Mark Foley, pt 2

Part 2 of 2-- I hope. Clearly, a lot more stuff has come to light since last week. I have a hard time explaining to some people that to me the transcripts of several years old Instant Messages is not particularly damning evidence, insofar as IMs can be forged, and if they're so old when they come to light it's unlikely the telecoms and ISPs kept the tracking data, they're just pieces of paper. One thing I didn't know when I first posted about Foley was that he told ABC's Brian Ross that he'd talk to him on the record if he didn't publish them, which strikes me as considerably more damning. The people at the National Journal's Hotline blog, hitherto unfamiliar to me, have a useful timeline of Foley-related events, as does Wikipedia at "Mark Foley Scandal"(how many congressmen get 2 separate wiki entries? He's special.)

John Boehner "cannot recall" whether or not he discussed Foley with Hastert? Hastert "takes responsibility" and refuses to resign? What if Columbus took responsibility for discovering the New World and refused to sail? He could have gotten a lot more done that way, and saved Magellan's life by taking responsibility for circumnavigating the globe, maybe even later that same afternoon.

Columbus:Yep, it's round.
Queen Izabella: That's astonishing-- you just left!
King Ferdinand: Here are your gelato coupons.
Columbus: Coupons?
King Ferdinand: You were supposed to bring us treasure.
Columbus: I'm... having it appraised.
Queen Izabella: Oh, please.


via demagogue.

Hastert said he'd resign if he felt it would help his party. Well, wouldn't it? He could ask the entire GOP house delegation to quickly meet to vote on it, and those who voted him out would then have tangible insulation from the Foley -Hastert scandal to take home to their district.


One final thought: I haven't heard one democrat call for the pages to be given civil service protections or the right to unionize. It's a big house o' representatives, so maybe somebody has, and the tv people have ignored it because it isn't "sexy news." Nevertheless, if congress needs pages, shouldn't they have these rights? It might end a vestige of the patronage/spoils sytem from 19th century politics, and just be regular old public sector jobs. Maybe a lot of D.C.'s predominantly black young people would apply for the jobs-- possibly some in congress have sought to avoid this.