Oct 10 2006
Washington Post Acknowledges Democrats Role In Foleygate
Welcome: Welcome Hugh Hewitt and Townhall readers. For those interested in this subject I have compiled a Timeline of Events that has been developed from many bloggers following this story. All my posts on Foleygate can be found here. End
It’s about time. Once again the blogosphere is doing the detailed analysis and the antique media is playing catch up. Today the WaPo finally realizes there is more to the story than has been reported, and much is coming from the media themselves:
But there are indications that Democrats spent months circulating five less insidious Foley e-mails to news organizations before they were finally published by ABC News late last month, which prompted the leaking of the more salacious instant messages. Harper’s Magazine said yesterday that it obtained the five e-mails from a Democratic Party operative, albeit in May, long before the election season.
And they sat on them. As did the St Petersburg Times and many other media outlets. All the while none alerted the House leadership or law enforcement. And we are to believe all these media outlets and the democrat operative shopping them were concerned about the Pages?
But new information suggests that the story of the release of Foley’s communications with male ex-pages is more complicated than either side asserts.
The most sexually explicit material — the instant messages that forced Foley’s abrupt resignation on Sept. 29 and turned his actions into a full-fledged scandal — appears to be disconnected from politics. The two former pages who revealed the correspondence to ABC News and The Washington Post, however, may never have come forward had Democratic operatives not divulged the five more benign e-mails that Foley had sent to a Louisiana boy.
Again, more confirmation from WaPo that (a) a Democrat operative was the source of the less salacious emails and (b) this story was shopped from November 2005 to August 2006. And even then the WaPo is somehow working off an erroneous timeline. The very first Foley email is the one where he asks “Do I have the right email?” and is dated July 29, 2005 – not 2004 as the post ‘reports’. It is this kind of simple misreporting which has been the hallmark of this entire scandal. The WaPo is trying to claim their Dem Operative source is not the same earlier source, based on more misreporting on the custody of the emails coming from a Rep congressional office to the democrat operative(s):
Silverstein said his source was a “Democratic operative,” the same source that had provided the e-mail exchanges to the St. Petersburg Times in November 2005. Both the magazine and the paper declined to publish a story. But the source “was not working in concert with the national Democratic Party,” Silverstein added. “This person was genuinely disgusted by Foley’s behavior, amazed that other publications had declined to publish stories about the emails, and concerned that Foley might still be seeking contact with pages.”
A second source emerged, however, just last month, peddling the e-mails to several other publications, including The Post. And Ross of ABC News has stressed that his initial source was a Republican.
By my count that makes 2 Democrat operatives peddling this story, and not notifying authorities who could take action to protect the Pages. But the WaPo has to admit their source was intent on harming Reps – so why did they not report this fact sooner?
Two of the primary sources who delivered the instant messages came forward this week to clarify their motives. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear that exposure would leave them open to harassment, especially from bloggers.
One of ABC News’s sources, a former page, said he went public with his knowledge of the instant messages on Sept. 29 only after the network, the day before, published the questionable e-mails that Foley had sent to the Louisiana boy. The former page and current college student stressed that he is a “staunch Republican” who “wouldn’t vote for a Democrat ever.” He also said that he is not calling for the resignation of Hastert or any other Republican leader.
“I in no way knew or intended to have all the brouhaha about what the GOP leadership knew and when they knew it,” he said in a detailed e-mail to The Post. “Truthfully, I am very troubled about what it seems has gone on behind the scenes, but that in no way affects my wish to have a continued GOP control of Congress. There are bad apples everywhere.”
The Post subsequently received the instant messages from a Democratic college student who had served as a page with the two teenagers who had corresponded with Foley and had shared their instant messages.
Unlike the ABC News source, The Post’s source conceded that he would like to see the Democrats seize control of the House in November, but when approached by a Post reporter about the instant messages, he was reluctant to provide them. Days later, he did so.
The only reason the WaPo would report on the problems with their sources is to head off some pending news. They are desperately trying to get out in front of some damaging news. Interestingly, the Rep Page decided to come forward to protect the kids, unlike his Democrat counterpart:
The two sources said they had conferred about the instant messages, which they had known about for months.
The Republican former page said he had decided it was up to the victims to come forward with them, but once ABC News published the e-mails, “I knew everything I had already known about Foley was finally going to come out. His attraction to young men. His sexual conversations with them, etc.”
What other evidence do we need other than the admissions by Harpers and the WaPo that they dealt with democrat operatives and used democrat sources bent on impacting the coming elections?
