From the Associated Press via ABC News:
LaHood said Wednesday he was standing by Hastert and predicted his fellow House Republicans would, too. It’s not the speaker who should go, LaHood said, but the “antiquated” page system that brings 15- and 16-year-olds to the Capitol and has resulted in scandals in the past.
“Some members betray their trust by taking advantage of them. We should not subject young men and women to this kind of activity, this kind of vulnerability,” LaHood said in a CNN interview. He said the program should be suspended, at least until its flaws can be corrected.
Isn’t that like saying, “Johnson up on the fourth floor is a sexual pervert; he does nothing but sexually harrass the young women who work here. Obviously the only course of action is to fire the young women he’s been harrassing — for their protection”?
As far as I’m concerned, LaHood has completely lost his marbles. There’s nothing antiquated about the page system. It’s a simple co-op program similar to the kind a lot of businesses provide to give high school and college students some job experience.
The problem is with the perverts in Congress, and the leaders who cover for them. If LaHood really wants to be visionary in solving the problem, he should advocate suspending Congress “until its flaws can be corrected.”
This is a no-brainer, folks. Condemn Foley, work on passing real ethics reform, and shut up. Instead, LaHood has chosen to defend Hastert, work on abolishing the victims, and talk about it on national TV. What a disgrace and an embarrassment to his congressional district.
Why all the Hastert hate? I mean – I know leftys haters are going to condemn him because after all he’s a nasty Republican but really is there anything factual to show Hastert covered up Foley’s action? Or is this just a sick October surprise gotcha since I hear the Dems already knew about Foley months ago?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ibd/20061002/bs_ibd_ibd/2006102issues01
Its funny Vonster that you bring that up yet again… And what was ABC’s Brian Ross’s response about the sources and their party affilliation?
““I hate to give up sources, but to the extent that I know the political parties of any of the people who helped us, it would be the same party,†Mr. Ross said, referring to Republicans.”
ALL REPUBLICAN… gosh that has got to burn goin down.
Vonster asked, “is there anything factual to show Hastert covered up Foley’s action?” Who knows? LaHood isn’t saying. He’s trying (pathetically) to divert the conversation to a debate on the whole congressional page program. That’s really the point of my post — LaHood is showing no leadership, and his suggested solution to the problem (abolish the page program) is as insulting as it is simple-minded.
As for the link, I’m really not into the whole “our perverts aren’t as perverted as their perverts” rhetoric. I imagine such distinctions are important and meaninful in prisons, but in society at large we shouldn’t be tolerating such predatory actions at all, from either party, nor debasing ourselves by ranking their salaciousness. Is it really a victory to be able to say at the end of the debate, “See, our party’s perverts are better than your party’s perverts”?
Meanwhile North Korea is getting ready to test a nuclear bomb and everyone in the region is deciding what they are going to do about it, which most likely means reactivated nuclear programs or new nuclear programs. New polling shows Repulicans dropping by double digits in tight congressional races Doesn’t take a nuclear scientist to figure out the ramifications of all of this.
We are and have been living in a society that excuses misdemeanors that progress into gross moral situations and in many cases felonies. Read about gross happenings daily in every newspaper across the country. When a person like me makes a least an attempt for corrective action, I am told that these mis-doers are just kids. I am told that my long departed neighbor could do what he wants because he is a minority. I suspect Foley was “just a kid” once. Was Foley once a page? I also suspect that some of the “little darlings” everybody sees in public thought it was funny until the word started spreading. The pages should have reported any email they thought were offensive to higher authorities or at least told Foley to knock it off and kept a record. Or contact the news media if these higher authorties didn’t take action. Or is it possible they too are part of a too permissive a world??? If being a whistle blower cost them their jobs they can always ask an attorney or the news media to look into the situation.
Or do pages believe that some of the idiots we elect are role models and that is the way all politician are?
Was the Page Director told by these pages what was going on?
Sum it up. If the pages didn’t report it when it happened, they should be disciplined. If they didn’t believe it was gross, what kind of young people are we turning out? If the page director knew and didn’t report it, she should be history. If Hastert knew about it and didn’t take appropriate action, he too should be history.
I suspect when the whole story comes out in truth, some heads should roll. But this is government elected by we the voter so maybe not.
Merle,
I think it is pretty clear the “media” knew about it and held the story. After the way Clinton’s people trashed his accusers, do you really believe anybody is going to speak up publicly against the ruling class without support? Cover-ups of improper activity are rampant, from Congress, to the U.N. to the Catholic Church to the State Capitol to City Hall. All of this mock indignation right now is disgusting. Most of these people are the same people who defended Bill Clinton and various liberal perverts. They don’t give a flying pig about the pages. It’s all a political ploy. And the media will drop it like a hot rock as soon as the next “big story” comes along that they like better. I will agree with Ray LaHood to the extent that the page system needs to be revamped. Quite frankly, sending high school kids to Washington, D.C. is stupid. Why would any responsible parent do that? Talk all you want about blaming the victim, but if you leave your car running in a certain parking lot a half dozen times and it gets stolen 4 or 5 of those times, the cops should still arrest the car thieves, but you might want to think about stopping that behavior.
