding whether or not to pursue charges against Foley, a Republican whose resignation has temporarily left the Treasure Coast without representation in Congress.

“We will be discussing this matter with the FBI in an effort to determine if there are grounds for a criminal investigation and if so, who has jurisdiction, ” said Tom Berlinger, the chief media spokesman for the FDLE.

A decision was expected this week, Berlinger said, adding that the agency had not yet contacted Foley. FBI officials could not be reached for comment.

Foley came under fire early last week after reports about a series of e-mails sent from his personal AOL account to a then-16-year-old boy. In it, Foley, 52, asked about the boy’s age, what he wanted for his birthday and requested a photograph.

He resigned after a media outlet questioned him about another set of communications, a series of sexually-explicit instant messages with a former congressional page who still was in high school. Among those was one asking the boy, “Do I make you a little horny?”

Loraditch said that during his time on Capitol Hill, Foley was one of the members of Congress who expressed what appeared to be a sincere interest in the young pages, often visiting the areas where they congregate in the corner of the House of Representatives chamber to chat or offer stories and advice.

Loraditch said that he and other pages viewed Foley as gregarious and “flaky” at the time, and that he offered several of them, not including Loraditch, his personal e-mail when they were graduating from the program and saying goodbyes.

After Loraditch returned to Maryland and began attending college at Towson University, several former male pages told him they had received Internet messages that were similar to the graphic messages first reported by ABC News last week.

“At the age we were when those things happened, 16 or 17, when you see that kind of stuff, most people our ages know what’s going on and know what’s happening,” Loraditch said. “You’re not like a little kid who can be roped into that.”

Loraditch said his friends all thought the messages were disturbing, but that they did not report them, either because they did not think they posed a serious threat or because they might have worried about career consequences.

Loraditch said that all his friends received the questionable messages only after they had graduated and left the program, when, theoretically, that would not raise the same in-house sexual harassment issues as if they had been sent when the former pages still worked for Congress.

“This all happened after we were outside the protective umbrella of all our supervisors, not when we were there,” Loraditch said. “To me, that indicates some sorta thought process going on in Foley’s mind.”

The case has prompted many congressional leaders to talk about stepped-up vigilance to protect the young men and women who serve as congressional pages, who get an up-close look at Congress while doing messenger-like duties for lawmakers.

Loraditch is a big backer of the program for its one-of-a-kind educational benefits, and he believes that none of the supervisors who run the program were aware of any inappropriate messages at the time.

“The supervisors I worked with, if any of them had been told, it would have been dealt with at the time promptly,” he said. “All of our supervisors were great people. They love pages. Half of them were former pages and they’ve got kids of they’re own. If they had known about it, it would have been dealt with.”

In the wake of the Foley scandal, many pages worry that the program could be drastically altered or eliminated entirely in an over-reaction intended to protect teenagers.

“The page program is a good program. I firmly believe that the program could not have done anything more to protect the pages,” he said. “It all happened after we left and had done our service.”

Former Pages Describe Foley as Caring Ally
RACHEL L. SWARNS
October 2, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/washington/02pages.html

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — In the hierarchy of Congress, the high school students who serve as Congressional pages fall somewhere near the bottom, seemingly invisible as they scurry through the hallways of the Capitol ferrying messages to powerful lawmakers who often fail to give them a second glance.

Mark Foley had represented Palm Beach in Congress for six terms.

In that rarefied world, Representative Mark Foley, the silver-haired Republican from Florida, stood out.

He took pains to befriend the 16- and 17-year-old aides, several former pages said in interviews on Sunday. He chatted with them on the House floor, they said, sent handwritten notes and urged them to keep in touch when they left Washington for their hometowns.

In 2002, he even stood up on the floor of the House, his eyes welling with tears, and commended the young men and women for their year of service. In his speech, Mr. Foley mentioned several of the high school students by name, describing a handwritten note to celebrate one young man’s graduation and a lunch with another at Morton’s steak house.

