Foleygate News!

The Foley thing is really such a farce! First of all, every one of his emails that were published were written to former pages -- when they were over 18 years of age. The news media (including ABC) sensationalized the story so much that people began to believe him to be a pediphile. This report doesn't say what, if anything, Jeff Trandahl did about the dozens of confrontations he had with Rep. Foley.

The real hypocrisy is that back in 1973 Democratic Congressman Gerry Studds actually had a physical affair with a 17-year old male page. This wasn't known until the scandal broke in 1983. While he was censured by Congress, many Democrats actually celebrated their affair; and Rep. Studds and the young page appeared together in a press conference and flaunted their affair. Rep. Studds continued to be re-elected until he retired in 1997. Apparently it was okay for consenting men to have a physical affair (even if one was 17 years old) as long as they didn't write about what they wanted to do.

BUT there is a real irony in all of this. The Democrats in Congress claim they have this huge mandate to end the war in Iraq, because the people gave them control of both houses of Congress based on the Iraq War issue. At least in the Senate, the War in Iraq, only turned several Senate seats into very close races. But the real turning point was ABC's holding off reporting the Foley scandal until very late in the election. This was the key instrument in the Democrats campaign of portraying the Republicans as part of a "Culture of Corruption" The Foley story combined with the burying and ignoring of key Democratic scandals by the mainstream media is what resulted in the Democrats gaining the five seats necessary to regain control of the Senate. The House would have gone over to the Democrats anyway, because of the War in Iraq issue, but their majority wouldn't have been as great had the media covered the Democratic scandals with as much fervor as the Foley scandal.

Even to this day, the news media will not cover Sen. Dianne Feinstein's 5 years of being the ranking member of the subcommittee responsible for awarding her husband's construction companies billions of dollars in military construction contracts. And Sen. Feinstein became the chairperson of this subcommittee when the Democrats took control of the Senate in January. BUT when the news of her conflict of interest made it on the Internet, she resigned from the subcommittee. The Bay Area papers have yet to report this resignation.

And then there is Senate Majority Reid's scandals involving his land deals and the earmark he slipped into the budget to build a bridge to one of his properties in Arizona.

And of course there was the scandal involving Rep. William Jefferson, in which he was recently indicted.

Had the news media given these their proper attention during last years election, Sen. Feinstein, might not have been re-elected, but most importantly the Republicans would have retained control of the Senate.

Many thanks for the link and the update, Jake. If Mr. Trandahl's story is accurate, these revelations clearly show that the House leadership was at fault in not dealing with Mr. Foley's behavior while he continued to harrass Congressional pages. There should never have been "dozens" of confrontations while Foley continued acting as he did. But, as a gay man myself, I do find it wonderfully ironic that these revelations came to light during a cruise on the Queen Mary 2!