how true. it sicken me how the media allows for Republicans to take a beating they don't deserve ... all to have the claims disproved.

I smell..... fear

I smell Aaron

I smell AXIS

Looks like a liberal Democratic group had the IM messages of Foley and held them for up to 3 years to release them now before the election.

So that would mean liberals knew what was going on and didn't report this to the authorities? Disgusting.

oh warrior, how gulliable can you be? Dems knew for 3 years and sat on it? puhleeeez! If that were true, why wouldn't they have sprung the surprise during the 2004 elections, when much more was at stake?

Face - Repubs knew, and covered it up. Yep, warrior, "despicable" is the word for it.

Repubs: corrupt, moral opportunists, and incompetent.

I guess you didn't read the link I provided Aaron...self admissions now that some Dems knew going back to 2002 and 2003. A post at DailyKos in early 2005 and on and on.

This is will be great to watch the Dems overplay their hand again and backfire on them.

By the way Aaron, 6:1 Dems have gone to prison then Republicans...great track record.

Hastert has made reference that whoever had access to these instant messages held on to them for three years and should be investigated and charged if a crime occurred. The Republican leadership was not aware of the content of the messages but the donks were.

The SH*T is going to hit the fan for the donks if they are at all implicated in witholding information.

Aarontime....they are now confirming they were INSTANT MESSAGES, not emails. So how exactly could Hastert have seen INSTANT MESSAGES?

I await your spinning answer.

Matt,

Regarding the claim that the bush administration has "refuted" the claims...

Rice's response of ,"Duh...I can't remember" is HARDLY a refutation. Are you that brainwashed that you don't see this?

Matt, this is a charge that the Bush Administration ignored warnings of 9/11! You DO remember 9/11, don't you? You really think that a few quips by Tony Snow makes this go away?

If Al Gore had done this (ignored warnings prior to 9/11), you would be in spitting, raving lunacy over it...as you should! Why is ignoring 9/11 warnings somehow OK if a Republican does it???

We're used to a little hypocrisy from this site, but you righties are just coming unglued here. Please pull yourself together...it's just getting too ugly to bear.

Bush fires Rumsfeld, nominates Woodward as replacement

:)

Mark:

the story about the alleged and disputed Tenet-Rice meeting

Alleged and disputed? Really?

A review of White House records has determined that George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, did brief Condoleezza Rice and other top officials on July 10, 2001, about the looming threat from Al Qaeda, a State Department spokesman said Monday.

[...]

Officials now agree that on July 10, 2001, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism deputy, J. Cofer Black, were so alarmed about intelligence pointing to an impending attack by Al Qaeda that they demanded an emergency meeting at the White House with Ms. Rice and her National Security Council staff.

What Hastert is doing is absolutely revolting. Hastert isn't referring to some ‘liberal groups’ who sat on it. Hastert is accusing and threatening the boys who were being harassed by Foley and are only coming forward now. He's telling them that they sat on it for several years without informing the proper authorities and that they are the ones to blame. He's saying they should be investigated and charged.

And if you are referring to CREW. CREW received e-mails this summer, not three years ago. They immediately turned over these e-mails (the ones from the page in Alexander's district) to the FBI, on July 21

On July 21, 2006 CREW received a set of emails, allegedly from Rep. Foley to a former House page, which it sent to the FBI later that day. The emails, posted at www.citizensforethics.org, asked the page, who had recently left the Hill, his age, how school was going and what he wanted for his birthday. Rep. Foley also requested the boy’s photograph.

The question arises, why did the FBI not act on this for so long?

Willem the Orange,

The emails to which you refer were investigated by the GOP leadership and the parents of the page from Louisiana did not want to take it further.

They are certainly questionable but not illegal

The REAL problem is with some instant text messages sent to a page from San Diego. These apparently are three years old and were not brought to the attention of the Speaker until this past week. Certainly the young man did nothing illegal by not revelaing these. The question is, who else had them, how long did they have them and was any law broken. What is clearly not in question is the political motivation of the individual that released these at this particular time.

In case you are not aware All 50 states have passed some form of a mandatory child abuse and neglect reporting law in order to qualify for funding under the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA)(Jan. 1996 version), 42 U.S.C. 5101, et seq.. The Act was originally passed in 1974, has been amended several times and was most recently amended and reauthorized on October 3, 1996, by the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment and Adoption Act Amendments of 1996 (P.L. 104-235).