Ashley Gallo, a 21-year-old former page who is now a senior at Western Michigan University, said on Sunday that many of her friends had viewed Mr. Foley as one of the few lawmakers who made a real effort to reach out to young people.

“You didn’t have a lot of interaction with the members because most of them treated you like a kid, but he was pretty friendly,” said Ms. Gallo, who served as a page in 2001. “He would talk to people,” she said.

“He would say, ‘Here’s my e-mail address if you want to keep in touch.’ I don’t think anyone thought anything of it. They saw him as a mentor or a reference.”

Mr. Foley’s resignation on Friday, following the disclosure of his sexually explicit Internet and cellphone messages to pages, left many former pages shaken. And on Sunday, they burned up the phone lines and sent e-mail messages flying as they reached out to their old friends who remain tight-knit years after leaving Capitol Hill.

Patrick McDonald, 21, a senior at Ohio State University, said he took Mr. Foley up on his invitation to keep in touch and sent him an e-mail message asking about internship opportunities two years after he completed his work as a page in 2002. He said that he kept up a casual e-mail conversation — chatting about the 2004 presidential election, among other things — with Mr. Foley for several months and that it never became inappropriate.

“If a congressman was talking to you, it was the best thing in the world,” Mr. McDonald said. “And he made himself known to the pages in the first couple of weeks, befriending us, asking us how we were doing. He was one of the cool congressmen. He was willing to chill out with us.”

But despite Mr. Foley’s warm demeanor, Mr. McDonald and another former page said they later became aware that the lawmaker might have a darker side. Mr. McDonald said he learned that Mr. Foley had sexually explicit Internet conversations with several pages who had left the program. “I was disgusted, but I was not surprised when these revelations started circulating,” he said.

Congressional pages come to Washington from across the country, sponsored by their local senator or representative, in a highly competitive program that attracts thousands of applicants each year.

Many describe it as one of the most formative experiences of their lives, giving them a rare, insider’s view of the inner workings of power. Former pages have set up alumni associations and message boards, and exchange e-mail messages and attend reunions to keep the memories of their days in Congress alive.

They describe living in an intensely supervised and sheltered world during their time in Washington. The 72 pages who serve in the House of Representatives are paid a stipend. They share rooms in a two-story, red brick dormitory just blocks from the Capitol and have a 10 p.m. curfew on weeknights and a midnight curfew on weekends.

Pages start classes at 6:45 a.m, and work in the House of Representatives later, answering telephones, delivering documents and running errands for lawmakers. Every night, the former pages said, the dormitory supervisors checked to make sure every page was there on time.

James Kotecki, 20, who was a page in the spring semester of 2003, said his orientation included a video on sexual harassment. He said he did not remember any formal rules against fraternization, however, and added that the young pages enjoyed the rare opportunities to socialize with the lawmakers. He said he met Mr. Foley only in passing, but remembered him as “a nice guy.”

“Pages are kind of very, very low on the totem pole on the Hill,” said Mr. Kotecki, now a senior at Georgetown University. “Anytime a member is nice it’s fantastic because often members don’t give pages the time of day.”

Raymond Schillinger, 20, also a Georgetown student, echoed those thoughts. He worked for Mr. Foley this spring as an intern and said the congressman treated the young staff very well.

“He was very affable, always friendly with the staff, but never over friendly, nothing suggestive,” Mr. Schillinger said.

Matthew Loraditch, who worked as a page with Ms. Gallo and Mr. McDonald in 2001 and 2002, said a supervisor had once casually mentioned that Mr. Foley “was odd” and that he later saw sexually explicit text messages that Mr. Foley had sent to two former pages after they left the program.

But Mr. Loraditch said he was never warned by program supervisors to stay away from him. “He was friendly,” said Mr. Loraditch, who maintains a Web site for alumni and attends Towson University in Maryland. “He would talk to us more than some other members would.”

To this day, Mr. Loraditch still remembers the speech Mr. Foley gave to the pages in 2002. The genial lawmaker stood on the floor of the House and noted that several pages were weeping as he spoke.

