Clearly, this is what needs to be done:
Given the ultra-partisan, poll-driven atmosphere in Washington, most Americans have become accustomed to hearing wild — and, frankly, not very thoughtful — ideas coming from our elected leaders. Another one surfaced this week, amid the continuing outrage and embarrassment concerning former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla.
Foley, of course, resigned from Congress after it became known that he sent unsavory e-mail messages, including at least one sexually explicit one, to males who had served as pages in the House.
On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill., suggested that the page program should be shut down, at least temporarily. “We should not subject young men and women to this kind of activity, this kind of vulnerability,” LaHood said.
The page program allows 15- and 16-year-old boys and girls to learn about government by serving as aides to lawmakers. They perform menial tasks and amount to being “gofers.” But most young people who have been through the program enjoy it and, in later life, continue to praise it highly.
Apparently they can’t be trusted with our kids, so they need to shut the program down.
Do these guys think before they open their mouths?
Mike
He told the truth…must have slipped his meds.
Darrell
Kudos on the thread title…LaHood = putz.
Richard 23
If the Congress is so corrupt and perverted and leadership is so incompetant and suffering due to a “failure of imagination,” every single one of those fuckers should resign right now.
Leadership leads, therefore they must go first.
docg
If we need to shut down the page program to protect our young people, then what should we do with the Iraq project? Seems to be quite a threat to young people as well. We don’t want them blown OR blown up, do we?
Zifnab
Wont somebody please think of the children?
Dreggas
John, guys everyone take a look at THIS shit:
Signing Statement
Dreggas
forget the page program and foley for a moment and look at the link I posted. Me thinks it is coming close to shutting the country down.
Zifnab
Wow. That shit is deep. I mean… just… wow.
Dreggas
Zifnab,
hope that was ended with a tag
Dreggas
bah, ended with an end
Dreggas
ok ended with an end sarcasm tag…feel free to delete the last 2 posts *sighs*
Caleb
LaHood is scared
Tsulagi
Nothing new there, same old shit. He’s issued over 800 signing statements. It’s democracy in a Republican America. 9/11 changed everything. He said so, and Gonzales proves it in executive findings.
Mike S
Wouldn’t it be easier to make them all wear burkas? It works so well in the Middle East that I think it might be worth a try.
Zifnab
No Dreggas, I was fully and honestly speechless. But Bush went to Yale so I suppose I trust him.
Pb
What else is new. Apparently they can’t be trusted to run the country either, so they need to shut the country down.
Davebo
I think it’s obvious we should shut down the page program.
And then shut down that whole congress program thingy next.
We really shouldn’t be exposing any of the children of Washington DC to these dangers.
And Dubya agrees with me!
Mike S
BTW John. In an earlier post you talked about how scared the Hewitt types are. If you turn him on now you can see how right you were. He’s actually claiming that this will help the GOP win even more seats.
neil
Won’t anybody focus on the bigger issue? Democrats want the page program to _continue_. Hard to interpret this as anything but an endorsement of sexual harassment! That’s the real news here, right D?
Zifnab
Hey, last I checked, there were way more gays in the Democratic party. So that must mean Democrats are all pedophiles. In conclusion, vote Republican or Democrats will rape your children. They’re the only hope you have.
scarshapedstar
Why stop there? Shut down the entire House. It serves no discernible purpose these days.
Pb
Vote Republican or Speaker Bela Pelosi will show up in the dead of night and turn your children into waffling gay liberal vampires… like, Bleh!
chopper
heh, good point.
Sorry, the Republican Party can no longer state with confidence that our Congressmen will not try to hook up with underage kids. So we’re shutting the page program down.
great message to send. seriously.
Tsulagi
Appropriate title for the post. Typical Republican response. Those kids are bad apples just like in the Garden of Eden. Their fault. Too tempting. Get rid of them.
Paddy O'Shea
FOX “News” has an interesting story up this afternoon ..
