politics

Is the Foley Scandal Bringing the Blogosphere Together?

Bloggers on both the Right and the Left can agree on one thing, and one thing only: the GOP leadership isn't doing a good job at...
October 5, 2006

To no one’s surprise, the Foley scandal continues to dominate headlines today, as politicians, pundits, and media outlets rack up coverage and comments on the story. With the scandal damaging Republican congressional leaders before midterm elections, numerous conservatives have suggested that the story’s convenient timing may be the work of covert Democrat planning. An article in the Hill today examining the story’s leak, however, suggests otherwise.

Fortunately for us, the chatter isn’t ending there. One blogger, or converted conspiracy theorist, alluded to some serious foul play.

“That brings me to Foley,” writes Macsmind. “While he resigned, there is no indication from him that all the IM’s received so far were in fact from him. Sure we have his statement where he apologizes for embarrassing everyone, but this was while a few IM were known. We now have more than 60 at last count. Did they all in fact originate with him? Or did someone else in fact use his sign-on and pretend to be him.”

Concludes Macsmind: “Lots of questions, but this story is more than just about Foley, and we are going to get to the bottom of it before too long.”

While not going to such extended lengths, some commentators expressed plenty of doubts.

Notes the Strata-sphere, “The media cannot react as fast and does not have the brain power to sift this information and condence out the essence of what is going on. We have clear indications of a planted, false story. And the news media is going to be playing catch up from here in because they chose to ignore the information and instead fell into their fantasy dreams once again.”

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Other conservative-minded bloggers, however, remain intent on challenging the political motives of Republican party leadership.

“Some conservative bloggers are keeping the focus on ‘our yard,’ while others are going after the media and the Democrats,” explains LaShawn Barber. “I frankly don’t care what part Democrats played in all this. Mark Foley is a predator, and it doesn’t matter who exposed him or that a ‘fake blog’ was set up for that purpose. Foley’s perversion — and Republican House leaders’ complicity in sweeping it under the rug so they could hold on to House seats — are the only things I care about.”

Across the aisle, the ever-vocal DailyKos agreed wholeheartedly.

“One thing all parties agree on — the honest conservatives, the dishonest conservatives, the media — is that the GOP leadership is in complete chaos, here,”concludes Kos. “The ‘honest’ conservatives are genuinely infuriated at the betrayal, yet again, of the most basic tenets of ethics and morality, this time right in the very building. The dishonest conservatives are furious at the ham-fisted, disastrous responses still happening from Hastert, Reynolds, Boehner, and the others. Hastert has almost no remaining support from any quarter.”

Other bloggers aimed to deflate widely circulating conspiracy theories.

Proclaims MyDD: “At every turn in this story, Republican claims have been proven false within hours of being uttered. Yes, the fact that a member of the Republican leadership in the House engaged in purely wrong relationships with House pages is damning. Extremely damning. Damning enough to help convince voters to throw out the GOP Congress — if they hadn’t decided to do so already.”

Noting potential resignations and investigations, one lefty pundit made a mild attempt at masking his glee.

“The fact is, this scandal is a purely self-inflicted wound by the GOP, Notes the Anonymous Liberal. “It’s very likely that by the time you’re reading this Denny Hastert will have announced his resignation (or at least his decision not to continue on as Speaker of the House next term). That’s the kind of thing that happens when you’ve completely run out of talking points. Heads have to roll. And given that Boehner, Reynolds and a few other GOP leaders seem just as implicated in this mess as Hastert, his resignation may well trigger a domino effect that takes out a number of others too. We’ll see.”

Andrew Bielak was a CJR intern.