Republican Foley Resigns House Seat Over Allegations Of Sexual Harrassment
 

Republican Foley resigns House seat By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

Six-term Republican Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record) of Florida resigned from the U.S. Congress on Friday following reports he sent sexually inappropriate e-mails to underage congressional interns.
Foley, chairman of the House caucus on missing and exploited children, said he would resign immediately after ABC News reported he sent messages to current and former congressional pages with repeated references to sexual organs and acts.

"Today I have delivered a letter to the Speaker of the House informing him of my decision to resign from the U.S. House of Representatives, effective today," Foley said in a statement.

"I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent."

Foley's decision to resign just five weeks before the November 7 congressional election complicated Republican efforts to retain control of the House of Representatives. Democrats must pick up 15 seats to reclaim a House majority.

Lawyers from both parties were examining Florida election laws to see if his name can be removed from the ballot in his Republican-leaning district, party sources said, but it might be too late.

Foley won re-election in 2004 with 68 percent of the vote and was favored to win in November over Democrat Tim Mahoney, a self-funding financial officer. President George W. Bush carried the district with 54 percent of the vote.

Foley was the author of the key sexual predator provisions of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, :eek: :eek: which Bush signed in July.

(I guess it takes one to know one eh?)

Foley, who represents a district in southern Florida, also was a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees tax and trade policy.


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Mmm. Yummy. Love that republican hypocrisy.

Well imagine that...
 

another wolf in sheep's clothing.

:laugh: I guffawed loudly when I read this...:laugh:

This guy is gross. Not only is he a disgusting hyocritical pedophile, he broke the "don't **** where you eat" rule .

Seriously though, good job on busting this guy. I'm glad he won't be here at the convention seducing kids on the internet.

This is going to get really nasty this week now that it's been revealed the Republican House leadership has known about this for nearly a year.

I saw a R strategist on TV this morning saying the public should "wait until a proper investigation is conducted" before forming an opinion. Do you think he means the investigation that should have been (and never was) started a year ago????????????????????????

no, what he's really saying is: "Folks ignore this when you go to the voting booth" :nod: :nod: :nod:

I see Foley is checking himself into rehab for alcoholism. Not to downplay alcoholism, and I don't doubt he has a problem, but has anyone noticed that often when a politician gets busted for something, they say they are an alcoholic and go into rehab?

That's what one of the guys who was nailed in the Abramoff scandal did (Rep. Ney, I think).

So far, Foley has not admitted that what he did was wrong. He has tried to claim that the emails weren't that big a deal and now he's saying he's an alcoholic. But I haven't read anything that acknowledges the severity of what he did, nor has he apologized to the boy.

On another note, did he really think he'd never get caught? It amazes me that an elected representative would do something like this that has an obvious paper trail.

And - now he's claiming the liquor made him do it :rolleyes: Maybe he'll say "sugar tits" too :rolleyes:

Also and for the record, a pedophile is someone who likes pre pubescent kids, not 16 year olds. In fact, in some states 16 is the age of consent. So, there is a big difference between inappropriate behaviour and illegal behaviour here and assuming it was consensual.

Also, does anyone get the feeling that the parents sold out by not pursuing this? I mean if it had been a D that did it, maybe they would have. If so, that is just sick.

IM transcripts:

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/print?id=2509586

I think it's pretty clear why the parents didn't pursue this. This is pretty humiliating for their son, given that he played along in the IM and we all now know his fetishes and size. Why on earth did this get printed in the media? Even if you take out the boy's IM handle, his friends are going to know it's him.

I expected something completely different, like a bunch of harassing questions from Foley and silence from the boy.

It may have been silence in the beginning - it's not clear from the emails/IMs already published when they occurred, and how long the exchange had been happening. It may very well be that the student was wary at first, and was slowly lured into giving more info, etc. - a basic pattern of predator behavior.

ABC just posted more - the page seems more wary in this set...

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/..._show_fol.html

Also, I read elsewhere that the 2001-2002 page class was warned about Foley and his behavior.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/...aff_warne.html

Like many politicians Foley appears to be an entitled sociopath.Judging from the IMS he may be telling the truth about being alcoholic ..either that or he is an illiterate.

Eeew. That grosses me out in a big big way.

What is intersting is the pages seem interested in him sexually. If I am not mistaken, these are almost eighteen uear old teenagers. I knew what I was doing then and everyone I knew knew as well - and I do not come from a big city. So, I guess these kids are gay or curious. I get that Foley was in a position of power, their employer, etc. - but I wonder how much of the interlude (even written) was consenual. Again, in some states (CT comes to mind) the age of consent is 16 :shrug: I posit this only as a matter of curiosity and not in approval in any way of Foley.

