windje @ 129

Impeachment Happens @ 124

windje @ 122

Impeachment Happens @ 113

And am I foolish to be hoping that Dobson condemns not just Foley’s behavior but those who covered it up? Or shall we just start calling his organization FOCUS ON HYPOCRISY?

Don’t answer that. I know what the answer is.

God I hate these people.

Don’t forget Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson – feel the love.

Yeah but it’s DOCTOR Dobson, who professes to have a degree in child psychology (right?) that just drives me insane. Falwell and Robertson are cartoons to me.

Doctor of what – podiatry. He stinks to high heaven.

Proctology

Hmmm, being an asshole doesn’t mean you’re an expert in examining them. :)

CNN poll:

“Do you think House leaders tried to cover up allegations that Republican Congressman Mark Foley exchanged sexually explicit e-mails with a 16-year-old former congressional page?”

No: 19%
Well, duh: 81%

Which brings me to the next burning question:

Is it true what I read someplace previously, that as early as 9 a.m. Monday morning (early, in that the scandal broke over the weekend)… CNN was already on the air, saying that the American public does not seem too energized by this scandal?

Let me ask no one in particular: how the hell could CNN make this expert determination? And, as early as 9.am. Momday morning, for shit’s sake?

This, to me, ties the offense level of Official Bush White House Spokesman Tony Snow’s finding pedophilia to be a joke (

I’m not saying that there’s any real parallel between the responsibility of a 19-year old who saw the e-mails and the Speaker of the House, the GOP head of the page program, and the head of the RCCC, who were in positions of power over the program.

But he is in something of an embarrassing situation, admitting that he’d been warned about Foley, that he’d seen the very damning e-mails, and didn’t do much.

The kids I worry about the most are the gay kids. Being gay and a teenager is an isolating experience. I could see someone chatting with Foley, just to have someone–anyone–to talk to about their sexuality. My concern is that some poor 17-year-old is going to get outed in all of this.

Amidst the schadenfreude and electoral hopefulness, I do also share Frank Probst’s concern. But on top of that there’s a concern about the history of sex panics in general. Many folks try to be scrupulous about not scapegoating already-disempowered groups; for instance, I certainly see progressive bloggers trying hard to prevent gays from being conflated with sexual predators in the Foley case. But sex panics seem to have a strong tendency to undo such efforts and, over the long term, bite us in the ass. For instance, the Catholic clergy scandal raised the same issues of pedophilia-as-opposed-to-homosexuality, and many people tried very hard to keep the two issues separate. But as I understand it, the biggest result within the seminaries has been a devastating witch-hunt that’s aimed at identifying and expelling, not pedophiles, but anyone identifiable as gay.

This kind of sex-and-kids issue is so explosive, and has such potential for abuse, that I think we need to strategize seriously about how to avoid weird-but-predictable manipulations. Just for one example: I could easily picture the sex-panic momentum here getting turned by the right into a drive for even greater surveillance and control of electronic communications. (IIRC, the spectre of online pedophiles has already been used to legitimate a requirement that e-messages be not only recorded by service providers, but the records stored for [I think] a period of 2 years. Chilling for any activist or queer.)

No, I don’t think he would be considered a mandated reporter legally. However, as someone who once was, you would think he would understand the importance of it and would have acted. OH, but that would have taken a conscience. N/M.

I believe however that the person in charge of the paging program would have been a mandated reporter in a legal sense. Someone was “in charge” of these kids. That person must have been a mandated reporter.

Gosh, I’m reading as fast as I can and still EPU’d. So, my questions are:

1.) These pages are residents, right, they have a dorm and attend school, right, so this would be = a boarding school? So, isn’t someone ‘in loco parentis’ or whatever?

2.) Wonder why the parents didn’t want it followed up? “Say, you wouldn’t want the whole world o know your kid’s a twinkie, would you?”

“So, Hastert thinks the really important thing to do is investigate those who had copies of the IMs and emails like, say, the guys Foley was sending them to in order to find out why they didn’t turn them over to the FBI.

This is a sick and twisted bunch of people running our government – letting a predatory colleague stick around in order to cover it up and then essentially threatening to go after anyone who comes forward with information.

Your Republican party, protector of predators.”

Yes, but, Hastert now gets to say,

“I am sorry — I can’t comment as there is an ongoing criminal investigation.”

That should be good for, say, six weeks.

May I edit this? Thanks.

“I am sorry — I can’t comment as there is an ongoing cover our collective asses conspiracy…and oh, by the way, there are a lot asses to cover.”