41 Responses to “Washington Post Acknowledges Democrats Role In Foleygate”
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This is the best news yet if it hold up. Now the question is, will the Republicans play hardball with the Dems? It should shape up to be quite a week.
Once again it appears the “new media” will take down the old..how sweet. Sad it has to be that way but sweet in any event.
I have wondered about something since all this began…if the intention was not to do harm, why keep the IM’s in the first place? Why not either do something about them at the time or just cut off contact with Foley and move on?
Foley, the Dems, and the MSM…
The Strata-Sphere has background on how the Foley affair was peddled by Dems to MSM for months, but as with Flordia newspapers, the e-mails which launched the scandal did not seem like news to many, many MSM eyes….
The Reps better wake up fast. Tell Hastert to stop doing his dumb press conferences were he is still apologizing. They should start going on TV revealing all these findings.
I am thoroughly disgusted with this whole mess!! It seems like there is a race to the bottom of the barrel here for both parties. We ACTUALLY have more important issues than this. #1 – we got a rogue state (NK) threatening us with nuclear weapons if we don’t crawl to the negotiating table and beg their forgiveness.
I am not holding my breath for justice to ever be served in this case (Foley), and when it does, I’ll be the first to celebrate…but I am absolutely focused on the vote coming in just 3 weeks! Our survival as a country depends on it!
Carol
What other evidence do we need other than the admissions by Harpers and the WaPo that they dealt with democrat operatives and used democrat sources bent on impacting the coming elections?
Huh?
By “dealt with”, do you mean, “declined to investigate leads from”?
And by “bent on impacting elections”, do you mean, “shopping a story in May?
As far as a moral duty to report a crime, heck let’s try them all, in the press, before the Senate, or otherwise – though there’s clearly not even probable cause of a crime from the original emails. But hey whatever – what these dem operatives knew, the Republican house leadership knew earlier. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, so let the light shine! Are you ready to shoot the moon?
Do you really think that at the end of it all, there will be anything left to salvage of Hastert and Boehner? And, wet dreams aside, do you really think it will be shown that the dem “operatives” were acting on behalf of any Dem of any stature whatsoever?
The innuendo train is leaving the station – here’s to the Republicans riding it all the way!
BIWAH,
I am an ex-democrat independent – not a republican. I have no intention of ever becoming one. But the leak to the democrat operative was in Oct-Nov 2005 and shopped to the news media then. If you can’t get your facts straight then maybe it would be best not to advertise your lack of knowledge so well.
For example, if there was no cause for a crime in the original emails (a fact I agree with) then Hastert was correct in assuming the actions taken last fall were sufficient to deal with the mess!
QED: You just made the case to save Hastert – he did nothing wrong. Nice try though.
Carol,
For this country to focus on all those really important issues, the Democrats need a good drubbing at the polls this fall so they give up the scandal mongering and start taking all this seriously. Their bad behavior needs to be punished. If they believe they got anything out of year four of their scandal routine then they will continue.
It is imperative we use this one to hammer them back to sanity or the dustbin of history. We cannot afford their childish distractions any longer.
AJ:
QED – the story was not shopped with any “October surprise” in mind.
The Harper’s editor says his source was the same as the source for the St. Peterburg Times in Nov 05. Assuming this is true, I stand corrected. but this proves what again?
I am not claiming Hastert committed a crime in failing to report the emails to law enforcement. So what was a regular citizen, dem mole or otherwise, to do with the info. We all agree that taking it to the police was not mandated, and *may* have been fruitless.
So nobody seems likely to go to jail over this (except possibly Foley himself). The remaining question is then, who has more to lose – the Republican House leadership, or a dem mole acting (apparently, and I will bet you a nickel there is no other connection) independently?
As anyone who questions the timing (e.g., you) should agree: Let the light shine.
If only your conflation of not comitting a crime and “doing nothing wrong” were valid – Hastert might still have his job in 2007.
We’ll see.
BIWAH,
Hastert does still have his job. The only ones crying for the children and about ‘a crime’ are the democrats – who are so far out on this limb a collapse will be devastating. They gambled the election on this story coming out – per a DNC operative. And they are about to come up bankrupt.
>Their bad behovior needs to be punished.>
AJ, I could not agree with you more. Sure, there has been dirty politics since the days of the Whigs and the Tories, but somewhere it needs to end. In the days of the Whigs and Tories, other nations wanted us to just go away (as in being a pain the the tush) but now other nations want us to just go away (as being wiped off the face of the earth) and we need to get back to the business of protecting our nation from destruction from our real enemies.