I would like to remind everyone that there is a joke of sorts in Hamlet – in the scene where he is pretending to be mad and taunting Ophelia. He tells her “Get thee to a nunnery,” suggesting that she is pregnant by a priest.
Society has had it’s ills since the Elizabethan period at least. And when was the last time you read Lysistrata by Aristophanes? There are hundreds of lurid sexual suggestions in that one, plenty of them reference beastiality. So now we go back to the “cradle of civilization.”
So the self-righteous indignation, Merle, is just that much more bullshit in a world full of it. Always has been, always will be. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything about it. We each do what we can to prevent such horrible things from happening and to elect responsible leaders. But your condemnation of society and all our “permissiveness” is getting old. Go sit on a beach and tell the turtles and let the rest of us who want to do more than rant about how it’s society’s fault get on with the work that needs to be done.
Can anyone confirm this….but I’ve heard the Republican Power Brokers have contacted the Catholic Church for advice on “handling” this situation?
What all of this has shown is that Ray LaHood has an I.Q. of a reasonably bright gerbil. Watching and listening to him rattle on about how the page program should be shut down, with some far-away background of Peoria behind him, made me wanna puke. This guy is two steps away from being an over the hill hoodlum. Figures that the Dems would not back anyone to any degree to run against him this year… he’s vulnerable… and may never be this much again.
It is incredibly disappointing that Dems couldn’t produce someone to run against LaHood. How did this happen, local Dems? I’ve only lived here about two years…
This isn’t about Politics, this is about accountability. As I see it, both parties new about it, when is somewhat of a question. You can’t tell me as tight ass as the Congress is, nobody knew? Of course they had suspician. However, Hassert is the one who ultimately shunned away from it, when it was his responsibility to take action, and should also be accountable if that is the case. LaHood should keep his mouth shut, as so should the Dems. The ultimate accountablity should lay in the hands of the Voter. We elect these people, if you want a change…vote.
There is someone running against LaHood cgiselle, his name is Waterworth. It would seem the party is hanging him out to dry.
Mouse: ” After the way Clinton’s people trashed his accusers” Wow, the Right spent close to $51 million dollars trashing Clinton from the day he hit office to the end. What exactly did Bill do? If you mean he got a blow job from a consenting adult, so what? Do you think that has never happened to a President before? Compared to the idiots running things now, this seems like nothing. (Hannity on FOX claimed Monica was 19, he had his facts wrong, she was 22 at the time) It’s just like the Republicans, the party of “Family Values” not to take the blame. The sad thing is, they will probably succeed in blaming this whole mess on A) the kids, B) the democrats, and C) the big bad liberal press. The American voters memory span is short. Too bad this story didn’t break on Oct 31st. This will be forgotten by election day.
You have a selective, and partisan, memory Emtronics. Monica wasn’t the first or last woman Clinton took advantage of, and you wouldn’t be defending him if he had been a Republican, I think that shows through clearly. And that’s the point of my post. You are outraged about Foley, but think Clinton, et. al., were no problem. It isn’t about the pages/interns – for you it’s all about politics. Which is why, sad to say, LaHood is right about the page system. It needs to go. High School kids don’t belong in this pack of jackals (regardless of whether the jackals call themselves Democrats, Republicans, Socialists or Know-Nothings)
Never never said that Clinton wasn’t a problem. To the religious right however, more time and energy was spent trying to convict him of anything they could. I believe that if any group spent $51 million on investigating someone, they could find a skeleton in Gandhi’s closet sooner or later. They did this for 8 years and while there were many accusations, nothing other than his adultery affair with Monica was ever proven. The Republicans on the other hand call themselves the party of moral rights and family values. What a crock. Something like this Foley thing comes up and do you think the Republican Party would even owe up to it? Nope, they are playing the blame game. Kind of like cut and run huh? What a bunch of hypocrites. Take your lumps and move on so as not to paralyze this country on real issues like the RIGHT did the whole 8 years Clinton was in office. Also, if all Clinton did was chase women that still makes him loads better than the current president we have now which is also a liar and a cheat. WMD’s indeed. O’sama who? “They will greet us as liberators!” “Mission accomplished†Time for a change and I hope people do that come this November. Meanwhile Mouse, go back to FOX news and inflate your head some more. 🙂
BTW, if this was all Democrats involved in this so called page scandel, I have to wonder what dribble would be spewing from the FOX network and others like you. Concern for the poor young pages? I doubt it.
keep writing Emtronics, you are proving my point magnificently
Politics sucks. It’s nothing more than a dysfunctional family bickering all the time.