Holy Crap!! Those transcripts are something else!! And yeah - a 16 year old kid may know what he/she is doing/saying - but this is still HIGHLY innapropriate---for a grown elected official to go along with it. It's just gross and even if 16 is still the age of consent in some states - that's still too young and for a man of Foley's age - I'm sorry but it's just sick.

This is rich. Highly entertaining. I did far worse at 16. But not with an elected official old enough to be my father. And certainly not with a republican.:lol:

I think if you were a parent you would find this particularly horrifying. I don't think that you would think your 16 year old boy was mature enough to consent to anything sexual with a middle-aged man, especially one in such a position of power who would yield great influence over your child. Boys can become very confused after a liason with an adult, just as girls can. It can make them depressed, etc. It was just wrong and Foley is 100% to blame given his age and position. Sixteen is still such a young, immature age, they're really still just boys not men.

I think its awful that he pushed for a law to make sexual offenders suffer more in prison. Or something to that effect.

Are you kidding me - at 16-18 (the range here) love is an erection :laugh:

Girls are so different :cool:

And it isn't at 50 ? LOL.



That's the truth.

Setting aside the fact that he's chatting with a 16-year old, the transcript she posted was really, really tame. :shrug:

Half the people in my family were married by the time they were 16, so I think there might be a slight overreaction here. Still, knowing how nutty people are about anything that even looks like sexual harrassment (and saying that an adult who has a mildly erotic conversation with a 16-year old is a pedophile is really pushing it, IMO)...it was a really, really stupid thing for this guy to do.

Oh, god, and I love how ABC has this disclaimer in all caps "READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED. OMG, THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT SEX, HIDE YOUR VIRGIN EYES!"

Absolutely. And what keeps on occurring to me is that while a 16-year old may talk a good game, IMO he/she is really still too young to fully understand the repurcussions of acting on things like this. I mean, when I was 16 I remember getting into sexual conversations with people and the LAST thing I wanted to let on was that I wasn't a woman of the world. I would have never let on that anything anyone said surprised, offended, or intimidated me. I don't think this kid's...shall we say bravado...should be used against him.

Or maybe girls are just different...:laugh:

I don't care how horny a 16 year-old can be or what the age of consent is in Washington. What Foley did is illegal, hypocritical, and predatory. This is karma coming back to bite the replubican party in the ass for the way they went after Clinton.

And it's shocking to listen to those conservative talkshow hosts defend the congressman and blame the teenager like so many are doing.

Put it this way, every single 16 year old guy I knew, including myself, would have given their eyeteeth to have been seduced by a 20 something year old college girl or even a hot 30 something year old. Again, guys are just different when it somes to that it seems.

If the age of consent is 16 and it was consenual - there is no illegal activity unless there is some law I do not know of that makes it illegal for an employer to seduce an employee (note -- I am unsure the employer/employee relationshp would exist here as Foley did not employee these pages, etc. )

Again, I am speaking only to the illegality -- not the morality. Moreover, I think Foloey was wrong for doing this and in states where the age of consent is 18, what he did was illegal.

The far more pressing question though, is the cover up :nod:

Completely different. Of course, this is a great scandal because it involves a politician. It is taken to another level entirely by the party of the politican in question, and laced with further irony by his own particular projects (child protection issues). He's an idiot, and he acted rashly and without regard for his own reputation or the general well being of the young man or men involved.
That being said, Strand is right. Horny young men are horny young men. Are they mature enough to deal with the repercussions of their sexual behavior ? Of course not. Did most of us did it anyway ? Absolutely. Like Markolas said, lots of people were married at 16 just one or two generations ago. Hell, at the turn of the century, it was not uncommon for girls to be married and pregnant at 14. It didn't kill them. It was accepted and people dealt with it. I doubt it was ideal, but even though things have changed, it just shows how society shifts.
It has also shifted in terms of hysteria over sexuality in general. It is preposterous to call this guy a pedophile. 16 year old males are not going to be scarred for life by sexual contact. There's a strange between the lines assumption in much of the reaction to this situation that implies that the 16 year old is somehow going to be influenced by such an incident. As if his sexuality might be "changed" or somehow altered. That is disturbing. It speaks about an underlying belief that males under a certain age can have their sexuality switched over by sex with another man. That they can be recruited or something, which is patently ridiculous. But, people have grown increasingly uptight about sex these days, even as society has become immersed in it in every aspect of our media. Perhaps because of it.
The truth is we are all sexual beings. From birth. People either forget that or block it out. The resulting squeamishness about the whole thing is curious and borders on a pathology that has taken on a life completely different from the real concern about the sexual irresponsibility of politicians. It says something about our inherent paranoia and fear about sex in general. It's a puzzling development.