House Republican candidates will suffer massive losses if House Speaker Dennis Hastert remains speaker until Election Day, according to internal polling data from a prominent GOP pollster FOX News has learned.
“The data suggests Americans have bailed on the speaker,” a Republican source briefed on the polling data told FOX News. “And the difference could be between a 20-seat loss and a 50-seat loss.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,218043,00.html
50 seat loss. Dare we dream?
KC
Paddy O’ Shea,
I wonder if that “poll” will really have an effect? I mean, it looks to me as if Hastert’s dug in his heels and has got more troops behind him. I guess we’ll see.
caroline
The only thing I have to say is
if I could vote THEM ALL out tomorrow, it wouldn’t be too soon!!!
CaseyL
NPR just ran a story saying the GOP’s “structural advantages” – i.e., money and gerrymandering – are strong enough to keep Congress in GOP hands.
And this morning, NPR ran interviews with voters in the GOP’s stronghold – rural areas – who have decided to stick with the GOP.
One woman said she would vote GOP because it’s “pro-life.”
I know that’s the usual usual, and means nothing more than fetus worship, but – in view of all the death and destruction the GOP has unleashed – I swear I want to drop-kick people who call the GOP pro-life.
Lis Riba
Yet another way of punishing the victims?
A Congressman can’t control himself so no more students will have the opportunity to serve as pages.
Pb
GOP: Pederasty over necrophilia!
jaime
Wait, did I just read a comment from Darrell? It was so nice around here the last week or so. I knew it was too good to last.
Zifnab
We’ve turned a page in the War on Pedophilia
Phoenician in a time of Romans
“We can’t be trusted with your kids, so let’s concentrate on writing your laws…”
And you know someone is going to bring up Lewinsky, claiming that a 22-23 year old intern who set her sights on bagging the Alpha Male is exactly as exploited as a 16 year old page harassed by a pedophile.
srv
So, help me out here:
What would be so bad about [insery boogeyman here] nuking DC?
I mean, really. Besides the monuments, is there really anything there that is worth preserving? Would our founders be proud? Somehow I think not.
Richard 23
A bit of an off topic question, but do we distinguish between homo and hetero burglary or bankrobbery? No? So why do the reactionaries see Foley’s pedophilia or pederasty (interest in the young uns) as a homosexual crime?
Most pedophilia involves young men or boys inflicted by adult males, most of which are are hetero. But the sexual preference has nothing to do with this.
Of course we all know this except for boy scout leaders like Corky Darrell.
Whatever.
Richard 23
Another OT question, let’s say you like the New York Yankees but think the management sucks. Does the fact that you think management sucks mean that you hate the Yankee players? No!
Just like I think Incurious George W Bush is an assclown while I love my country.
Whatever.
Richard 23
LOL! I’ll try interjecting that one into Just One Minute. I bet they run with it. Bela Pelosi’s Dead, a great song by Bauhaus!
Pb
srv,
Well let’s see, what if that happened now. Congress is out of session, Dick Cheney is probably in an undisclosed location, and there are plans in place that would probably end up effectively turning us into a monarchy and/or dictatorship overnight.
So I’ll pass, thanks.
Kirk Spencer
Richard, I really get tired of that. No, most pedopheliac preference isn’t for man on boy. That’s just what makes the news. Most of it’s man on girl. And by a HUGE ratio, pedopheliacs are male.
Actually, to be closer to accurate the pedopheliac is a lot less particular about sex – it’s the age that matters. I know of a specific case where the person preferred his targets under the age of one. His preference – that is, 5 of the 8 victims – was for “female”. Of course there’s reason to believe that was because he just had more opportunity.
Now the pederast does have sexual preference. And women form a larger proportion of this group as well. Even so, it’s about 80-90% hetero — we think, based on arrests and imprisonment records anyway.
sglover
And you know someone is going to bring up Lewinsky, claiming that a 22-23 year old intern who set her sights on bagging the Alpha Male is exactly as exploited as a 16 year old page harassed by a pedophile.
