GOP on Foley: "Why the two orders?"

[pat_k]

A Few Good Men

Kaffee: . . .you said he was being transferred because he was in grave danger.
Jessup: That’s correct.
. . .
Kaffee: Then why the two orders? Colonel?
. . .
Kaffee: If Lt. Kendrick gave an order, that Santiago wasn't to be touched, then why did he have to be transferred? Colonel? . . .

GOP Investigation:

John Shimkus, Chair, House Page Board
Shimkus said. He said Foley assured him it was an innocent exchange, but 'nevertheless, we ordered Congressman Foley to cease all contact' with the boy and to respect all pages. '

If you believed it was an innocent exchange, then why did you order him to cease and desist? Chairman?

[Redstone]

1. Why, indeed?

Redstone

[dsc]

2. actually that would be easy to answer

I am a teacher and I am sure my principal would tell me in no uncertain terms that any private emailing of students was inappropriate no matter what the content of the message was. Hence an exchange could be innocent in content but still against policy.

[longship]

6. And don't forget that you are also a "mandated reporter"

If such activity is even suspected you are obligated to report it to authorities, and that does not mean to your principal.

Too bad Congressmen are not also mandated reporters. ... or are they?

[dsc]

7. I haven't seen the law so I don't know

they did make a big deal of eliminating the mandatory exemption from laws that Congress used to have.

[longship]

8. In what state are you a teacher?

Here in CA we had to sign an affidavit that we understood that we were mandated reporters. All people in professions dealing with children (under the age of 18) have to sign such an affidavit here. Apparently not where you are. Interesting.

[dsc]

11. I was asked if members of Congress were covered

and that is what I don't know.

[longship]

18. Oh, that? I know the answer to that.

They are not covered. However, this *very* Congress passed a law this year--with the Repukes standing tall and making grandious pronouncements--which increased the penalties to mandated reporters who failed to report suspicions.

Here are Hastert's own words on it:
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2269366&mesg_id=2269422

[dsc]

19. what a shock more hypocrisy

[pat_k]

15. Email from a 50+ yo man, to a 16 yo boy, that references the "hot body" of

. . that boy's friend is NOT innocent in content.

They keep describing and characterizing that mail, not quoting it.

That was not an email from a man you would "accept the word of" regarding the "innocent exchange."

[dsc]

20. I thought only the IM messages were explicit

[pat_k]

21. IMs were worse, but Americablog reported that the "innocent". . .

. . .how ya doin' after katrina email exchange last year contained the "hot body" reference.

[dsc]

22. then there is no excuse at all

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. b i n g o !

I will take that logic and put it in letters to the editor.

[twilight_sailing]

4. Good

one.

[tocqueville]

5. because Shimkus can't handle the truth n/t

[pat_k]

16. fascists ,as a rule, can't (nt)

[gatorboy]

9. YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

Couldn't resist.

[pat_k]

13. . . .and they can't

. . . it's like the "see no evil, hear no evil" monkeys, except that, instead of "speak no evil" they have a "do evil" monkey.

[AlGore-08.com]

10. Sorry, this is typical advise in the world of corporate HR

At least in the companies I've worked for.

If employee A accuses employee B of sexual harassment (or using racial slurs or homophobic slurs or religious bias, etc.), and the HR department can't prove or disprove the accusation, the HR department will tell employee B to avoid all contact with employee A - - and vice versa.

And one or both employees will be given further warnings like, "Watch the company's 'Sexual Harassment In The Workplace' video again" or "Remember to behave in a businesslike manner at all times".

A more fruitful line, IMNSHO, would be to question whether Shimkus investigated beyond asking Foley's "side" of this. And if Shimkus didn't do a real investigation, what is the reason for that?

[pat_k]

12. Presumably, they do more to "prove or disprove" than take the . . .

. . .word of the accused.

They keep describing the memo they know about as inconclusive in some way. As usual, reporters are describing and characteristing, not quoting. I would call an email from a 50+ year old man to a 16 year old boy that tells that boy that "your friend has a hot body" pretty conclusive proof that this is not a person to trust around young boys.

Or to put in charge of legislation to protect children from sexual predators.

[Recursion]

14. Sounds typical honestly

Congress is very nervous about pages. Some time in the late '80s there were a few other sex scandals, and there was a big drug bust among the pages in '92 and another one more recently. These are real type-A overachieving 16-year-olds, the same kinds of kids that go to governors school or whatever, often away from home for the first time spending a semester in DC, going to school from 6am to 10am (I was one of the non-overachieving politically connected lazy pages :) ) and then working from 10am until whenever the House got out of session (which could be 8am the next morning). The Family and Medical Leave act was the worst: I seem to recall the House was in session for 3 solid days trying to pass that. After hour 30 it gets really hazy, but I do remember at some point Bonior brought us coffee, for which I have always been grateful to him. I was the one that ran the vote up from the well and I fell asleep on the printer at one point.

I remember the unwritten rules being something like:
Pages could sleep with each other
Pages could sleep with interns
Male pages could sleep with female staffers but not the other way around (yeah, double standard; sorry, I didn't make the rules)
Pages and Members of Congress were not supposed to be alone together

It was easier Back In The Day before the '80s sex scandals because pages were just on their own in apartments. When I was there pages were in a dorm in House Annex 1 (now a parking lot). I heard they moved the dorm but I don't know to where.

The Page board was, 13 years ago at least, very very very paranoid about some parent coming forward with whatever allegations and particularly (as a poster alluded to in another thread) blackmailing a Member.

Other things I learned as a page:
1. Gingrich smells really really really bad
2. Female house pages wear skirts. Female senate pages have to wear pants because Strom would try to look up their skirts (probably Ted too)
3. Chelsea wanted to be a page but Eleanor Holmes-Norton wouldn't appoint her (OK, that one was just a rumor).
4. You learn almost 0 analytic geometry when your class starts at 6 am
5. You can make a Metro escalator stop by wedging your foot in between two steps as they start to come together
6. Rostenkowski (D, Federal Penitentiary) used to vote for Jamie Whitten (D, Antediluvian) because Whitten was too senile to press the lever or understand what the vote was about.

[LeftCoast]

17. Does anyone know, were the Democratic pages warned?

Or was it just the republican kids they decided to warn away from this predator?

[Senator]

23. K&R