More scorekeeping
Remember Mark Foley? He was that congresman that was molesting that little boy.
Well, thats the story everyone remembers at least. Its the story that got the most coverage. Bot other bits of information are missing. Information that wasent as widly repeated and changes things a lot.
As far as I am able to figure out, no criminal charges were ever found. I cant say this for sure however. Closest I have come was an article saying the Foley investigation will end in a few days but there is no folowup report when the case actualy was closed. I also found a report that no lawsuit is planed against Foley. Now I suspect that if Foley was actualy charged with any crime, that would be splashed on every headline in america. But there is no folow up info as far as I can find. Does lack of any story imply that criminal charges wernt filed?
Back up. What do we know for sure?
Well, Foley molested a little boy. Right? ….. Well, no. It was instant messages and email. No actual physical contact took place. You might make the case for soliticiation, or any number of internet-based laws. But not molestation.
Well it dosent matter. The little boy was under age and thats wrong ….. Well, no. Turns out that someone discovered un-edited screen captures on the ABC news homepage and was able to get the little boys screen name. Jordan Edmund. A bit of googling later and it turns out that Edmund turned 18 in 2003. Now a 52 year old guy flirting with an 18 year old guy may be creepy, but is it any more so than James Doohan (Scotty from StarTrek) marring an 19 year old? Hugh Hefner bangs a whole string of 18 year olds and is hailed as a hero.
Ok, so the real problem then was sexual harasement in the workplace. Foley shouldent have been sending inaproperate mesages to Edmund while he was working in his office as apage. ….. No again. Turns out that Jordan Edmund let the page program in June 2002.
Well then the real scandel was men cheating on their wives then. Unfaithfulness. ….. Sorry, but neither Foley nor Edmund were married.
Ah! But the real scandel was the coverup. Republican leadership knew what was happening and tried to hide it ….. But what exactly shoudl they have done? Oficialy denounce the action and get acused of homophobia and gay bashing? When copies of the email and IMs went to press outlets like St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald the year before, there were no strongarm tactics or threatening phone calls from republicans warning them not to run the story. Both news outlets droped the story, but not because they were preasured to by republicans. They simply didnt see anything newsworthy about two adult males flirting online. Republicn leadership didnt cover up as much as they did just ignore.
What was the real scandel then? ABC news knew of the email and IMs but held on the the story untill right before the election. Too later to have the ballots changed. As a result, a house seat that had been republican since 1973 instead went to the democrats ….. Well wait, even thats not totaly accurate. Remember the St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald both held the story back. Fox news did too. Everyone held back news of the Foley messages. Left wing news and right wing news both. ABC news only held the story because the reporter coveirng it was busy with Huricane Katrina news when he first got the information.
So the true scandel was that Foley was a hyporcyte. One of these wacked out christian zealots that hate anythign and everythign having to do with sex. He pushed his anti-sexual-freedom adgenda onto everyone else while at the same time behind closed doors was doing the things he was so loudly protesint againt ….. Wrong again. Though he did vote on ocation againt sexual rights, for a republicans he was fairly moderate. He voted in favor of stem cell research. Voted twice againt a constitutional ban on gay mariage. Backed hate crime legestlation. The gay-rights activist group ‘Log Cabin Republicans’ endorsed him as a suporter of gay rights. Overall, much more liberitirian than right-wing extremest.
So we have a sex scandel without sex. A pediophile scandel without children. A workplace harsasment scandel that didnt happen in the workplace. An infidelity scandel where nobody was married. A coverup that nobody was concered with hiding. A political scandel that wasent motovated by politics. And Psychological reaction formation of a guy who wasent a zealot againt what he was acused of being.
Acused being the key word.
The first wave of reports was that the little boy who got the emails and IMs was a child. When it was discovered that Jordan Edmund was over the age of 18 there wasent a new wave of reports that corected the first wave. The first wave just got repeated over and over.
For years now, wave after wave of reports have claimed that 2257 will be the end of porn as we know it. Nobody was retelling the fact that it started in 1988 in the aftermath of the Traci Lords event. Nobody is retelling the fact that an injunction blocked the law from ever going into efect. Nobody will retell the fact that mutiple court cases have ruled it unconstitutional.
2257 is an absoulte non-issue. Alwas has been. But if enough people repeat to eachother that its disaster, that eventualy becomes the truth. Already I see the setup. ‘Dont celebrate yet’ comes the voice of caution ‘Wait till it goes to the supreme court before you can be sure’. But since the issue will obviously never go to the supreme court, people are left forever thinking that doom is still looming in the future.