Lewinsky? Hell, I can’t believe they’re dredging up the Studds thing, which is just shy of a fucking quarter-century old!!!
Jeez, if the GOP ever lets loose with the goods on Grover Cleveland’s illegitimate kid, the Dems are sunk, for sure!
ThymeZone
It’s …. stupefying. Olbermann’s show had some clips from Monday’s cable chatter … they mentioned Studds over and over again. Just fucking amazing, the total disrespect they show for the people when they pull shit like this. They will play us for chumps at the drop of a hat, without blinking an eye. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is more important than protecting themselves.
demimondian
I went and looked that up tonight, Richard. The DOJ put out a report on molestation in the late nineties. By more than five to one, girls are more commonly abused than boys. Incestuous molesters (by far the most common type) are almost completely heterosexual. Extrafamilial molesters are most commonly neither homosexual nor heterosexual, but rather sexually oriented towards prepubescents.
Pb
At this point, I’d love to see someone–anyone–rattle off all the other (known and alleged) Republican sex scandals out there, chapter and verse, going chronologically backwards from the present. Or just go through the history of one of the Republicans on the panel! I’d love to see someone do this in person to, say, Newt Gingrich:
Richard 23
add to that what demimondian had to say….
Barf bags at the ready.
Thank God we’re only talking about creepy emails.
Vote GOP: they’re just overly friendly.
Richard 23
Awww, Lieberman is standing by Hastert in his hour of need. What a great guy!
Photonaton
On Hardball last night, LaHood said one rationale for shutting down the page prog was that it was not needed to meet his needs. After all, all they do is deliver mail and messages, and LaHood had other staff who could do that.
Isn’t that part of the problem here? Congressfolk viewing the page program from a standpoint of their needs (and desires)?
I thought the purpose of the page prog was to introduce young people to the workings of DC, not to meet the needs (and desires) of congressfolk.
When one looks at things through the wrong lens, a distorted image is the result.
Zifnab
I’m totally with LaHood on this. If a Congressman needs to get serviced while he’s working, he should leave it to the professionals. There are a number of lobbying firms who specifically cater to the every day needs of individual Congressman, making sure they get what they want when they want it, and all for the price of a few lousy votes. Who needs the page program?
Paddy O'Shea
“If a Congressman needs to get serviced while working, he should leave it to the professionals.”
So you’re saying there should be a ready supply of House-designated prostitutes standing by just in case? Sort of a Congressional Mustang Ranch?
Not sure the Fundies would go for it.
RSA
Congressional Republicans are just looking through the wrong end of the lens; everyone they see seems to be very small.
Publican
Think before we open our mouths? What for, we’re only going up against Democrats. You should be commending us for giving them a sporting chance, although we’re still going to beat them like rented mules.
Dreggas
Photonation,
The page program does do just that, that is introduce kids to the inner workings of government. After all government is all about bribes, propositioning and bending people over and screwing them without lube.
Dreggas
*bows before this special comment*
This is long but man perhaps the best Keith Olbermann has ever given. Just when you think he can’t do better:
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/A_Special_comment_about_lying_by_1006.html
Punchy
Holy Six Degrees of Blogodome. You just linked to my diary. Too frickin’ weird. Thanks, I guess.
Punchy
This is complete bullshit. 50 seats, my ass. This is Faux News scaremongering to get people out to vote. This is propaganda to make people think the “end is near” vis-a-vis Republican rule.
There isn’t a single stunt in the next 4 weeks that Faux could pull that would surprise me.
Dreggas
Punchy,
Yeah I am a Kossack, only place I’ve felt at home lately, have the same Nick there.
Dreggas
well with the exception of here anyway
mrmobi
Publican:
So you guys like to beat helpless animals, too. Nice. You must be very proud of the many kinds of misery and your party has inflicted on innocents. Go back to your cave and rape something.