“You all have proven without a doubt that you are not only courageous Americans but wonderful young people,” Mr. Foley said on June 6, 2002. “I salute you and I thank you, and I hope you will join me, too, in saluting everyone in the page program that has made this year a resounding, phenomenal learning experience and success for you. God bless you all.”

G.O.P. Aides Knew in Late ‘05 of E-Mail
CARL HULSE and RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
October 1, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/washington/01foley.html

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 — Top House Republicans knew for months about e-mail traffic between Representative Mark Foley and a former teenage page, but kept the matter secret and allowed Mr. Foley to remain head of a Congressional caucus on children’s issues, Republican lawmakers said Saturday.

The exchanges began with what Republicans now describe as an “overfriendly” e-mail message from Mr. Foley to the unidentified teenager.

But news reports about the exchanges led to the disclosure of e-mail correspondence with other former pages in which the discussions became more and more sexually explicit. Shortly after he was confronted by ABC News on Friday about the subject, Mr. Foley, who represented a south Florida district, resigned from the House.

The revelations set off a political upheaval, with Democrats and some Republicans calling for a full investigation of Mr. Foley’s conduct and whether House leaders did enough to look into it. Members of the Republican leadership sought Saturday to detail how they had handled the case in an effort to defuse the situation, even as it was emerging as an issue in Congressional races.

Among those who became aware earlier this year of the fall 2005 communications between Mr. Foley and the 16-year-old page, who worked for Representative Rodney Alexander, Republican of Louisiana, were Representative John A. Boehner, the majority leader, and Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Mr. Reynolds said in a statement Saturday that he had also personally raised the issue with Speaker J. Dennis Hastert.

“Despite the fact that I had not seen the e-mails in question, and Mr. Alexander told me that the parents didn’t want the matter pursued, I told the speaker of the conversation Mr. Alexander had with me,” Mr. Reynolds said.

In a chronology of the episode released later on Saturday, the speaker’s office said Mr. Hastert did not recall any such discussion and had no previous knowledge of the matter. “While the speaker does not explicitly recall this conversation, he has no reason to dispute Congressman Reynolds’ recollection that he reported to him on the problem and its resolution,” the statement said.

The statement, issued after senior aides, the House clerk and legal advisers huddled for much of Saturday in the Capitol, said senior staff members in the speaker’s office first learned of the e-mail messages from Mr. Alexander’s office in the fall of 2005 and took steps to investigate.

Aides to the speaker and other Congressional Republican leaders said the messages, which an Alexander aide described to them as “overfriendly,” were much less explicit than the others that came to light after ABC News first disclosed the e-mail correspondence with Mr. Alexander’s page. The aides said Mr. Alexander’s office, at the request of the page’s family, did not show them copies of the messages. In those messages, sent after Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Foley asked about the well-being of the boy, a Monroe, La., resident. He wrote: “How are you weathering the hurricane. . .are you safe. . .send me a pic of you as well.” The page sent the note to a former colleague, describing it as “sick.”

In another message, Mr. Foley wrote, “What do you want for your birthday coming up. . .what stuff do you like to do.”

The e-mail exchanges that came to light after the first news reports were far more graphic. When he was confronted about them on Friday, Mr. Foley resigned. Republican leaders said they had not known about the other e-mail correspondence.

“No one in the speaker’s office was made aware of the sexually explicit text messages which press reports suggest had been directed to another individual until they were revealed in the press and on the Internet this week,” the statement from Mr. Hastert’s office said.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers said Saturday that Congress and the public deserved a full report on Mr. Foley’s dealings with the pages, who are high school students who serve as runners and perform other duties. The lawmakers said there should also be an inquiry into the leadership’s knowledge of his activities and its response.

“Anyone who was involved in the chain of information should come forward and tell when they were told, what they were told and what they did with the information when they got it,” said Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York. Mr. King called it a “dark day” for Congress and said, “We need a full investigation.”

Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut, said any leader who had been aware of Mr. Foley’s behavior and failed to take action should step down. “If they knew or should have known the extent of this problem, they should not serve in leadership,” Mr. Shays said.

On Saturday night, the House Republican leadership issued a statement that characterized the communications between Mr. Foley and the former House pages as “unacceptable and abhorrent.”

“It is an obscene breach of trust,” the statement said. “His immediate resignation must now be followed by the full weight of the criminal justice system.”

The statement, from Mr. Hastert, Mr. Boehner and the majority whip, Roy Blunt, asked the board that oversees pages “to undertake a full review of the incident and propose additional safeguard measures.”

The leaders also said they had asked for specific rules governing the communications and contacts between pages and lawmakers and called for creation of a toll-free number for pages and their parents to report concerns.

Besides the leaders, other lawmakers and Congressional officers who served on the board that oversaw the page program were aware of the e-mail messages, though the Democratic lawmaker who serves on the board, Representative Dale E. Kildee of Michigan, said Saturday that he had never been informed.

According to lawmakers and the speaker’s office, the page who received the e-mail forwarded the one in which Mr. Foley, 52, asked for his picture, to a colleague in Mr. Alexander’s office, repeatedly calling it “sick” and saying it “freaked me out.”

Mr. Alexander called the boy’s parents, who, Republican leaders said Saturday, told him they did not want to pursue the matter but wanted Mr. Foley to stop.

Mr. Alexander’s office also contacted staff members in Mr. Hastert’s office for guidance on what to do and, according to the speaker’s account, his aides put Mr. Alexander’s staff in contact with the clerk of the House, who oversees the page program. The clerk, who at the time was Jeff Trandahl, referred the matter to Representative John Shimkus, the Illinois Republican who is the chairman of the House Page Board, in late 2005, a spokesman for Mr. Shimkus said.

Mr. Trandahl and Mr. Shimkus confronted Mr. Foley, who insisted he was simply acting as a mentor to the former page, officials said. He assured them nothing inappropriate had occurred.

“They asked Foley about the e-mail,” the speaker’s statement said. “Congressman Shimkus and the clerk made it clear that to avoid even the appearance of impropriety and at the request of the parents, Congressman Foley was to immediately cease any communication with the young man.”

The leadership had other possible avenues for investigating the e-mail messages beyond questioning Mr. Foley, including an inquiry by the ethics committee or even the Capitol police. But aides said that while the contents of the messages are disturbing in hindsight, they did not set off alarms initially.

On Saturday, Mr. Shimkus’ spokesman, Steve Tomaszewski, said, “Obviously Foley lied about the other e-mails.”

Mr. Tomaszewski said Mr. Shimkus would not comment on any other conversations he had with House leaders about the matter because it was referred to the ethics committee by a vote of the House on Friday. A spokesman for Mr. Alexander did not respond to telephone and e-mail messages.

Kevin Madden, a spokesman for Mr. Boehner, said Saturday that Mr. Boehner had had a “brief, nonspecific” conversation about the subject with Mr. Alexander in the spring but that he could not recall with certainty whether he had discussed it with other leaders.

Democrats moved quickly to criticize Mr. Reynolds, who while overseeing House campaigns nationally is facing the potential of a serious challenge from Jack Davis, a wealthy businessman who has vowed to spend at least $2 million of his own money in the contest. “Tom Reynolds had a moral obligation to protect our children,” said Curtis Ellis, a spokesman for Mr. Davis.

Carl Forti, a spokesman for Mr. Reynolds, said the congressman became aware of contact between Mr. Foley and the young page this past spring, when Mr. Alexander brought it to his attention. Mr. Forti said that Mr. Alexander had told Mr. Reynolds of an e-mail exchange between Mr. Foley and the page, but that he did not show Mr. Reynolds the e-mail messages and their contents.

Strategists for both parties said it was too early to tell what impact the episode might have on Congressional elections now five weeks away but said at a minimum it could lower the already dismal public view of incumbents and discourage conservative voters.

