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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (29581)	10/2/2006 8:52:40 AM
From: Dale Baker	Respond to of 540836

The smell factor I mentioned yesterday: Republican Lawmakers Seek to Avoid Taint of Scandal (Update1) By Jay Newton-Small and Laura Litvan Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Republican congressional candidates scrambled to distance themselves from the Mark Foley sex scandal, fearing it might implicate their leaders and deal a final blow to the party's bid to keep control of the House in November elections. As House Republican leaders sought to rebut Democratic charges that they had covered up the Florida lawmaker's inappropriate e-mails to teenage congressional pages, some Republican lawmakers in tough re-election battles made it clear they were reserving judgment on their own leadership. ``Toleration of inappropriate behavior is almost as bad as the behavior itself,'' said Representative Heather Wilson, a Republican from New Mexico who faces a difficult race in November. Representative Rob Simmons of Connecticut sounded a similar theme as his Democratic opponent, Joe Courtney, raised the issue on the campaign trail. ``If it is found that any member of Congress or staff willingly participated in a cover-up of Mr. Foley's actions, that individual should resign immediately,'' Simmons said. The potential gravity of the Republicans' situation was underscored by House Speaker Dennis Hastert's decision over the weekend to return to Washington from Illinois today to personally oversee an internal review of the issue. He also sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales asking for a criminal investigation of Foley, 52, who abruptly resigned from the House Sept. 29. Foley had been co-chairman of the House Missing and Exploited Children Caucus. As Hastert did so, Matthew Loraditch, head of the House Page Alumni Association, said in an interview that some House staffers may have had suspicions about Foley for years. Loraditch, a page during 2001-2002, said in an interview that a supervisor warned him informally that Foley was ``a bit odd or flaky.'' Democrats on Offense Democrats said any Justice Department investigation of Foley should include how House Republican leaders responded after the first indications that Foley had sent inappropriate e-mails to teenage pages in 2005. House Democrats demanded that the chamber's ethics committee produce a preliminary report on the matter within 10 days. ``Central to the investigation is immediately questioning, under oath, the House Republican leadership,'' House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi wrote in a letter to lawmakers on the committee. Some Democrats called for Republican leaders to step down. Representative Sherrod Brown of Ohio said on NBC's ``Meet the Press'' that if Hastert or ``any legislative leader'' had known about Foley's e-mails and done nothing about it, they should resign. The Ohio Democratic Party made a similar demand of House Majority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican. Hastert Defense In his letter to the attorney general, Hastert defended his handling of the Foley matter, noting that Foley's 2005 e-mails to a male teenage former page were determined to be ``over- friendly'' but not sexual. ``No one in the House leadership was aware'' of a separate set of sexually explicit e-mails Foley allegedly sent to other former or current pages, Hastert wrote. Responding to reports by ABC and the New York Times that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had opened a preliminary probe into the Foley matter, FBI spokesman Stephen Kodak said the agency's policy is not to comment on whether there is an investigation. Democrats across the country vowed to use the issue to hammer home a theme that Republicans oversee ``a culture of corruption'' in Congress. Foley is the fourth Republican to resign from the House under an ethical cloud in the past year, including former Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas and Bob Ney of Ohio, who left amid the investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff's influence peddling. `More Gasoline' ``It's more gasoline being poured on the fire,'' said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Washington-based Rothenberg Political Report. Republican leaders are going to have to explain ``what they did and why they didn't do other things. So for now and at least another few days they'll be on the defensive.'' Joe Courtney, a Democrat running against Simmons in Connecticut, said he's brought up the possible cover-up of Foley's activities four times at campaign events this weekend as an example of how ``these guys will say and do anything to hold onto power.'' New Mexico House Speaker Ben Lujan, a Democrat, said Friday that the Foley scandal would help tip the House to Democrats in November. ``We're going to show them who is the corrupted party in these United States,'' Lujan told the central New Mexico Labor Council. `Grandstanding' Carl Forti, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, called the Democratic response ``political grandstanding.'' ``They're trying to take advantage of an unfortunate situation,'' he said. ``I don't know how it helps them.'' No Republican candidate has canceled planned campaign appearances with Hastert and the issue hasn't endangered his hold on the party's top House post, said his spokesman, Ron Bonjean. Democrats, advocacy groups and some Republicans demanded full disclosure by Republican leaders of how the episode unfolded. Representative Peter King, a New York Republican, said House leaders ``have to get all the facts out as quickly as possible.'' ``Everybody who was told anything has to come out, say what they were told and what they did with that information,'' he said. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said: ``The allegations against Congressman Foley are repugnant, but equally as bad is the possibility that Republican leaders in the House of Representatives knew there was a problem and ignored it to preserve a congressional seat this election year.'' The House passed a resolution calling for an investigation into Foley's behavior Sept. 29 before recessing for more than a month to campaign for the Nov. 7 elections. Dan Bartlett, one of President George W. Bush's top advisers, called the allegation ``shocking'' and said the president was unaware of the matter until it was revealed publicly last week.

To: Dale Baker who wrote (29581)	10/2/2006 8:54:21 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 540836

yup I haven't seen a lot of moderates on SI. SI tends to attract people with strong POV's, because it's not very tempting to jump in to a conversation and say "Gosh, you know I don't really have an opinion on this but..." So instead you get people with strong views on both sides of the issue, and first they post their positions, and then they get annoyed, and then they start to call each other names. I take a survey of several threads every day, and I see the same people doing it over and over and over- and doing it with the same people. They obviously love it.