Wednesday’s NY Post, joining the rest of the right-wing media calls Democrats “Hypocritical Critics” in the Mark Foley scandal.
They compare Foley to previous sex scandals involving Democrats.
The flaw with the argument can be seen on the same day’s Post Op-Ed page. Robert Novak reports "A member of the House leadership told me that Foley, under continuous political pressure because of his sexual orientation, was considering not seeking a seventh term this year but that Rep. Tom Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), talked him into running." (No link provided)
Because that’s the real scandal!
It’s not what Foley did. It’s what the Republicans in the Congress did.
It’s obvious to all that Hastert, Reynolds and the rest had only one priority. That was to keep this whole thing quiet until some time after Election Day. Then Foley could have reprimanded and maybe even been allowed to quit the Congress and come out of the closest.
Why else, was Tom Reynolds, whose is the Chairman of the Republican CAMPAIGN Committee even involved? He has no power over the page program, is not on the Ethics Committee and isn’t a neighbor of Foley.
What the Post, Fox, Limbaugh the others who are reading from the GOP talking points don’t want to admit is that the previous sex scandals in the House they refer to were not covered up like this.
By the way, the most amusing part of the Post bogus editorial was this paragraph –
“Twenty-three years ago, not only did Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Gerry Studds remain in office after it was discovered he had had sex with male congressional pages, his constituents re-elected him five times.”
Uh, doesn’t this mean the voters of his district forgave him, not that the “hypocritical Democrats” protected him?