Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Mark Foley's a Republican

So one of the weirder aspects of the Foley scandal right now is that more than one news outlet's labeled Foley a Democrat. This is wrong, mind you. Foley is most definitely a Republican.

Fox News has claimed Foley to be a Democrat at least four times. Three times during O'Reilly they labeled him as a Dem, and then Fox News this past Sunday suggested that Dems had failed to follow up properly on the Foley emails in order to preserve their House seat. Of course, it was the Republicans who failed to do anything to Foley.

The AP also labeled Foley a Democrat. Other news sources have ID'd Hastert as a Dem, too.

This is certainly a creative way for the Republican party to respond to this issue, which is a real non-winner for them. There really aren't many ways to blame the Democrats for this whole fiasco. They've tried to argue that the news story was a carefully orchestrated pre-election conspiracy. Now, there are two problems with this story. The first is that it just isn't true. The email leaker was a Republican. The second is that there weren't no Democratic conspiracy what made Foley try to nail 16 year old pages. It's kinda like bitching about being caught.

The real debate at this point is will Hastert resign? Kirk Fordham, who'd been an aide to Foley and who has resigned over the handling of the matter is claiming that it was known to Republican leaders, including Hastert, that there was a problem with the way Foley interacted with pages. Hastert's denied this.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has come up with a wacky Foley web application. It packs a lot of dense timeline information into a difficult to understand abbreviated format.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Foley a Democrat? I don't think there's any Republican conspiracy, so much as an indication that the press has trouble keeping the facts straight.

cathy_sampson said...

Most of the politicans need to realize that life is just to short to be doing that and when you go out of your way to make it a better USA the real idea is great. I made 3 cat collars for July 4th and of course the other cats got jealous about it, meanwhile they had forgotten that those ones got Easter ones and I didn't have enough time or energy to make collars for all of them. If i did that ever season, I would never sleep! ha. that will be the day.

maggiev77 said...

It doesn't surprise me that the Republicans try to pass Foley off as a Democrat. They just don't know what to do with all their dirty laundry. One revelation after another about this administration and the political figures involved, from Libby to Rove to Foley and the hits keep coming. Their hamper is just too full!

Thank you for being the Blog of Note - yours is a most welcme one.

Jen said...

Isn't FoxNews predominantly Repub? Is it surprising that someone they probably supported is now being referred to as Democrat? I don't know that they would screw that as many times as you mentioned.

Gill said...

We get the US news a bit late over here in the UK. Did he confess to being an acolyte of the Church of the Divine Universal ladyboy yet?

DAMbot said...

Hey, we can play the blame game day in, day out, and it ain't gonna solve nothin. Did Foley sexually target teen boys? Did the Republicans cover it up? Should we castrate and lobotomize all public servants?

A resounding yes for all. But that isn't the issue. The issue is comic books. As long as our teens are raised on "comix" like Batman & Robin, pederasty is going to seem like a logical option. Hell, until Batman showed up on the scene, no public official had EVER attached himself to a young boy. But when our nation's leaders looked into the pages of "Batman" and turned their gaze toward the manly, yet alluring Adam West, they knew that the times were a-changin'. They knew which way the wind was blowing. So it was clear to them that they had the go ahead to use electronic communications to engage in inappropriate sex talk with Congressional pages.

What part of this don't you people understand? Am I the only one who gets it? Does no one else see the Batman/Mark Foley connection???

Beo said...

Base tactics of this order can be chalked up as reason #49,152 that we need a change in the majority come November. If it isn't a tactic is it less concerning that a mojor news agency can get the simplest of facts completely wrong?
Shameful.

Nothing said...

itnice blog! keep up the good work! and congrats on getting inducted into the blogs of note!

Christina Martin said...

So you think the Republican Party controls the Associated Press? That's gotta be the howler of the year.

Anonymous said...

While I wouldn't call it a conspiracy per se, no reputable national news outlet will screw up a basic like party membership. It just doesn't happen. It would be akin to mentioning that Chicago is actually in, say, Iowa rather than Illinois. Much less FOUR times! THREE times in O'Reilly's show! It's a lame, maybe even half-kidding, stunt. But lame nonetheless. Ironically, whatever their intentions (I'd say dubious at best) the fact that they've "mistakenly" ID'd him as a Dem repeatedly has (I think) made them and Republicans look that much more ridiculous. Much less drive home the point that he is, in fact, a Republican. Good stuff, all around.

Personally, I think they just have their undies in a bunch over being on wrong side of an ethicial (esp. sexual) issue. The Reps should hire a few pro-Dem consultants to guide them through this... after all, it's very familiar territory for the Dems!

ML
(deathbyriskaversion.blogspot.com)

Anonymous said...

hmm...

Anonymous said...

anything to wag the dog.
what else could you expect from FOX anyway.