Punchy
Might just be the best simile ever invented.
Andrew
That was absolutely fucking fantastic.
Olbermann will probably be forgotten to history, but he should be remembered as an important voice of American values: the only full time television broadcaster willing to openly challenge the Bush administration on general principles. The only similar expressions are from the Daily Show and Colbert Report.
All others continue to couch or dampen their criticism, fearful of being labeled liberal. Even worse, they are simply afraid of expressing opinions, period, fearful of the right wing noise machine. Even the most mainstream of “broadcasters,” like Katie Couric, will be justly reviled as platitudinous sychophants for their utter failure to speak truth to power. They are cowards.
Dreggas
Andrew,
Actually Scarborough, unbelievably, has been hammering the congress critters pretty good lately and Foley has him spitting nails and pissing vinegar. I think some of the blinders might come off, well save for tweety but he’s an ass kiss anyway.
photonaton
And thus are sown the seeds of some future rise and fall.
Santayana was wise indeed.
Andrew
Yes, he has. There’s a lot of speculation on whether he’s just trying to pull some of Olbermann’s viewers over, but I tend to believe that he’s honest (though crazy). His positions are pretty easy to take, though, and not particularly brave — somewhat significant and influential perhaps, but not brave.
Chris Matthews has also gone a bit squishy. He’s openly opposed to many (most) administration policies, but he is a quintessential beltway insider, and he has done more than his fair share of pandering and really failed during the run up to the Iraq war.
The CNN anchors are generally worthless. Anderson Cooper gets emotional a lot.
What else can you say about Fox?
The broadcast network anchors are mere script readers, though I thought Schieffer was okay. But the format doesn’t lend itself to actual reporting, let alone opinion.
My beloved News Hour is particularly afraid of accusations of bias.
The weekend shows are disasters. In a just world, Tim Russert would be in prison for dozens of crime against honesty and decency.
The media is pretty worthless.
Krista
Mystery solved. We now know scs’s true identity.
Zifnab
I get all my news from the Daily Show.
Well… and a couple no-name blogs, one of which is run by some two-bit college professor out of W.Virginia. But all the forum monkeys on that site are a bunch of hacks anyway, so I don’t give it alot of love.
Pb
However, I can’t think of a pundit with a better reason than Scarborough to want to distance himself from Foley. Interestingly enough, they were from the same class in the House:
Of course, while Foley was secretly going after live boys, Joe had a dead girl show up in his Florida office, but her death was ruled “likely accidental or the result of natural causes”, and Joe was in DC at the time.
Pb
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
bud
Getting back on topic…
The excuse is exactly that: an excuse, but I’ll take it.
Shut down the whole “page” program. The only reasons that it exists is that a) it’s a “perq” thing for Congress- another set of lips planted on their asses, and b) it’s another Tea Tasting Board – a government program is, by definition, hard to kill.
Think about it. What does a page do – besides that, you dirty old man? Deliver messages. Does your company, university, whatever, have anyone running around delivering messages? Not in the days of the ubiquitous cell phone/pager and Blackberry WiFi.
And who, exactly, are these kids? Short version, someone with connections. So, basically, we’re taxpayer funding early networking opportunities for the scions of the political class who want to go into the family business.
This is a good opportunity. Get rid of it.
scs
John Tierney had a good article on this a couple of days ago in the NYT (maybe a week by now). I happened to catch a paper version of it. I think it was called “Your Page M’Lord”. If you don’t have NYT premium, you prob can’t catch it online. Too bad because he said it better than I ever could. He started out something like asking what would most of America think if you took a bunch of highschoolers out of school and put them to work in Wal-Mart’s stockroom for months at a time for free – so that these teens might catch a glimpse of Wal-Mart corporate titans in the hallway. Anyway, it was pretty funny.
And fyi this is my third 68th comment on a thread I think tonight. Weird…..