Democrats Shopped Foley Emails to Media

Well, now we know that the Democrats had the Foley emails for months.

The Washington Post ran a story yesterday confirmimg that Democrats shopped the story for about a year and the media didn't bite - until a month before the election.

The story quotes the editor of Harper Magazine:

Ken Silverstein, Washington editor for Harper's, said on the magazine's Web site yesterday. "I know this with absolute certainty because Harper's was offered the story almost five months ago."

Silverstein said his source was a "Democratic operative," the same source that had provided the e-mail exchanges to the St. Petersburg Times in November 2005. Both the magazine and the paper declined to publish a story. But the source "was not working in concert with the national Democratic Party," Silverstein added. "This person was genuinely disgusted by Foley's behavior, amazed that other publications had declined to publish stories about the emails, and concerned that Foley might still be seeking contact with pages."

So the Demorcats and media concern for the pages is a bunch of garbage. They were shopping the story to hurt the Republicans. This is why the story broke just before the election. If there was true concern for the safety of the pages, the story would have been run months ago.

Bad Week For Republicans

I'm very angry. Very angry. Angry at Rep. Foley for doing what he did. He abused his power and took advantage of young boys. It is truly reprehensible and creepy. He did the right thing by resigning immediately.

Politically, this could be the straw that breaks the camel's back regarding Democrats taking over the House and Senate this year. I am sure that this is just the beginning of what we will find out regarding Foley. There was probably much more involving Foley and the boys and maybe even a cover up. It will be a tough next few weeks.

Democrats will and are having a field day with this, of course. I don't blame them because we would be doing the same if the roles were reversed. So I guess Republicans can only fight back the best we can and try to salvage whatever we can this election cycle.

Interstingly, there was a similar situation in 1983 where both a Republican and Democrat had engaged in sexual relations with 17 year old pages. The Republican from Ill. (Crane) tearfully aplogized for his transgressions with the female page and lost his bid for re-election in 1984. The Democrat from Mass. (Studds) refused to apologize for his transgressions with a male page claiming they were consenting adults and he continued to be re-elected until his retirement in 1996.

From the current case with Foley and 1983 case with Crane it demostrates that Republicans have shame for when they do wrong.

I hope that the leadership conducts a complete and open investigation and punishes all those who are found guilty. This will probably affect the power structure of the House but it needs to be done.