CAPTA mandates "minimum definitions" for child abuse and sexual abuse. Child abuse or neglect is any recent act or failure to act:

Resulting in imminent risk of serious harm, death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse, or exploitation

Of a child (usually a person under the age of 18, but a younger age may be specified in cases not involving sexual abuse)

First, Matt Margolis wrote:

"Unfortunately, the ways things are these days, the accuracy of the charge is irrelevant."

and then he wrote:

" . . . the entire Democratic Party sees President Bush and the Republican Party as a worse enemy than Al Qaeda."

Don't look now, but you just did yourself in. Writing preposterous things is bad for one's credibility.

Since when have you checked in with "the entire Democratic Party" to learn anything? For that matter, since when has the entire Democratic Party been of one mind about anything? Since the radical right took over the GOP, lockstep marching has been the rule, with people like Karl Rove seeing to it the worker bees don't step out of line. Democrats have remained a diverse, big-tent party with discordant voices offering a range of opinions. That gets messy at times, but it's small-d democratic and big-D Democratic at the same time. In the long run it works best.

Yes, it's preposterous to suggest Democrats "see President Bush and the Republican Party as a worse enemy(sic) than Al Qaeda." Writing that is just a lame attempt to demonize Democrats as haters, as people blind with hatred. Sorry, but that kind of thing hasn't had much currency in U.S. politics since Republicans tried so hard and long, and failed, to get Bill Clinton once and for all.

Do most Democrats consider Bush the worst president in U.S. history? Yes. Do they think the GOP has been hijacked by its own worst elements? Clearly. Do most Democrats think Bush and the Republicans are worse than al Qaeda? No, they don't.

Obviously, though, here at BFB, the accuracy of the charge matters not. Bashing the opposition any which way you choose to is what it's all about.

Matt et al,

I havn't seen a righty respond yet....

so, why is it OK to ignore 9/11 warnings if you are a republican? Are all you righties friends of the terrorists? Terrorist enablers? Why did Righty Rice help the terrorists? Please explain why it is good to ignore terrorists threats and enable attacks against America. Do you hate America, Matt?

Ignore 9/11 warnings...how were they ignored? You mean the daily presidential brief, the same one Clinton got in 1998 that said Al Queda was going to attack the USA.

Look, these guys got briefings like this all the time. Only one president had YEARS to act on it and did nothing....Bill Clinton.

The interviews with the head of the Bin Laden CIA group over the weekend are DEVESTATING to Clinton. He absolutely screwed the pooch and thousands of American lives were lost...thanks Bill.

And thanks Jimmy for engineering the overthrow of the Shah of Iran back in 1979 so the Iatollahs could take over...we're still cleaning up that mess.

Ah, Democrats....the worst mankind has to offer.

No Willem...wrong

--------------------

Foley Story Shopped to Media

Who was shopping a story about Congressman Mark Foley and his e-mails and contacts with one or more male pages?

It’s still a mystery. But the answer may reveal that politics -– not an effort to protect kids –- may have been at play.

The e-mails that ignited the current scandal were communications between a former male page who resided in Louisiana and Foley.

The St. Peterburg Times, a Florida newspaper more than a stone’s throw from Louisiana, says it was contacted last November and "were given copies of an e-mail exchange Foley had with a former page from Louisiana.”

The Times editors, on their paper’s blog, added that they were not alone when contacted by the intermediary for the young page.

"Other news organizations later got them, too,” the Times said.

But the paper never ran the story because the e-mails were nothing more than "friendly chit-chat.” Sex was not mentioned in the e-mails.

Another paper approached to run the Foley e-mails was the Miami Herald.

Miami Herald Executive Editor Tom Fiedler confirmed that his paper reviewed the same emails.

He said the paper "didn't feel there was sufficient clarity in the e-mails to warrant a story."

"We determined after discussion among several senior editors, including myself, that the content of the messages was too ambiguous to lead to a news story," Fiedler said.

Apparently no paper wanted to touch the story.

Late last week, however, a blogger posted the Foley-page e-mails to his blog. On Thursday, ABC News picked up the story for its own web blog, detailing the innocuous emails with a comment from Foley’s Democratic opponent, Tim Mahoney. Mahoney called for an official probe of Foley’s contact with the page.