It directly affected the race for the seat of Mr. Foley — the third Republican to resign this year under a cloud. Tim Mahoney, the Democrat who had been running an uphill and barely watched race against Mr. Foley, used the new attention to his campaign on Saturday to accuse the Republican leadership of covering up for him.

“It’s now clear from all the reports coming in from across the country that the Republican leadership team has been well aware of this problem with the pages for well over a year,” Mr. Mahoney said at a campaign stop at Palm Beach International Airport. “It looks to me that it was more important to hold onto a seat and to hold onto power than to take care of our children.”

At the Justice Department, an official said that no investigation was under way but that the agency had “real interest” in examining the circumstances to see if any crimes were committed.

Several of Mr. Foley’s former colleagues demanded a criminal inquiry.

Representative Robert E. Cramer, an Alabama Democrat who was co-chairman with Mr. Foley of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, condemned Mr. Foley’s actions as “shocking and disturbing.”

“Anyone, including Foley, involved in this type of behavior should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Mr. Cramer said.

Kate Zernike contributed reporting from New York, David Johnston from Washington and Abby Goodnough from West Palm Beach, Fla.

Putting Party Before Predators: Why Didn’t GOP Leaders Stop Foley?
Cenk Uygur, HuffingtonPost.com.
October 1, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/42410/
[open link for video]

In a scandal that will likely take down the entire House Republican leadership, everyone is wondering why Rep. Mark Foley, Chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus was allowed to carry on his predatory behavior with a teenage boy a year after his relationship was revealed to party leaders.

Former Rep. Mark Foley. The Justice Department has been asked to conduct an investigation into electronic messages to teenage boys - a lurid scandal that has put House Republicans in political peril.

Watch a video of Rep. Foley giving an interview on child predators, in which he states “If I were one of these sickos, I’d be nervous with America’s Most Wanted on my trail.”

Is there anything these Republicans won’t cover up? Duke Cunningham took millions of dollars in bribes. The people who were buying him off bought him a yacht called the Duke-Stir. He had a bribe menu on Congressional letter head. How many ethics investigations? Zero. Zilch. Nada.

Bob Ney took gifts and favors from Jack Abramoff.

He has confessed and is about to go to prison. How many ethics investigations? Zero. None. Not one.

Then there is Hastert’s shady land deal. Bill Frist’s insider trading. Tom DeLay’s money laundering. The list goes on and on. Every one of them had their ass covered by the rest of their Republican colleagues, crooks, whatever you want to call them.

When Joel Hefley, a conservative Republican from Colorado, had the temerity to actually do an ethics investigation of Tom DeLay — he was removed. Can’t have it. You can’t have any ethics investigations in a place with no ethics. The house will fall in.

Well, now it has. Because they’ve gone too far. This time they covered for a sexual predator. Mark Foley, Republican of Florida, was caught sending very explicit sexual messages to 16 and 17 year old boys who worked as pages for Congress.

Actually, he was caught by a fellow Republican, Rodney Alexander, because one of the pages worked for Rep. Alexander and turned Foley in. So, what did the Republicans do about it? Absolutely nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

They covered it up. Because it’s what they do.

The Republican Protection Racket stepped in and made the story go away. There was no public apology to the boys that were sexually harassed. No criminal investigation. No ethics investigation. Not a word.

The Republican leadership knew for most of the year. In all that time, while other kids could have been exposed, while they knew of several instances of sexual advances toward underage boys — they did nothing!

Now, they feign outrage. Why weren’t they outraged when they first found out about it? They’re not outraged because young boys were jeopardized. They’re outraged now because they’re jeopardized.

But it gets worse. They left Foley in charge of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus. Come on!

If you put it in a movie about a corrupt Congress, I wouldn’t believe it. It’s too over the top. You’d walk out of the theater saying, “That’s too much. No one would do that.” Apparently they would and they did.

Remember this is the same Republicans who spent 140 hours investigating Bill Clinton’s Christmas card list. I’m not kidding. They even started an investigation into his cat. If you put it in a movie, no one would believe it.

