ExFoleyated
So, a congressmonkey resigned and checked himself into alcohol rehab over some instant messages sent to a 16 year-old page that used the word horny. Err, why alcohol rehab? I guess they don’t offer diddler of young boys rehab? Allegations are that the Republican leadership (specifically Hastert) knew about it earlier and did nothing. If that’s the case, they should go.
October 3rd, 2006 at 9:57 am
Clearly it was the demon rum that made him do it.
October 3rd, 2006 at 11:26 am
It seemed to work for DC Mayor Marion Berry, after he got entrapped into smoking crack for teh camera (even though I feel it was entrapment, it was obvious that he knew what he was doing, and had done it before). Go in for for alcohol rehab, serve time for teh crack, get redeemed, and get your (elected) job back.
(side note: As sleazy as Berry was, and all they could do is entrap him into committing a victimless recreational drug crime?)
Foley: Good timing job by the Dems. I suppose the voters will be able to remember this for at least a month till November. It seems the papers knew earlier but couldn’t manage to pull a story together. Shame on those papers, just think of the children^H^H^H err… ballots.
October 3rd, 2006 at 11:43 am
sed s/Berry/Barry/g # You would think I’d know better.
October 3rd, 2006 at 2:04 pm
Ya think Foley will wind up with a deal like Mel Reynolds?
October 3rd, 2006 at 5:24 pm
Is 16 a “young boy”?
That’s the age of consent in DC and in many states (including, I think, those the boys were in when emailed/IM’d), so it’d be legal for Foley to actually diddle the boy in question, which he did not.
That Foley’s actions were reprehensible because of the position of relative power he held over pages, and that they’re generally distasteful, and that he should have resigned as he did, are not under dispute, of course.
But let’s keep some perspective. The man’s not a child-raping sexual predator. He’s a “dirty old man” who appears to have had legal and evidently, at least from the IM logs, consensual involvement with people he could have legally had sex with.
(Relatedly, it’s amusing (in the despairing-for-the-republic-can’t-people-use-words-correctly sense) to see people call this “pedophilia”, as if a 16 year old was a pre-pubescent, and as if Foley would have been committing a crime if he’d actually done what he didn’t do.
The legislatures, courts, and for that matter the memories of pretty much all of us when we were in high school tell us that a 16 year old is not a “child” in this context. )
October 3rd, 2006 at 6:12 pm
Even if consentual, even if legal, he’s already been hung in the court of voter’s opinon, and the timing just could not have been better.
October 3rd, 2006 at 8:23 pm
Foley should move to Mass. where he’d be a serious contender to grab a Senatorial seat.
Maybe I could phrase that a bit differently…
But on both levels..
October 4th, 2006 at 8:54 am
[…] In comments to my original post, Sigivald sayeth: Is 16 a “young boy”? […]
October 5th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
Hastert should go. Please contact your local congressman and ask them to make a public statement asking Hastert to resign. He know years in advance and must go. This is an election cycle, tell you congressman that you will not vote for him – and not at all if you can’t find it in you to support his opp.
David.