You need to pay attention to how this is playing in the mainstream media as opposed to the blogsphere. Here it's plainly obvious that the Republicans launched an immediate cover-up. Numerous blogs noted that Hastert's office was calling this whole scandal a Democratic invention until the whole thing exploded on Thursday. But, of course he knew a year ago about Foley, because Rep. King told him.
But here's how the same story's playing in the Chicago Tribute for instance. Two lead articles in this morning's paper: 1.GOP Defends Handling of Scandal
and just for a topper:
2. Read Dennis Hastert's Letter.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/natio nworld/chi-061001hastert-letter,1,734040 6.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Yup. That would be the same letter that has already been exposed as a tissue of lies, when it was blatantly contradicted on key points by other Republicans even before the ink was dry.
But, hey! The Republican Congressional Leader said it so that's good enough for us at the Tribune!
Now tonight we learn that the entire debate so far is all B.S. to begin with. Pages were being warned 5 years ago about Foley, so basically it was common knowledge back as far as 2001.
We're just waiting for confirmation that the entire Republican leadership knew all about Foley and were not a bit surprised when this scandal broke. They just tried desperately to cover everything up in the usual manner. The only difference is that this time it failed miserably.
So, now they're like cockroaches when the kitchen light comes on scrambling around desperately to find cover.
If we had a functioning media in this country that held Republicans accountable in the same way they hammered on Clinton the election would be a total wipeout where about 1/2 the Republicans would lose their seats.
But the vast majority of voters will probably never hear most of the pertinent details about this scandal, such as the fact that it's being ongoing for about 5 years for instance, because the media they listen to won't bother to tell them.
I believe that after about a week this story will disappear from the mainstream media leaving blogsphere to howl in impotent rage amd demand investigations that never happen. While the TV news moves on to the next Lacy Peterson type story.
Perhaps I'm just cynical, but it's been happening for such a long time that it'd be foolish not to expect the same thing now.
The reason it won't go away in a week is because this is a Lacy Peterson type story. This isn't Plame, where only those of us addicted to polical news can follow the plot. This is a made-for-TV scandal. A congessman pens graphic notes to numerous underage boys, and takes them out to dinner while his colleagues--I'm sorry, the leadership--hushes it all up. Because what you're thinking, and what I'm thinking, and you can be damn sure every reporter in the country is thinking is this: "what if he did more than just write notes?" And they're gonna dig and dig. Sex sells. Always has, always will.
item: Foley was more than just a fantasist. Rumors on this board says he hit on male staffers at random. Adult men, yeah, but decades younger than he. You think he drew a line in the sand between 19 and 16? I don't.
item: His interrogations on the IM messages about sex sound like a real pro. Reminds me of a traveling salesman who never goes back to his hotel room alone--only the victims are not lonely cocktail waitresses or barflies but little kids on the Internet.
item: Do you give birthday presents to people you only know by screen name? I say no. If Foley horn-dogged the kid via the Internet and then met up with him, I think that meets the test to earn him the mandatory ten years of joint time per the Foley bill. And if the judge is really pissed, he'll make him do it all at the women's facility in La Tuna, Texas where he can't play drop the soap in the showers.
item: Congressman Foley Boned me up the Ass. Do you there'd be some royalties in it for the first kid who writes a book like that? So maybe the title needs some work, but you get the idea.
I'm with you. We tend to get into a blogtopic bubble. This story definitely has longer legs than any other GOP scandal but the way the corporate media spins it will matter most. Bounce over to Media Matters and you'll see that they're weathervane, the Right Wing Noise Machine, doing their level best to keep the lid on.
