STORY: http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/29/congressman.e.mails/index.html

A local radio station got hold of the transcript, and did a dramatization of the conversation.

I suggest you listen, it's hilarious. I could barely contain myself at work when I heard it;

AUDIO: http://www.supload.com/listen?s=S277FMj4xjk

Meh. Can't really blame the guy.

Wow that's totally offensive and hilarious.

I wish they'd shut up the other guys laughing.

A Congressman should know better to watch out for what kind of information moves in the TUBES.

Don and Mike did it better.

A congressman who knows how to use IM at least---he's got to be more competent than 95% of all the other congressmen.

Haha, the "congressman's" voice is hilarious.

TELL ME WHEN YOURS REACHES ROCK.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

WELL I HAVE
A TOTALLY STIFF WOOD
RIGHT NOW

I possibly may or may not have just **** myself. That's hilarious.

[QUOTE=Vincent Valentine]I wish they'd shut up the other guys laughing.[/QUOTE]

I agree.

My floormate and I were reading the transcript, (They're actually skipping a decent amount) and we kept yelling "This is a F&@$ING SENATOR". It scared the people across the hall..

Oh my...I'm crying now.

Why? Did he text message you too?

Anovis wins the thread.

Beautiful.

Anyone have a link to the transcript?

I don't care if that was aimed at me, that was good.

I'm just now listening to the audio. This guy's un****ingbelievably stupid, and somehow he was still expected to win re-election easily. It'd be hilarious if it wasn't so... well, actually it's still hilarious. But it's also sad. Supports my opinion that we ought to just vote out the entire House of Representatives and replace them with a new bunch of morons.

It's strange how sex and politics go hand-in-hand so comically well together.

Oh and now this

Heh, check the current "Quick Vote" on that article: "Would you let your 15-year-old child become a congressional page?" Two thirds say no. If this poll had been conducted before the scandal, I'll bet that easily 80% would have said yes. People are funny.

Stupid is more like it.

HE SAID HE WAS A COLLEGE STUDENT. >.<

-I heard about this recently. This guy is in charge of convicting Pedophiles, you know. I heart republicans.

Roth wants you to know that he is a gay man.

WHY IS THIS SO FUNNY? .

Actually, he was a congressional representative. But I agree that it is good to see the party policing its own



Maybe they were scared because you thought he was a senator.

Funny that this is seen as an election issue. Other than in that one district, that is.

Probably for the same reason that some people called for Clinton's impeachment. I'll leave that logic to you, good sir.

I don't see the similarity. Actually, these incidents and following actions couldn't be much more dissimilar.

Let me clarify:

WHY IS THIS SO FUNNY? IT'S AWESOME AND I DON'T KNOW WHY!

No, I meant to imply that he had been soliciting me, hence the show of disbelief. In reality, I only recently heard of this insanity.

-And the mention of republicans was to insinuate that this is yet another case of their appointing wolves to guard the sheep.

l.m.f.a.o.

Jarl, your assumption that the actions of one man in anyway reflects the quality of persons in the party as a whole offends me. It's prejudice.

This shouldn't be a big story unless some evidence that someone else in the house knew about it and covered it up turns up. It's a shame that the media has been grabbed by this 'foley hysteria'. It is EXACTLY like the lewinsky scandal. The details are different, but the behavior of the press is identicle. I definitly see the same influence the GOP pulled to begin Clinton's impeachment here, except coming from the other side. ABC supposably had this information in august. Their release of the information could not have been better timed to influence the election in november, and there is no such thing as a coincidence in politics.

Humor abounds, though. Foley: "I make no excuse for my actions."
Foley's lawyer: "Foley was molested as a child. And was drunk. And the legal age in DC is 16 anyway."

Don't expect there to be actual charges. The victims were all 16 and 17. It's an abuse of power, but at this point, it seems not technically a crime.

The only similarity to the Lewinsky matter is that there are sexual themes in both cases. Other than that, like I said before, the cases couldn't be much more dissimilar to include the behavior of the press.

Actually, according to the Adam Walsh Act--which Foley helped pass--the solicitation of a minor for sexual purposes over the internet is a crime. Sixteen and seventeen year-olds are still minors, and thus his actions break the law even if the age of consent is sixteen in DC. However, the instant message conversations took place before the bill was signed into law. Almost hung himself with a rope of his design.

However, some of the conversations took place in Florida where the age of consent is eighteen. An interesting situation... Foley is in Florida, the kid is in DC, which age of consent is honored?

I wouldn't be patting the Republican party on the back quite yet for their handling of the situation either. Republican staffers were warning pages to be careful around Foley back in 2001 and certain members of Congress knew about his behavior for months without taking serious actions. I'm not ready to point fingers, but I don't think the whole story has come to light yet and I'm interested in seeing how it progresses.

You people disgust me. This was a United States Congressman. Have some respect.

Get off your high horse, you know it's funny.

Typo. I meant Representative.

Look, in all this reporting I've learned these basic facts:

He sent an email to a page concerning huricane Katrina and asking for a picture. The parents described the email as overly friendly and asked that he no longer contact their son. It appears that those wishes were respected and nobody ever alleged impropriety.

Lewd instant messages with a page surfaced which prompted the congressman to immediately resign and the house to take appropriate action.

Much else appears to be conjecture. My conjecture is as follows. Foley was known to be gay. The parents of the boy who received the email were probably aware of this and unfortable with the contact. Could be a shame since the contact likely was innocent. I'm also unaware of reporting that Foley knowingly communicated with a page over IM. It's quite possible that the conversation was simply gay in context and that either the page sought out Foley either as a prank or something else. Then, of course, the messages found their way to people who intended to capitalize politically from the event.

Of course I could be mistaken and my post is heavily abreviated but this is quite obviously a politically driven story and I anxiously await more reporting of the facts.

Mine reached rock.

Maybe this just came out and you didn't hear about it, but... "A longtime chief of staff to disgraced former representative Mark Foley of West Palm Beach approached House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office three years ago, repeatedly imploring senior Republicans to help stop Foley's advances toward teenage male pages, the staff member said Wednesday."

So... the house knew something was wrong in 2003. It doesn't sound like conjecture to me.


If you read the transcripts of the conversation, it seems pretty clear to me that Foley knew who he was talking to:

Maf54 (7:37:27 PM): how my favorite young stud doing

Maf54 (7:51:22 PM): at your age seems like it would be daily [referring to masturbation]

Xxxxxxxxx (8:10:54 PM): brb...my mom is yelling

Xxxxxxxxx (8:16:53 PM): well i better go finish my hw...i just found out from a friend that i have to finish reading and notating a book for AP english

Foley knew he was talking to a kid.

Your theory also overlooks the fact that the e-mails were given to the media by a longtime Republican and not "people who intended to capitalize politically from the event."

(dangit, that server sucks. It keeps cutting out, so finally I just decided to download the file, and it's going at 13 KB/s. )

.