Burner's No Better

Wait, we're a NON-wingnut blog?

This is the silliest post I've seen all month on a non-Wingnut blog.

Come on, Seth, Darcy is simply calling for accountability!

For too long we have had a GOP-controlled Congress that preaches "integrity" while actually practicing consolidation of power at the expense of integrity.

Purging Congress of duplicitous leaders WILL be taking Congress (and therefore, the country) in a different direction.

That Darcy will not sacrifice integrity and accountability for civility is, in fact, her strength, not her weakness.

Perhaps where people differ from you is the characterization of Hastert’s inaction as “over hyped.” Many of us think we’ve just scratched the surface and it is pretty ugly already.

Finally, it’s pretty damned arrogant of you to dismiss Darcy’s (and many, many other people’s) concerns as “politics as usual” just because you feel the House leadership failure is over-hyped. In the end, you will almost certainly be wrong, as the revelations are becoming worse by the hour….

Rick - These "creepy emails" should have received more than a "don't do it again" response from Hastert. They either did nothing to investigate the issue thoroughly then or else buried the issue. And then they keep him in a chairmanship position on the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children?! Come on! That's like giving an arson a match and some gasoline and telling them not to do it again. ABC didn't have the IM messages straight away either, but it didn't take them long to discover them, as the Republicans could have done if they had done more than just dismiss the issue.

But this is par for the course. Hastert has resided over one of the most corrupt Congresses in recent history. Take this money quote:

"This will be a Congress that will be well-known for it's failure to make progress and the rank partisanship that it displayed. I mean, we went from having a member of Congress sent to jail, a member of Congress found with bags of money frozen in the freezer, to a congressman now sending X-rated messages to pages, all in one congress.

"And I think the American people have to be saying to themselves, 'What in the heck is going on back there?'"Was this an attack by a Democrat looking to score easy political points? Nope, it was a quote by Mike McGavick!

If Hastert is being asked to step down it is because of the accumulation of one scandal after another on his watch, not just one.

When are politicians going to learn we want to know what they are planning to do not what they think of their opposition. We are long over due for necessary action across the board. Many current candidates are not even aware of issues or their priorities much less have ideas about how to handle them. Chippy the Sealion could do a better job. So far this is Election 2004 all over again. Sincerely, Hugh Coleman

Clearly, in my post I'm not defending Foley and there's no need to politicize this thing by me, it's already been done in the media and by a certain political party. I said he was a creep, is a creep, etc., -- my problem is indicting every member of the House of Representatives (that have an (R) next to their name, of course) for aiding and abetting a pervert. It's insane. No, we do not have a situation, except for Foley, where politicians have trangressed the law, at least as how the facts are presented at this time. That was my point, we have exactly the opposite situation. Again, I seem to be arguing with folks that have not read the emails as opposed to the IM Messages. But, hey, I'm just splitting hairs huh? Well, no, because it's quite material to what the GOP leadership knew and what they didn't know. You're essentially throwing people under the bus on information (quite sick, and probably illegal, instant messages) they did not have in their possession until last week. Reichert, Hastert or Bush himself couldn't press that Foley be indicted over weird emails to "minors" (by the way, the age of consent in D.C. is 16, unfortunately in my opinion, so I'm using the term "minor" loosely). Being weird and/or creepy isn't illegal (unfortunately again). Emails to minors about there summer vacation, the fact that one of the Page's friends is in good shape isn't illegal either, and that's the kind of stuff that's in these emails. But I'm done arguing on the facts, its just not exciting enough. I understand the basic premise, "we need to save the children, and the republicans want to eat them." You can't argue with logic like that. Look, Brian Ross of ABC isn't exactly a right winger and his timeline of events shows what the republican leadership had and didn't have. They had creepy emails from a congressman, they told him to knock it off, he seemed to have stopped, last week these IM messages surfaced from 3 years ago, and now we have a national crisis and a vast right wing "kiddie porn" republican conspiracy a month before the election. Amazing.

Seth-

To throw up your hands in a 'pox on both your houses' routine is naive as all get out. News accounts have it that GOP House leaders have known about Foley prediliction for boys for at the very least one years. Instead of allowing Foley to retire, they convinced him to run again, knowing full well of his email exchanges with minors. Minors! It may be the usual political bullshit from your end, but I very nearly was a DC page, and this stuff scares the shit out of parents. Dave Reichert, one a law enforcement officer himself, should know better than to lend support to those who aid and abet people like Mark Foley.

FrankY - Sorry, you and Seth have politicized this with your own remarks. The fact is these are politicians that have transgressed the law. If the wingnuts aren't going to raise a voice against it, thankfully there are others who will and have.

As for whether Hastert will or will not resign, I doubt he will, and frankly the Republican party will suffer more if he doesn't, so it is in the best interest of Democrats who want to gain politically from this to just let the Republicans implode from within, which will happen if Hastert is stubborn enough to stay put.

Daniel, you're confused as to what folks had in their possession. Ahh, the distinction between emails (which Ross, Hastert, and other news outlets had) which were creepy, yes, but were nothing of the sort that the content the IM messages contained, which were released last week. Can we all please get the emails straight from the IM messages? So much misinformation. Quite simply the "gravity" you are referring to was non-existent. That is the emails "everyone" knew about contained Foley asking a kid for his photo (that was the worst of the content) and other creepy banter. It seems as though the leadership intercepted this stuff and told Foley to knock it off, but, asking a 16 year old for a photo is not criminal, so they couldn't do much more. Either could the FBI. They looked into it. Look, either way the guy's a creep and good riddens, but I'm tired of the perception that Hastert had in his very hands the grotesque IM messages in his pocket for 3 years. He didn't, Brian Ross from ABC didn't, etc. You think if Brian Ross had those IM messages with that content in his paws, he would have sat on the story for months? Please, if he had those IM messages, that story would have broke months ago. So quit confusing the issue. It's misleading. You make it sound like the leadership had a bunch of porn in their pocket and they were sitting on it for 3 years. They weren't and they didn't. Be precise. At least try.

Ben,

Are you suggesting that she actually cares about "the children" (won't somebody please think of the children) here and this isn't just a political ploy to remove a Republican leader (and take down the Republican majority in the process).

I think THAT is naive.

I'm not one to pretend that Republicans wouldn't pull the same crap, but let's call a spade a spade here and let's not pretend that the Democrats aren't milking this for all the political gain that they can...

Sorry Seth, this isn't over-hyped, unless you believe it appropriate for the Republican leadership to have sat in this matter for as long as they did dispite the gravity of the issue. Or are you comfortable with having pedophiles in dangerous positions of power in Congress?

Burner's call for Reichert to use his current influence to change the Republican leadership by calling for Hastert's resignation is not out of step with the belief that we have to change the leadership in D.C., be it via the elections in November or their resignation in shame from office. At the very least Hastert has to step down as "leader" of this wayward party currently in the majority. Reichert voted to make him Speaker of the House and he should vote the bum out now because he speaks for no-one!

I wonder what Seth would find to be the least "childish" approach for Democrats to take.

a) Call for immediate resignation, giving their opponents (ie Reichert) the opportunity to absolve themselves from association with the perpetrators and enablers, as Burner has done.

b) Support an investigation that will drag the issue into the media for much longer, and keep irresponsible people in positions of power longer.

c) Ignore the issue and allow the Republicans to police themselves.

Keep in mind that the Republicans are willing to fight at least as dirty to win a midterm election. So who's being "childish," or is your post simply naive? I don't think holding child molesters accountable is necessarily playing the "for the children" card. Just ask anyone who actually has children.