Not one investigation into what’s gone wrong with the war in Iraq, the $9 billion dollars missing in Iraq, why a CIA agent’s name was leaked, why Osama bin Laden hasn’t been caught or any of the corruption scandals. But they spent 140 hours on the Clinton Christmas list (it turns out they were just Christmas cards, in case you were wondering). They’re not even trying to appear fair. They think there’s nothing you won’t let them do. They’re in charge and they can get away with anything.

Now in this case, I think sex scandals are a dime a dozen. Mark Foley resigned. I’m not that interested in that story. He could have been a Democrat, a Republican or a Federalist. Every party has people that do terrible things. This isn’t about that.

This is about a Republican Party so corrupt there’s nothing they wouldn’t cover up to protect their own. If that means your money is misspent or stolen, fine. If that means some Congressmen commit illegal acts to get rich off your back, fine.

Apparently, it also means if your kids are exposed to a sexual predator while they are supposed to be learning about our government, even that’s fine.

But it’s not fine. Not by a long shot. Read what the Congressman wrote to an underage boy that was working in the House of Representatives (the Congressman is Maf54):

Xxxxxxxxx (8:04:04 PM): normal clothes

Xxxxxxxxx (8:04:09 PM): tshirt and shorts

Maf54 (8:04:17 PM): um so a big buldge

Xxxxxxxxx (8:04:35 PM): ya

Maf54 (8:04:45 PM): um

Maf54 (8:04:58 PM): love to slip them off of you

Xxxxxxxxx (8:05:08 PM): haha

Maf54 (8:05:53 PM): and gram the one eyed snake

Maf54 (8:06:13 PM): grab

Xxxxxxxxx (8:06:53 PM): not tonight…dont get to excited

Maf54 (8:07:12 PM): well your hard

Xxxxxxxxx (8:07:45 PM): that is true

Maf54 (8:08:03 PM): and a little horny

Xxxxxxxxx (8:08:11 PM): and also tru

Maf54 (8:08:31 PM): get a ruler and measure it for me

Xxxxxxxxx (8:08:38 PM): ive already told you that

Maf54 (8:08:47 PM): tell me again

Xxxxxxxxx (8:08:49 PM): 7 and 1/2

Maf54 (8:09:04 PM): ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Maf54 (8:09:08 PM): beautiful

Xxxxxxxxx (8:09:38 PM): lol

Maf54 (8:09:44 PM): thats a great size

Xxxxxxxxx (8:10:00 PM): thank you

Maf54 (8:10:22 PM): still stiff

Xxxxxxxxx (8:10:28 PM): ya

Maf54 (8:10:40 PM): take it out

Xxxxxxxxx (8:10:54 PM): brb…my mom is yelling

Maf54 (8:11:06 PM): ok

Xxxxxxxxx (8:14:02 PM): back

Maf54 (8:14:37 PM): cool hope se didnt see any thing

He was supposed to be protecting him. He was Chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus!

After all this, they still covered for him. They didn’t even take him off the Exploited Teen Caucus. They left him in charge.

Because they don’t care. They don’t care about anybody but themselves. They are driven mad with power. Their only goal is to stay in power. Now, the question is, are you going to let them get away with it? Are you going to let them keep that power, knowing what they’ve done with it?

Denny Hastert is overly friendly to sexual predators
by John in DC -
Monday, October 02, 2006
http://americablog.blogspot.com/

“Overly friendly,” Republican House Speaker Hastert called Mark Foley’s creepy emails in his letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Overly friendly? Overly friendly is Harriet Miers’ gushing letters to George Bush.

When a 52 year old man emails a 16 year old boy to tell him that he thinks his 16 year old friend is hot, that’s not overly friendly. That’s disgusting. Especially when both boys were away from their parents and in a mentoring relationship with the not-so-secret admirer.