Perhaps I am idealistic, but I think the Dems could have come out on top in the Foley affair. If SanFranNan had said they were going to work across the aisle to make sure this type of incident never, ever happened again and threw out some suggestions, the Dems would have appeared to have been taking the lead in protecting 16 year old kids who are in the charge of the Congress. Instead, in their attitude that it is Republicans who are the enemy of the state and not the terrorists who would like to submit us to Islamic law or chop our heads off, they lost that prime opportunity. They tried to paint the Republican party as the party of GAY pedophiles or those who protected GAY pedophiles. Now they just seem to be the party who still has no answers to any problem or situation, but can only scream for the resignation of someone, anyone, in the administration. The Dems seem to have forgotten the golden rule, that when you start screaming about someone’s dirty laundy hanging out on the line, sooner or later those people are going to look in your back yard at your laundry. The first clue was when Pelosi and Emauel called the request for them to testify under oath as to what they knew and when just “political postering” . Oooops. As as the investigation continues and supeonas are issued, American voters are going to learn that Dems had the information on Foley and sat on it trying to make a bumper crop out of their political hay.
I heard on the news this moring that Hastert had done the almost unthinkable and that was to request Foley’s resignation immediately. So while Hastert was telling Foley to get the hell out of Dodge and never, never come back, the Dems were still trying to shop their bag of dirt. Interesting.
These kinds of games with people’s lives and really disgust me.
It is too complicated for me to figure out, but it is so disgusting.
We are in a war and being attacked by terrorists, and some politicians are playing parlor games.
Democrats Knew About Foley Emails Since 2005…
It looks like the outrageous indignation gushing from the Left side of the House is full of hypocrisy: The Dems knew too, and they sat on it.
……
Total republican victory in November….no rewards for the those who steer the public away from what is serious and important.
THAT is the only lesson that needs to be learned in ‘06.
You continue to maintain that, in a 48-hr-news-cycle world, the story being shopped in Nov 05 was an attempt to manipulate an election a year later.
You praise the Republican page who was holding on to knowledge of the IM’s just like all the other pages, until the emails were national news. I see no distinction, nor do I see any political distinction between the motives of the pages involved.
You say that because Hastert did not commit a crime, he “did nothing wrong.” Hastert has admitted that indeed he did make a mistake. I don’t know what mainstream voice is calling for a criminal investigation of Hastert, but perhaps you can back up your statement to that effect.
You and Retire05 are right that the dems are milking it. Things could be more seemly. But things could always be more seemly in D.C. Not sure, though, how that justifies your fabricated talking points.
BIWAH,
It is probably best for your image if you do not try and say what my views and positions are. You are clearly confused and lost on that matter. I suggest you keep struggling to explain your own!
LOL!
Ivehadit:
By “serious and important”, I take it you mean gay marriage, recognizing the dignity of horses, alaskan bridges, and the like. Is it serious and important that we pursue the GWOT by firing the pragmatists and clinging to fantasy-based methods of pursuing an undefined, unattainable concept of victory?
1. democrat sources bent on impacting the coming elections. . . [The Dems] gambled the election on this story coming out – per a DNC operative.
2. Interestingly, the Rep Page decided to come forward to protect the kids, unlike his Democrat counterpart
3. Hastert… did nothing wrong.
AJ: Please let me know if I’ve misquoted you anywhere.
BTW BIWAH,
My view of all this is Trandahl, Kolbe and Fordham kept trying to warn Foley he was playing with fire by targetting kids in the Page program and then contacting them after they left (and having sex with them when they were older). The rep gays always felt they were on the edge with the rep party and could not afford to reflect the worse stereotype of gay men being child predators. So they hid all this for years.
I am just playing off the democrats crying ‘wolf’ to establish the hypocrisy and faked concern of their positions. It is using someone’s attack against them to neutralize them or overpower them. The term is political jujitsu. I live outside DC and grew up in a Democrat family involved with federal politics. So please don’t pretend to understand what I am doing and why I am doing it. The Democrats are out on a limb of their own making and I am simply cutting it out from under them using the public record to shatter their grandstanding illusions. Facts are stubborn things. They can cut through any fantasy.
It’s ironic that, having fallen short on some basic facts, you are attacking my motivations. Seems like a theme.
In fact, I have not taken any issue with where you’re coming from – just with what you’re saying.
Attacking your motivations? Naw. Attacking your ability to grasp my points and my views – definitely!
Welcome to the Strata-Sphere. I don’t mince words.
You’re right, you weren’t attacking my motivations as much as defending your own. But as long as we’re not mincing words, I don’t care where you live or about your democratic bona fides. Your previous post tells part of the story about why Foley was allowed to operate so long – an interesting, sordid and complex tale where i imagine no one is a white knight. It would be more credible if you didn’t try to bolster it with false statements such as those I pointed out, and which you’ve tried to laugh off.