Shortly after ABC News published the story, it is claimed an unknown person contacted the news outlet and offered the instant messages that Foley had with another page -– one’s with salacious sexual talk. Upon hearing of ABC’s instant messages, Foley immediately resigned.

But with these messages and communications -– some three years old -- why did the media wait so long to report them when they could have prevented a potential child predator from acting?

And who was shopping these e-mails and the Foley page story to media?

And why were they published just weeks before a congressional election?

House Speaker Dennis Hastert has noted that the instant messages were "reportedly generated three years ago."

In a letter seeking a federal probe, he noted that "It is important to know who may have had the communications and why they were not given to prosecutors before now.

"I request that the scope of your investigation include any and all individuals who may have been aware of this matter -- be they members of Congress, employees of the House of Representatives, or anyone outside the Congress," Hastert wrote.

Hastert has raised an important and good question, one that federal investigators should investigate.

Warriornation,

Excuse me? Rice ignored A meeting that described 9/11 as imminent. WHY IS THIS OK? This is not the "daily presidential brief"--READ MY POST. Rice was given a special, emergency alerty PERSONALLY to her by the head of the CIA. They DO NOT get this kind of warning all the time.

Look, I reallize you are DESPERATE to try to pin this on a Democrat, but in case you didn't notice, Clinton and Carter WERE NOT AT THE MEETING. What part of this don't you get?

It's time for a change. The Republicans are WORSE on the terror war than Democrats. The Democrats will WIN the war, not ignore it. Look at Afghanistan back sliding. I am sick of you righties screwing up the war and blaming Democrats. We will win the election, and the war.

Funny how a comment on the foley story by a neocon is allowed to stand, but others are deleted as off topic... Funny rules are different based on who you are!!!!!!

OG makes an excellent point. The post is about Woodward's book and the media. The Foley scandal has nothing to do with it.

But, I said in my comment above, "any which way." It's right in line with anything to win.

phnxbmed:

The REAL problem is with some instant text messages sent to a page from San Diego. These apparently are three years old and were not brought to the attention of the Speaker until this past week. Certainly the young man did nothing illegal by not revelaing these. The question is, who else had them, how long did they have them and was any law broken. What is clearly not in question is the political motivation of the individual that released these at this particular time.

Who else had them? The IM's were mailed to ABC News' Brian Ross by a number of other pages after he reported on the first set of e-mails.

This all came to a head in the last 24 hours. Yesterday, we asked the congressman about some much tamer e-mails from one page, and he said he was just being overly friendly. After we posted that story online, we began to hear from a number of other pages who sent these much more explicit, instant messages. When the congressman realized we had them, he resigned.

So when Hastert is claiming that somebody "sat on them for three years without informing law enforcement officials" and that they need to be investigated as well, he is referring to these pages.

Disgusting

warriornation

Shortly after ABC News published the story, it is claimed an unknown person contacted the news outlet and offered the instant messages that Foley had with another page -– one’s with salacious sexual talk. Upon hearing of ABC’s instant messages, Foley immediately resigned.

But with these messages and communications -– some three years old -- why did the media wait so long to report them when they could have prevented a potential child predator from acting?

Why did the media wait so long?
"an unknown person" (better "a number of other pages") sent these messages and communication -- some three years old -- on September 29, 2006 to ABC News. ABC News tried to get their authenticity confirmed by Foley the same day. Tom Reynolds's Chief of Staff Kirk Fordham tried to prevent the content of those messages becoming public the same day. Foley resigned the same day. ABC News reported on these messages the same day.

No Willem....today it was learned the story has been shopped around for MONTHS and MONTHS and yet the media and others sat on it.

Why?

Jim....since you guys handled terrorism so well from 1992 to 2000 why on earth would anyone with an ounce of gray matter between their heads want to go back to that?

Willhelm...more proof of you being wrong.

"The St. Petersburg Times said that last November, it received copies of an e-mail exchange between Mr. Foley and a former page from Louisiana. The newspaper said the boy, who was under age, did not want his name used, and the paper said it did not want to publish accusations based on unnamed sources."

LAST NOVEMBER WILLHELM....keep on spinning their princess.