Are you sweaty?

eeewwww

I hear Boy Scouts are good at orientation.

gimme a break! ALLOWED it to happen, indeed. talk about passive language that doesn't take responsibility...

momentary lapse that went on for months - again, gimme a break!

ShameTV, a new 24/7 reality network funded by Daddy Dobson, Smitin' Pat Robertson and Halliburton premieres its new lineup:

"Finding My Way Back" with disgraced congresscritter Mark Foley. See Foley in "rehab", watch as his former colleagues run from his phone calls.

"Pallin' Around with the Palins" with America's favorite disfunctional family. Babymama drama, fightin' in-laws, political corruption, where's Trig?

"Clearing Brush with Shrubby" with George & Laura Bush. See Laura pack her stuff and move to penthouse condo in Dallas. Watch George turn into a couch potato, find out where the Secret Service hides the booze.

Coming in January on ShameTV!

if anyone wants him back? Stay gone.

If you truly take responsibility and acknowledge you have a problem, you wouldn't say shit like this.

Obviously, this guy hasn't hit bottom.

Foley should work on trying to find his way out of the closet and maybe having mature responsible relationships with adult men. Of course, he can't lead an honest and self-respecting life as the gay man he is if he wants to rehablitate himself within the Republican party. He'll have to choose.

Turn the page.

Hit bottom again.

RU sweaty :)

It's not even the coverup it's the hypocrisy. If it were Kwame Kilpatrick having an affair with a woman, the real crime is still the coverup, the lying and the threats of retaliation. No one really cares whose slot-b your tab-a goes into. But if you preach about it don't expect to throw yourself on the mercy of the court. It's a very small target.

a pedophile stalker of young men - and will NOT be enjoying a comeback in politics.

from the State of Denial.

I'm not watching the whole interview -- it's over an hour long -- but there's plenty in Koppelman's summary to respond to.

* He didn't simply allow it to happen. Rather, he actively took part, or even instigated the messages. He is responsible, not simply because he was the adult or the senator, but because he led it.

* These children did ask him, a U.S. Congressman, to stop? Really!? I'm shocked, shocked! Does that really mean that all of his attentions were welcome by them? Of course not!

* Even if they were welcome, he seems to have displayed no understanding of the purpose of age of consent laws. The idea, enough agreed upon that it has been codified in law despite the fact that it contradicts centuries of human behavior, is that children, adolescents and many/most teenagers are not capable of meaningfully consenting to sexual activity with an older person.

Of course, I do not use the term adult there, because it is not the least bit clear that Foley is emotionally an adult. He seems to hunger for attention in a way that is not dissimilar to the the feeling that might lead a child, adolescent or teenager to accept the kind of attentions that Foley lavished upon the pages.

But his lack of emotional maturity is surely no excuse. Charles Barkeley famously said in an advertisement for shoes that athletes are not role model, but elected officials -- especially those elected to high office -- surely ARE role models. It is part of their jobs to do better and be better.

* (As I type this, I have the interview playing.) Around the 7 minute mark, he simultaneously minimizes his inappropriate behavior as being like "drunk dialing," but saying that that is not an excuse. Does he even hear what he is saying?

I cannot listen to any more of his self-serving and self-indulgent garbage.

Exhibit A: Massachusetts Democrat Gerry Studds.

Exhibit B: Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank.

Why can't Mark Foley just pursue a career in real estate, or the restaurant industry? Why would "public service" ever cross his mind, ever again? Who is he "serving"? Just go away, Foley. Indeed, I hope that I am presuming too much and that this is not the beginning of some sort of twisted "comeback" for Foley.

I see and hear a lot of wild accusations being thrown around about him, so let's be clear:

1) He is NOT a pedophile. Pedophile is a clinical term for people who are sexually attracted to pre-pubescent children.

2) He is NOT a child molester. He didn't engage in sexual activities with minors.

3) He is NOT a statutory rapist. He didn't have sex with any of these teen boys, and he didn't commit a crime of solicitation or child enticement either. Authorities in DC and Florida investigated him and cleared him of any criminal liability as all of the teens were over the legal age of consent (16).

4) Thus, he is NOT a criminal and remains a free citizen.

5) He IS a sexual harasser who undoubtedly in some cases engaged in sexual discussions online with unreceptive or uncomfortable teens.

6) He IS (or at least was) a massive hypocrite, for being a closet-case conservative Republican who focused so much legislative attention on Internet sex crimes against children. Although he didn't actually commit any such crimes in this scandal (as far as anyone, including law enforcement, knows) he certainly skated right up to that line and flirted with danger.

7) He IS (or at least was) skeezy and inappropriate (if not criminal) for lavishing sexual attentions on "barely legal" teenagers who were or had been his employees.

8) He IS a narcissistic media whore. He's no longer a government official, he has a partner now and is settling into regular civilian life to work in insurance or real estate or something (I can't remember and don't really care), but he still feels the need to cry before the cameras and push his sleazy story in our faces. Why? Because it's all about him, of course.

9) He IS shameless in his apparent refusal to take full responsibility for his actions (at best he accepted qualified responsibility.)

10) He IS desperately in need of more counseling and therapy.

BTW, am I the only one who finds his tale of being molested as a kid just a little fishy? Of course it could have happened, but it seems like lately any adult who's caught committing a sex crime or at the very least acting out sexually in an inappropriate way has fallen back on that as a quick and easy ready-made excuse. Didn't good ol' Ted Haggard say essentially the same thing a day or so ago? That he too was sexually abused as a kid? I don't wish to issue a blanket dismissal of all these claims, but they do strike me as too convenient by half. In the cases of adult men (especially conservatives) who act out in a homosexual manner, to claim that they were abused as boys merely feeds into the hoary old stereotype and slander that gays can only "recruit" to their ranks and the most effective way to do that is to molest kids, thus corrupting them into a life of sin, or "infecting" them with a "virus" of sorts (the gays-recruiting-by-molesting-kids trope is the Christian Right's version of the vampire's bite of mythology.) Thus for men like Foley or Haggard, claiming to have been sexually abused as a kid acts as a way to elicit sympathy, avoid taking full responsibility for their actions, and partially immunize them to criticism.