The poor kid clearly didn’t find Foley’s fan letters friendly. He complained that he was “freaked out” by the entire unsolicited episode, and called Foley’s actions “sick.” And now that it’s been reported that Foley routinely targeted underage kids for his online affections, and repeatedly asked them to measure the size of their penises for him, the 16 year old’s concerns about his special friend were clearly warranted.

Of course, downplaying the suffering of sexually harassed children is nothing new to Denny Hastert and the GOP. On Friday, GOP Rep. John Shimkus described Foley’s youth outreach thusly:

In that email exchange, Congressman Foley asked about the former Page’s well-being after Hurricane Katrina and requested a photograph.

Isn’t that special? Foley simply wanted to show he cared. Pass the ruler.

Then today White House Spokesman Tony Snow describes the Foley scandal as “simply naughty emails” but not a big deal. I mean, what adult hasn’t asked a sixteen year old boy to describe how he masturbates? (You can watch the video here.)

Denny Hastert and the GOP leadership need to stop downplaying the trauma Foley caused to this kid and far too many more. Or the voters may not be overly friendly to GOP predator-enablers come November 7.

L8R G8R
by digby
Sunday, October 01, 2006
http://tinyurl.com/rpxah
[open this link for a great old movie poster from Elmer Gantry]

Lord Almighty, it looks like we got us a gen-you-wine Republican sex scandal. And it’s a doozy, isn’t it? Maybe people will notice that something is seriously rotten under GOP rule now.

If we lived in a nation that wasn’t completely dysfunctional, this scandal wouldn’t be at the top of the list of scandals that have been revealed just in the last week:

A new book by the official court scribe describes an administration so inept, unorganized and incoherent that if most people were aware of the details, the president’s fear campaign would blow back hard against him. If the terrorists really are coming to kill us in our beds any day now, then we are in deep shit with these guys in charge.

We have more news this week-end that Karl Rove and the white house were actively and personally involved in all the Jack Abramoff congressional corruption scandals which feature ripping off taxpayers of many millions of dollars.

It turns out that Bush fired Colin Powell.

The intelligence community agree that the invasion of Iraq super-charged the extremist jihadist moviement and is fuelling terrorism far more quickly and broadly than we would have had to deal with otherwise.

We have officially sanctioned torture and the repeal of habeas corpus — at the least competent president in history’s discretion.

I’m sure I’ve missed something.

But it looks like Mark Foley’s raunchy emails are going to be the scandal that may just bring it home for November. They made their puritanical, moralizing bed, now their going to have to roll around in the muck and the mire they made it with. Let’s let ‘er rip.

First of all, Mark Foley is clearly one exceptionally screwed up dude. A semi-closeted gay Republican whose signature issue is online sex predators and missing kids sending sexually explicit IM’s to congressional pages is one of the most blatant act of self-immolation I’ve ever seen.

But that’s not the real scandal, is it? While I’m sure the religious right will make the same charges about “gayness” they always do when their institutional leaders turn out to be hypocrites and chickenhawks (in all senses of the word), Foley’s unsavory habit of hitting on teen-agers who worked at the capital and the GOP leadership’s truly disgusting propensity to cover it up at all costs is the issue.

George Will mentioned “Elmer Gantry” this morning on This Week, a novel that I have discussed many times on this blog. There’s a great line from the book that I think perfectly describes the modern Republican moralists who’ve been kicking us in the teeth with their alleged family values for the past couple of decades:

“He had, in fact, got everything from the church and Sunday School, except, perhaps, any longing whatever for decency and kindness and reason.”

The politicians of the modern Republican party are a bunch of Elmer Gantrys who sold a lot of Americans a bill of goods for a long, long time. I don’t know if their supporters are ready to hear it, but I have to believe that if the leadership of the GOP congress allowing one of their own to sexually prey on 16 year old male pages doesn’t wake them up, nothing will. I am not sanguine.

What’s right and good doesn’t come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does. Allow yourself that conceit - to believe that the flame of Democracy will never go out as long as there’s one candle in your hand.
~ Bill Moyers

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

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