Final thoughts yet?

For the umpteenth time, I think Foley is an indefensible jerk and an asshole who betrayed the public trust and resigned as he should have.

But if it's true that the young men were cynically playing with him...

While that might not change the nature of what went on in Foley's mind, it hardly puts them in a moral position of being "child victims."

As to whether "Foley the Child Predator" did anything that will "damage these children for the rest of their lives," if it does turn out that they were in fact playing some sort of joke on "that old queer" (or whatever they called him) I think the country is mature enough to dispense with the moral lectures.

But regardless of whether the Foley scandal has in fact been deflated into the original (relatively innocuous) emails, this post at American Thinker is well worth reading:

It had all the earmarks of a classic Democratic Party plan to depress Republican turnout. Take a barely disguised homosexual Republican Congressman, add salacious electronic messages that included masturbation, sex and other lurid flourishes, push the story to their eager and willing accomplices in the media right before an election, and as quick as you can say LBJ an instant scandal is created.

The only problem, it seems, is that in today's world of media, with data available to the whole world that was heretofore available only to a select few, the plan didn't work out quite the way they had expected. Enterprising bloggers have done the elemental detective work and discovered that the entire incident is nearly exactly the opposite of what was first reported.

Rather than a case of a pedophile Congressman stalking young men in the corridors of power, it instead turns out to be a case of a closeted homosexual nurturing a relationship with a young man, and making sexual advances once he became an adult. A relationship by the way that the young man, if he felt threatened or chose not to continue, could have ended at any time.

That's just the beginning. It gets much better.

And bear in mind that it was written before the latest development.

I'll stay tuned, but what this is becoming?

The comedy channel?

MORE: The page reported by Drudge to have engaged in a prank denies it was a prank, and ABC News claims that more pages (whose names are being withheld) have come forward.

CORRECTION: Reading the above closely, it doesn't appear they're denying the Drudge Story; they're just denying their own IMs were pranks:

The three new verbal accounts are in addition to two sets of sexually explicit instant messages provided to ABC News by former pages.

An online story on the Drudge Report Thursday claimed one set of the sexually explicit instant messages obtained by ABC News was part of a "prank" on the part of the former page, who reportedly says he goaded the congressman into writing the messages.

"This was no prank," said one of the three former pages who talked to ABC News today about his experience with the congressman.

Have the verbal accounts been verified? Were the alleged prank IMs?

MORE: Via Glenn Reynolds, Bob Owens of Confederate Yankee has been trying -- repeatedly -- to get ABC to answer two simple questions:

  • when did Ross become aware of the existence of these instant messages, and;
  • were these instant messages given to Ross and the Staff of The Blotter directly by the pages, or where they filtered through an intermediary.
  • Excellent questions. So why is ABC deleting them?

    I'm joining Glenn in asking: "What did Brian Ross know and when did he know it?"

    I'd also like to know why they're being released in piecemeal fashion.

    You'd almost think they were being held in reserve.

    MORE: Here's The Corner's Mark Levin:

    ...the reason ABC News looks foolish is because the story it originally broke was apparently based on Edmund's prank. Again, Foley's comments in the communications are indefensible. We all know that. But wouldn't it also have been useful to know that the page in question (who was almost 18 years old, if not 18 years old at the time) was knowingly provoking a rather ill member of Congress for kicks. But the reporter, Brian Ross, was so committed to promoting the "Republican scandal" aspect of this, including focusing attention on Hastert, that he took the Edmund e-mails and ran with them without much, if any, curiosity about their author and his motivations.

    Sure, ABC News will release more reprehensible electronic communications, but to what end? It doesn't excuse its failure to get the full story, and get it right, at the outset. And we already know that Foley was a very sick man who has now resigned. It is difficult to see how the daily release of more communications is anything but an effort to continue to feed the Democrat party's frenzied demand for Hastert's resignation, put Republicans on defense, and influence the November elections.

    MORE: More ABC shenanigans via Newsbusters:

    A blogger, William "Wild Bill" Kerr of Passionate America, using clues gleaned from ABC's own website, reveals the name of one of the "victims," and the fact that he was not, as reported by ABC, under 18 at the time of the Instant Message exchange.

    On Brian Williams' Blotter blog, someone quietly tries to change the wording of the Foley story to fit the new reality, but is tripped up by the Google cache.

    [...]

    Brian Williams and ABC have already abused the anonymous source dodge at least once in this saga, and apparently have been duped badly. They shouldn't be given a pass this time. And, since Jordan Edmund and another witness have stated that "enemy political operatives" purloined the Instant Message records, ABC and Brian Williams may be guilty of receiving stolen property. They need to reveal the identity of their original source to the authorities.

    Perhaps Brian Williams should resign, but, for now, ABC is standing by their story.

    AND MORE: According to Wizbang, Betsy Newmark predicted the prank revelation.

    MORE: Plenty of inside information here.

    MORE: Don't miss the ongoing Pajamas Media Roundup.

    posted by Eric on 10.05.06 at 05:09 PM





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    Comments

    Harm them for life? Flirting in IM when they were 16??? I was saying things at least as bad in BBS chatrooms when I was 14, back in the old days.

    People think 16 year olds are babies or something, I guess. More infantilization of the youth.

    I mean, I think it's wrong to use your position of power to try to gain a physical relationship with someone below you, and Foley is a schmuck.... but I hardly think anyone would be damaged for life, you know?

    silvermine   ·  October 5, 2006 06:27 PM

    silvermine-

    Well, when someone's political career can be ruined when he is accused of using the "N-word" 35 years ago, until it becomes clear that his opponent might have, also...

    Barry   ·  October 5, 2006 06:43 PM


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