I do feel quite at home, thanks. This may be my last potshot of the day, as I have to get to work.
Getting Out In Front?…
AJ Strata has a very, very interesting take on a revelation published in the Washington Post. In it, the reporters admit that the Foley scandal was being shopped around by Democratic party operatives since at least November, 2005. A number of…
AJ,
“For this country to focus on all those really important issues, the Democrats need a good drubbing at the polls this fall so they give up the scandal mongering and start taking all this seriously.”
…..
You won’t get any arguement from me on that for sure. I am just totally disgusted at the lack of action on the “justice” front the last few years (dangerous national security leaks). I mean, maybe there’s something in the wind that we don’t know about yet.
I too gave up on the Democratic Party after 30 years! I really DO hope this will be the one time when we put politics aside and consider who we trust with our lives, our money, and our sovereigntyas a country. I know how I am voting.
Just my frustration showing…that’s all.
Carol
Too funny biwah – go back and hang at patterico….
Fact is that the dems are pushing for Hastert to resign because he “knew about” the emails for a year, and according to them, did nothing to “protect the teen pages.” Well – turnabout is fair play. If Hastert should quit because of that reasoning, then so should all of the Dems who knew about it – including the bosses of the “operatives” – like maybe Spkr2BNP. It is becoming apparent that they “knew” about the problem with the pages too, and did nothing to stop it. More than that, they sat on the emails from what – March? – until just before elections to re-shop them to MSM. Why is that? Because they knew MSM would want something juicy to get their favored candidates elected……
Terrye – You are even closer to the truth of the matter I think. Back in 2003/2004 the version of AIM that was circulating did not have automatic logging. Each and every IM had to be saved using the “save” menu option – and even then only the conversation was saved in text (.rtf) format. Now the question becomes why would someone save such IMs? My guess is that these over-ambitious, politico wannabes were busy putting evidence in their back pockets to use as “bargaining chips” when they made it to DC in their own right….
“The two former pages who revealed the [IM's] to ABC News and The Washington Post, however, may never have come forward had Democratic operatives not divulged the five more benign e-mails that Foley had sent to a Louisiana boy.”
This may be true. On the other hand it is equally possible that the emails were released in concert with the release of the IM’s. The media display remarkably little interest in the questions of who the IM leakers were, how long they had the IM’s, or how they obtained them. Why is this information being kept top secret?
To Democrats, Media = Police…
The Washington Post has a timeline of the Foley scandal in hopes of disproving it was a political hit. What I find interesting are these quotes: Ken Silverstein, Washington editor for Harper’s, said on the magazine’s Web site yesterday. I…
Specter, why the quotes? Is “knew about” a term of art here? I guess “protecting the teen pages” is some kind of euphemism too. I thought these terms mean what they mean, and apply in spades to Hastert. *shrug* Must be election time.
I guess in your world we need to bring you the evidence of each Dem’s innocence on a plate before you’ll accept the evidence (circumstantial, real, and by admission) of a Republican’s guilt. Anything else would be liberal bias.
Re Nancy Pelosi, I think you forgot your tag. If you can show any credible evidence that she knew about the emails, I will eat my shoe.
Last post: you forgot your (wishfulthinking) tag.
Specter:
Is “knew about” a term of art then? And is “protecting the teen pages” a euphamism of some kind? It seems to me they mean what they mean, and the evidence on those facts – circumstantial, direct, and by admission – is in the bag with respect to Hastert. If only putting quotes around it would make it go away, that would be a neat trick (and one I would employ more often).
Yes, I know you from elsewhere, and I know that you are rational individual. So why the seeming demand that you be brought proof of every last Democrat’s innocence on a plate before you will open your eyes to the obvious guilt of a Republican? I guess to any other way is just more liberal bias. No one’s saying to stop the investigation. But there is zero reason to suspend judgment on a Republican, just because we don’t have an equivalent Dem heavyweight next to him on the hot seat. There was some institutional negligence going on within the R leadership. The same standard should apply to anyone who gets implicated by real evidence. Oh, that’s “real evidence”.
AJ, are you eating my comments? That’s twice – not very nice.
You dodged the issue Biwah. It is becoming very apparent that the Democrats knew as early as Hastert. Did they do anything about it? No. Instead they shopped it to the media (as would be their wont in the “Bring Down Bush No Matter What the Facts Are” campaign), and then sat on it until just before election when nobody was buying. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. At least Hastert had people approach Foley and talk to him about it – and guess what? No more emails after that point (at least so far). But what did the dems do to protect the pages – NOTHING. Hypocrisy at best.
I tried to post more substantively – twice. Lost in the cyberether.
Basically, I note your placing of “knew about” and “protect the teen pages” in quotes. It’s as if, now that they have been proven circumstantially, directly, and by admission to apply to the Repub leadership, you’d like to say these words mean something other than what they mean. What do the quotes imply – “something I’d really like to make go away”?
…or at least suck the meaning out of through repeated relativization, right? I’d like to keep an even keel about this, but I think your finger-pointing is disgusting and hypocritical. Hastert should own up and you should stop hiding the smoking gun between a set of quotation marks. Show me a piece of real evidence that a Dem of any stature looked the other way for Foley and I will not blanch at calling for them to get out of government now. Again, that’s “Real”. “Evidence”. Anything else is a pathetic example of having your cake (”it’s an October surprise trotted out for the election!”) and eating it too (”they shopped the story last October – it’s a conspiracy!”).
Rightwingers have bitched about the relativistic views and the paranoia of liberals for as long as I’ve been around. Now we hear that proof of every Dem leader’s innocence must be served to them on a plate before they will accept the incontrovertible fact of the appalling, self-serving negligence of one of their own. The evidence shows that the only people that could intervene other than by going to the press were the Republican leasership, who now own this issue because they tried to keep it hush-hush.
By all means keep investigating, or perhaps you’d rather sit and churn out lie upon lie. In any case, this issue would have been put to bed if the Republican leadership had any moral compass.
I tried to post more substantively – twice. Lost in the cyberether.
Basically, I note your placing of “knew about” and “protect the teen pages” in quotes. It’s as if, now that they have been proven circumstantially, directly, and by admission to apply to the Repub leadership, you’d like to say these words mean something other than what they mean. What do the quotes imply – “something I’d really like to make go away”?
…or at least suck the meaning out of through repeated relativization, right? I’d like to keep an even keel about this, but I think your finger-pointing is disgusting and hypocritical. Hastert should own up and you should stop hiding the smoking gun between a set of quotation marks. Show me a piece of real evidence that a Dem of any stature looked the other way for Foley and I will not blanch at calling for them to get out of government now. Again, that’s “Real”. “Evidence”. Anything else is a pathetic example of having your cake (”it’s an October surprise trotted out for the election!”) and eating it too (”they shopped the story last October – it’s a conspiracy!”).
Rightwingers have bitched about the relativistic views and the paranoia of liberals for as long as I’ve been around. Now we hear that proof of every Dem leader’s innocence must be served to them on a plate before they will accept the incontrovertible fact of the appalling, self-serving negligence of one of their own. The evidence shows that the only people that could intervene other than by going to the press were the Republican leadership, who now own this issue because they tried to keep it hush-hush.
By all means keep investigating, or perhaps you’d rather sit and churn out lie upon lie. In any case, this issue would have been put to bed if the Republican leadership had any moral compass.
How the Washington Post got the Foley ’scoop’…
Ever wondered how the Washington Post got word that Rep. Foley was sending inappropriate messages to pages? Well, stop scratching your head and wonder no more. Our intrepid reporters have out-investigated the mighty WaPo sleuths. To do so, they attac…..
AJ: The way you handled my comments is selective, many delayed, and gives no feedback. Some comments get put on 12-hr hold, and others get through instantly.
Hmm. One more time – what are those “politically neutral” creds of yours again?
BIWAH,
One more complaint-insult like this and you will be the first one ever banned from here. Comments on this site hit a moderation queue if they contain certain words or have too many links. I have spam filters that catch comments at times too. I don’t sit around all day checking to see if your inane little comments hit the moderation queues or not.
This is your one and only warning – which I fully expect you to screw up in another fit of ‘its all about BIWAH!!!’ whining. Give it a rest will you? You provide no value to the debate here, so slinging insults my way will only leave me with one simple solution. I have no requirement on me to put up with your childish behavior on my site.
Clear?
So much for not mincing words AJ. I have pointed out your factual inaccuracies and have been warned to back off to “protect my image”. Do you really think that kind of sniveling misdirection is what brings commenters?
Any ban from you would be moot at this point. You don’t need to post this comment either – it’s just for you.
OK Biwah, you are outte here (when I get the time). Now you can snivel some place else.
Harper’s Magazine said yesterday that it obtained the five e-mails from a Democratic Party operative, albeit in May, long before the election season. The major newspaper blackout on the Democrats’ knowledge of the Foley situation.
====================================
Brian
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