^^^^^

I agree.

No, what it really comes down to is ethos. This guy is an elected official in our government and he's ****ing around with kids on the internet! Have some ****ing couth man! (Foley, not you Sparky). I get what you're saying about sexuality and how we in the U.S. are very puritanical in our views of it, but come on! This guy has no credibility whatsoever now, he is a hypocrite of the worst order! I think THAT'S where most of the outrage is coming from; he's an elected official who is supposed to be protecting children, not exploiting them. The irony is deafening. And to get caught up in a ridiculous debate about "sexuality" is missing the point, not to mention that the Republicans would LOVE that red herring in order to sweep this stuff under the rug. Let's call a spade a spade and cut the bull****.

I think Sparky's point was that this man is not a pedophile. A pedophile is defined as someone who wants to have sex with, touch, etc., a person whose sexual organs have not yet developed. The purpose is for control and domination, not sexual pleasure per se - though that could be a side effect. Thus, pedophilia really is its own sexuality of it must be termed in that way - though I think it is not sexuality at all as it is all about the control, etc.

Folely, on the other hand, solicited apparently consenual interludes with post pubescent boys. So, this cannot be pedophilia.

Did he do it for control or for sexual pleasure despite it not being pedophilia? Who can say for sure. In the end though, it was wrong for him to seduce a person in his pseudo employ no matter how willing or what age they were. Moreover, that the R's in power knew of this and did nothing about it will ruin them in the end.

I also think that though I hate it to be this way, that he solicited tennage boys is FAR more damning to the far right wingers than if he had solicitied teenage girls. A backward salute to gay bashing if you will.

My great grandmother was married at 13. Of course, she and my great grandfather were from the hills of North Carolina, made moonshine, and he did shoot and kill her several decades later (for which he served prison time). So maybe they're not such great examples. :shrug: :laugh:

You MUST write a book on your family!!!!!!!!

It will make Deliverance look tame :eek: :laugh:

And I'm saying that this is sort of beside the point. This is just not how an elected official should be acting plain and simple, and he CERTAINLY should not be cavorting with this kid on the internet of all ****ing things. It's almost like he WANTED to get caught. Apparently he doesn't understand the publicness of online chatting, but whatever, he's an idiot douchebag so what can I really expect? :shrug:

I think getting sidetracked with a discussion about teenage sexuality is veering off of the point and relieving this guy of any and all responsibility for his actions. Because he did **** up. Oh yes, he did. And again, ethos. This guy has lost every ounce of credibility he may have had. He's ruined. He's an idiot. What more can I say?

^^^

and I think sadly that this was because it was boys and that if it had been girls, the heat would be less - but still there obviously.

Clinton underwent Impeachment proceedings for having consensual sex with an ADULT for cripes sake! This incident just PROVES there is a double standard......

You know, I really should. Nobody would believe it was a true story. Thankfully, most of it took place before I was born. :o

He has few ethics. no doubt about that. I don't particularly agree that a 16 year is a kid, however.



Of course he is a hypocrite.


Oh, I think the "outrage" is something else. Of course the media is jumping on it because it is salacious. It's about going after a hypocrite. A hypocrite in terms of ethics and morals.

Au contraire. This is ALL about sex. If it was about business, the silence would be deafening, and his party would be making excuses all the way to the campaign financing. Washington scandals, the good ones, the ones that ruin careers and generate headlines, are all about sex in this age. I believe that our hangups about sex are at the root of all this, quite frankly. The hypocrisy is the merely the backdrop. You want to call a spade a spade - I will. All politicians are hypocrites. They're all for sale, and they are all on a sliding scale of moral and ethical bankruptcy. Every last one. Our system insures that this is the case. The only time the media or any of us gets truly wound up is if there is an erection involved. Or god forbid, TWO of them.

Well, Foley quit - or he surely would have had the same treatment - though the R's apparently knew about it and did nothing - though this has yet to be proven, etc. if so, Hassert is gone for good.

I think it would be more like "Dallas," only several rungs down on the socio-economic ladder.

You'll get no argument from me there ;)