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Ärende: Foley
=============
I guess actually telling the *TRUTH* about the Foley scandal is verboten 
in the GOP ranks and their media whores.
  
A special Media Matters for America report: debunking the Foley myth 
machine

Summary: The scandal surrounding the sexually explicit electronic 
communications former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) allegedly sent to underage 
former congressional pages -- and the House Republican leadership's 
alleged cover-up of Foley's behavior -- have produced a wave of 
misinformation. To aid members of the media in covering the scandal, 
Media Matters for America has compiled a list of the top myths, 
falsehoods, and baseless assertions surrounding the controversy.

Democrats and their allies orchestrated the Foley scandal as a political 
dirty trick

Many media outlets, without any basis whatsoever, have repeated the 
charge by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) and others that 
Democrats or liberals are behind the Foley scandal. The charge has 
appeared in various ways; some examples include: 

Hastert, as reported in the Chicago Tribune: "The people who want to see 
this thing blow up are ABC News and a lot of Democratic operatives, 
people funded by George Soros." ... "All I know is what I hear and what 
I see. I saw Bill Clinton's adviser, Richard Morris, was saying these 
guys knew about this all along. If somebody had this info, when they had 
it, we could have dealt with it then." At the time, Hastert acknowledged 
that he had no evidence to support his charge.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), who asked: "What if it does 
turn out that, in fact, this entire thing was rigged by liberals and 
Democrats, that this entire thing was done deliberately and 
methodically, and in fact, it is the equivalent of a large dirty trick."
Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA): "Are we saying that a 15-year-old child 
would've sat on e-mails that were XXX-rated for three years and suddenly 
spring them out right on the eve of an election? That's just a little 
bit too suspicious, even for Washington, D.C."
Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC): As Media Matters noted, MSNBC host Chris 
Matthews asked McHenry if Democrats "had anything to do with holding 
information" about Foley's alleged communications with the former pages 
"and dropping it on ABC," the network that first publicized the story. 
McHenry replied that "I don't know that they did not," and then noted 
that he had written a letter demanding that "[House Democratic Leader] 
Nancy Pelosi [CA] and [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee 
chairman] Rahm Emanuel [IL] ... submit themselves under oath and say 
clearly, yes or no, did they have prior knowledge of the instant 
messages and/or emails." McHenry later stated that "this is not about 
Dennis Hastert" and added: "[T]he only question that remains is what did 
the Democrat [sic] leadership know and when did they know it?" Matthews 
also failed to challenge Kingston's statement that he "would be very 
surprised if Foley's opponent [Democratic challenger Tim Mahoney] knew 
absolutely nothing of this."
But these various charges -- that Democrats or their allies knew about 
the emails and instant messages long ago and, purposefully and in a 
coordinated fashion, released them to the media in a way designed for 
maximum political advantage -- have no basis. In fact, several media 
reports have contradicted such charges.

An October 11 Washington Post article undermined such charges. The Post 
article reported that, beginning in November 2005, "Democrats" or a 
"Democratic operative" unsuccessfully attempted to get several news 
organizations -- including Harper's (in May) and the St. Petersburg 
Times (in November 2005) -- to publish the emails. The article reported 
that "[a] second source emerged, however, just last month, peddling the 
e-mails to several other publications, including The Post." The article 
also noted that the reporter who did publish the emails -- ABC News' 
Brian Ross -- "has stressed that his initial source was a Republican," 
as Media Matters has also noted. In addition, The Hill newspaper 
reported that the media received Foley's alleged emails "from a House 
GOP aide" who "has been a registered Republican since becoming eligible 
to vote." 

Furthermore, the Post article reported that, according to Ken 
Silverstein of Harper's, his " 'Democratic operative' " source " 'was 
not working in concert with the national Democratic Party' " and that " 
'[t]his person was genuinely disgusted by Foley's behavior, amazed that 
other publications had declined to publish stories about the emails, and 
concerned that Foley might still be seeking contact with pages.' "

As for the more explicit instant messages, the Post reported that Ross's 
source for them "stressed that he is a 'staunch Republican' who 
'wouldn't vote for a Democrat ever.' " That source decided to give the 
messages to Ross after Ross's September 28 report on the alleged Foley 
emails, the Post reported. At that point, he told the Post, "I decided 
that it was in the best interests of kids in general, pages and my 
friends specifically that Foley be dealt with quickly and swiftly so 
that he couldn't hurt anyone else." 

The Post revealed that its source for the instant messages was a former 
page and college-aged "Democratic operative" who wants the Democrats to 
win control of the House in November, but reported that "when approached 
by a Post reporter about the instant messages, he was reluctant to 
provide them. Days later, he did so." According the Post, "[t]he two 
sources said they had conferred about the instant messages, which they 
had known about for months," and that their source gave them the instant 
messages "subsequent[]" to Ross's having received them from his 
reportedly Republican source.

In addition, a Chicago Tribune article reported that "[s]enior 
Republican officials contacted Hastert's office before his news 
conference Thursday [October 5] to urge that he not repeat the charges, 
and he backed away from them in his news conference," as the weblog 
TPMmuckraker.com noted.

Nevertheless, several media outlets, including National Public Radio, 
NBC's David Gregory and Tim Russert, and ABC's George Stephanopoulos, 
have reported this allegation, without any challenge. Notably, as Media 
Matters documented, CNN repeatedly reported Hastert's allegations and 
similar charges made by other Republicans on October 5 but did not once 
mention the article in The Hill or Ross's statement.

Hastert did not learn about Foley's alleged behavior until September 29

Several media accounts have reported, without challenge, Hastert's 
initial claim that he learned of the concerns regarding Foley's alleged 
behavior only on September 29, the day that Foley resigned. But, as 
Media Matters documented, Hastert later said he would not dispute the 
contention by Rep. Thomas Reynolds (R-NY) that Reynolds had brought the 
issue to his attention in the spring of 2006 (though Hastert claimed not 
to remember the discussion), and conceded that his aides had learned of 
it in late 2005. Further, several outlets entirely ignored House 
Majority Leader John Boehner's (R-OH) conflicting statements regarding 
whether he discussed the problem with Hastert.

Examples of media uncritically reporting Hastert's claim that he only 
recently learned of Foley's alleged actions include October 2 reports 
from The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Associated 
Press. