Josh Marshall suggests another major development within the hour. Did Foley flip for the FBI? What else could his lawyers have to hold a presser about?
And this is so goddamned wrong.
***Update***
Foley’s lawyer claims that he did bad things because he was molested by a priest. That may well be, but as an excuse Foley’s “bombshell” simply falls on its face. Plenty of those abused by priests became perfectly functional adults. Maybe Mark Foley had a traumatic childhood experience, but he took advantage of kids because he is a power-drunk shithead.
chefrad
gantlet
chefrad
gantlet
Richard Bottoms
Rough Rider.
Oh dear.
BTW, what do the Log Cabon Republicans have to say about this? I’m guessing their next meeting might be small enough to be held in a phone booth.
Dreggas
*snickers* shouldn’t it be “bare backer” award?
Sorry I know, I should behave being a new poster and all and that just wasn’t right and lord please forgive me and be with the starving pygmies in New Guinea.
Steve
James Dobson:
Ladies and gentlemen, the Party of Personal Responsibility.
jg
The internet will be less ‘free’ because of this.
Perry Como
Bah. Foley was diddled by a priest.
ThymeZone
Well, I heard the thing, and heard nothing new at all.
I did hear some self-serving crap which I might have more to say about later tonight.
Waste of time, this press conference.
Keith
Hardly a bombshell. I was more surprised that Michael Reagan was forced to be in a porno shoot as a kid.
Andrew
“Log Cabon Republicans”
Did the Log Cabin and Log Cabron Republicans merge recently?
ThymeZone
Hastert, apparently on the subject of political pressure to “get him” in the Foley case.
Honestly, if I didn’t see this, I wouldn’t have believed it, but DKos has the quote up on their front page.
Seriously, can you believe this motherf**ker?
Mary
ABC breaking news: “FORMER CONGRESSMAN MARK FOLEY WAS MOLESTED BY A CLERGYMAN AS A TEENAGER AND IS GAY, ACCORDING TO HIS ATTORNEY”
Mary
Uh, parsing that, does that mean that Papists create Teh Gay?
Steve
Snore.
I’m sure it’s all the priest’s fault, although I hate to disagree with Dobson, who blames the Justice Department, somehow, for sending the message that chasing pages is okay.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Party of Personal Responsibility.
sglover
Denny’s scared. You’re only hearing his vocal chords twitching in a familiar way. His brain is disengaged, frantically looping, trying to dream up something, anything, to get him out of the box he’s in.
Punchy
He blamed a clergyman for his pedophillic (not his term) tendencies, and announced he’s gay.
So, in one fell swoop, he’s demonized gays AND wants desperately to be portrayed as the victim.
See, we can’t blame him anymore. All the blame NOW must be on his unnamed clergyman.
sglover
ABC breaking news: “FORMER CONGRESSMAN MARK FOLEY WAS MOLESTED BY A CLERGYMAN AS A TEENAGER AND IS GAY, ACCORDING TO HIS ATTORNEY”
I guess the “I’m an alcoholic” line doesn’t have the oomph it once did…..
Dreggas
We should start a betting pool on what his next excuse will be.
1. – alcoholism as evidenced by checking into rehab.
2. – abused by a priest.
3. – gay – gimme an f’ing break this does NOT factor into this
4. – Traumatized by the blue dress possessed used as evidence against Clinton, Foley could no longer sleep with women.
This is just more crap. People aren’t buying it I hope.
jg
On what planet have you been hanging out? This excuse is perfect. The blame is now spread over everything the base hates. Facts have nothing to do with this being a perfect excuse. This will now be a reason people go to the polls and vote FOR republicans. October Surprise.
Steve
This post is so spoofy it reads like DougJ on crack. Mark Foley got molested by his priest, so everyone is going to vote Republican now? Can anyone follow this?
ThymeZone
Now that we know what alcohol can do, I thought I’d better revise my earlier exhortation.
jg
Steve give me a break. You know this press conference is the latest in a series of moves designed to turn this issue into a rallying cry for the base. Blaming the issue on being molested by priests (gay ones I bet) is beautiful, its poetic. Its also the dems fault. And gays in general. And the young boys fault. This issue allows them to bring out the whole ‘gays only like young boys’ trope. Dems want to allow gays to have sex with young boys in public instead of having a manger scene. The base will eat this up. Don’t be so naive.
Keith
Now is not the time for the Blame Game.
Sorry, had to bring that one out of mothballs.
Steve
Nope, sorry. They’re not going to make Mark Foley into a Democrat by calling press conferences.
Jon H
Foley’s saying he hasn’t had sex with any of the interns, but I bet that’s not true and he’s just betting nobody will come forward.
jg
Well that certainly isn’t what I meant. Not even close actually. I’ll let you work this out an your own since the combination of my poor writing skills and whatever the fuck is wrong with your reading skills today is getting us nowhere.
Tsulagi
A priest? Okay, that works, blame it on the Christians.
See what happens when you mix Dobson with Repub conservatism? You get a perv writing IMs with one hand while the other tries to finish quickly so he can get to a ceremony presenting a Rough Rider award to another lucky recipient.
Steve
You seem to be saying that a Republican did something perverted, but somehow the Republicans are going to use it to rally the base by claiming that Democrats made him perverted in the first place. Like I said, I’m having real trouble wrapping my head around this point you’re making, and I’d love it if someone else would step in and explain it to me, but I’m getting the sense that no one else understands either.
“With the revelation that Foley was molested by his priest, this issue now becomes a huge base-rallying win for the GOP.” Never mind that I can’t understand your reasoning behind that claim. It’s absolutely insane on its face.
jg
Might have something to do with the fact that I’m not making that point. I never said the dems made him a pervert, I never even implied it. I said they will use this issue to bring out all their old time favorite talking points and turn this into a rallying cry for the base. The facts of the situation don’t matter. the base wants to hear that the republicans are innocent in this and that’s exactly what they will recieve. Blaming it on a priest is a start. It leads to blaming it on gays. Which opens another door….
ThymeZone
I think that’s one thing we can all agree on … where Republicans are concerned, the facts won’t matter. Just the ones they think operate in their favor. The other ones …. ignore ’em.
They’re already at it today.
HyperIon
in the florida backwater where i grew up, the southern baptists were very clear about how catholics were not real christians because they worshipped mary, had idols (statues) in the church, did not condemn alcohol use, did not read the bible, blah, blah, blah. i think dobson and falwell and robertson (and a lot of the base) might be from that same tradition.
Krista
I don’t think that’ll fly well with the Christian base. The ones in the clergy won’t like having everybody reminded of those old scandals. And the ones who aren’t in the clergy won’t accept that as an excuse for preying on kids.
That’s just my guess.
t. jasper parnell
The “base” is what? 32 percent? of the vote. What about the none base who already have doubts this ought push them away from the Party in Power. Mr. Cole came to his conclusions about the current Administration well before this event; anyone want to be that those not belonging to the hard core nut cases base will find this a straw on some nearly lame camel’s back?
The Other Steve
I think jg is right. No offense, Steve, but the intended target is the Focus on the Family voters.
These are the people who equate gay with pedophile.
So he’ll go in for a prayer session and they’ll cast the gayness right out of him.
The Other Steve
I wonder what does that make Russian/Greek Orthodox, with their icons?
But yes, the Baptists will secretly say this is really the Catholics fault. They won’t say it out loud though, because well, they’re not dumb. Gotta hold the coalition of hate together.
Alexandra
You mean, he was abused by a priest, and that was so destructive and horrible that he decided that the best way to recover from that was to do the same thing to young children today? Oh, that’s going to get him a lot of sympathy.
Hyperion
commies and pederasts!
but, seriously, do not conflate Baptists and Southern Baptists. the former are just run of the mill protestants; the latter lean toward racism/sexism.
jg
More like being gay isn’t his fault. It was forced on him by people (evil gay people) in authority during his youth. The real focus is on the evil of the gay. He was made gay and since all gays are pedophiles……the real blame lies with Clinton. And Sandy Berger, he had IMs stuffed in his socks.
CaseyL
I don’t know why Foley even had the presser. He’s out of politics for good; what he said doesn’t make things any better for the people now in the sweatbox; and SFAIK, “I was abused as a child” isn’t a defense against whatever he’s going to be charged with that a jury will buy.
Spinning and flailing; flailing and spinning.
Demonizing priests, gays, and whatnot will probably fly just fine with Greater Wingnuttia – but their day is done. Their only hope of staying relevant, much less in power, depends on Bush deciding he’s just not leaving in ’09 and deputizing them all as brownshirts.
DougJ
I don’t see how it helps that he was molested too…unless the person who molested him was a Democratic Congressman. I don’t think we had any priests serving in Congres at the time, though.
For what it’s worth, I see no reason not to believe his story. I genuinely feel sorry for the guy. It’s the party leaders that I reserve my anger for. Foley’s mentally ill, these guys are morally ill.
Tim F.
Regarding James Dobson et al: evangelicals have no great love for Catholics. Theirs is a marriage of convenience at best, and a relatively recent one, so Foley’s revelation won’t put the fundies off too much.
However I don’t see much political calculation going on here. Foley just wants to make himself look less like a manipulative prick and more like a tragic figure. At this point he would much prefer to have people regard him with pity than whatever it is most of us are feeling right now.
Cyrus
I’ve alwaysy loved this post, where someone calculated a 27 percent Crazification Factor in the population. So my point is, I agree with you, and we have an idea of how far we could possibly hope to see Republican approval ratings drop.
The Other Steve
All Baptists look the same to me.
But then I’m a Presbyterian. :-)
Paul L.
I predict that the Foley story will now disappear from the MSM and lefty blogs.
Get Your Lawyers… Foleygate Scandal About to Bust Open!
Steve
Oh yeah, baby! Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame will be indicted any day now for covering up the Foley story, I can just tell.
Note how Paul’s link cites approvingly to this sick right-wing blogger who apparently figured out the name of one of Foley’s victims and intends to out him publicly. What a scumbag.
Tim F.
Yep, this ranks up there with predicting that the Wilsons will be indicted. Good luck with that.
Paul L.
Here let me fix that.
Yep, this ranks up there with predicting that the
WilsonsKarl Rove will be indicted. Good luck with that.Steve
Here’s the breathless first paragraph of Paul’s link:
The truth?
Yeah, that’s gonna blow this story apart. THE LEFT KNEW FOLEY WAS GAY!
Pb
I suppose if they believed all that fantasy slander crap about Clinton, then they’ll swallow all of this lunacy too. But where does Hillary tie in?!
chopper
even better.
DougJ
I like that the Republicans can’t even convince people to be afraid of Nancy Pelosi, now they’re trying to convince people to be afraid of John Aravosis.
Good luck with that.
Larv
I followed Paul L’s link to Gateway Pundit and wow, what a collection of lunacy, denial, and obfuscation. “Radical Gay Rights Activists” (love the caps) knew that Foley was gay and liked younger men? Quite the bombshell. Too bad the scandal has nothing to do with either of those facts – the scandal is that he was engaging in inappropriate behavior with 16 year old congressional pages. The Blogactive article GP’s touting mentions Foley hitting on “young men less than half his age”, which would include men up to 25, well over the age of consent. It quite clearly doesn’t say that he was propositioning very young men who were in a very vulnerable position relative to him, which is what the whole problem is. Certain denizens of the right are trying very hard to pretend that this scandal is all about teh gay, rather than about the harrassment and abuse of minors and the apparent lack of interest by the Republican leadership in stopping it. To them, the real story apparently is that this is a vast left-wing/Radical Gay Activist conspiracy against Foley and the Republican leadership. Yeesh. I suppose I have to give them an A for effort, but its Fs across the board for logic, reasoning, and consistency.
Also, I love how it’s apparently reprehensible for the Radical Gay Rights Activists (hereafter RGRAs) to supposedly have planned to release the emails for maximal political effect, but it’s okey-dokey for that jackass Wild Bill to publicize the name of one of Foley’s targets for, um, well, some sort of reason or another. Maybe to prove that he’s a Democratic plant, or even a RGRA himself? I’m sure he has a good reason, anyways, and isn’t just playing politics or anything deplorable like that.
Pb
The GOP projection and persecution complex is legion, but I think I’ve got this one figured out. You see, they ‘question the timing’, and they just *know* that there’s a Democratic conspiracy behind this, even if they don’t have a shred of proof (or, for that matter, even if there’s proof to the contrary) for a few reasons. First, projection–that’s what they’d do. Second, persecution (and simple-mindedness)–they’re being attacked, so it must be an *enemy* doing the attacking.
But past that, it’s clear that if this wasn’t in fact a hit job, then someone who (a) knew about this and (b) had a shred of human decency brought this to ABC’s attention and broke the story. And ABC says that if anything, it was a Republican (psst… probably one of the pages, you ignorant dolts!) who did. In their minds, this does not compute at all–a Republican with a shred of human decency who would *betray the Republican party*?! Nope, it must have been a Democrat!
How sad.
Paul L.
Why should the GOP be sceptical? Nothing ever happened like this in the past. It not like a major network (CBS) tried to manipulate the outcome of a Presidential election with forged documents.
chopper
projection — that’s what they’d do
persecution — that’s what they’d do
time it just right — that’s what they’d do
so of course the GOP thinks its a dem conspiracy. they’re just considering what they’d do if the tables were turned.
Steve
Interesting that you should bring up a case that was made with, you know, evidence.
Ever since this shining moment for the right-wing blogosphere, they’ve been trying to replicate it by casting doubt on everything, whether or not they have a shred of evidence. They seem to miss the point that “I question everything the liberal media tells me!” is no more valid a position than “I blindly accept everything the Bush Administration tells me!” (Detainees at Gitmo are interrogated in comfy chairs? Well, Mark Steyn says so!)
Who could ever forget the leaked GOP strategy memo during the Schiavo affair? “Looks fake to me,” said Michelle Malkin. “Sounds like a left-wing fantasy of how conservatives talk,” said Powerline. “It’s an obvious fake! Republicans would never make those typos! It’s Rathergate Part II!” And then Mel Martinez’s legal counsel admitted that he wrote it. Oops.
Just the other day, we had a different paranoid right-winger crying foul about the Bill Frist/Taliban story. “How could Frist possibly be in Afghanistan?! I think the AP byline is a lie!” Oh, wait, Frist’s own website says he’s in Afghanistan? The answer was the exact same as Paul’s – well, gosh, the media is just so misleading, how could I ever believe them when they claim Bill Frist gave a press conference in Afghanistan. Cause, you know, it just SOUNDS like the kind of thing the media would lie about.
And now the pathology is playing out again. “We just KNOW those IMs were leaked to the press by Democratic operatives!” Well, actually, the reporter says he didn’t get them from a partisan source, and it’s most likely from the Republican page who received the IMs in the first place. “He’s lying, just like Dan Rather! We just KNOW he is!”
We’re in serious black-helicopter territory at this point, folks.
Krista
Hm. Sounds like the Baptist churches up here. You’ve got the First Baptist Church, the Evangelical Baptist Church, the Holy Baptist Chuch, and the We-Don’t-Like-Any-Of-The-Other-Baptists Baptist Church.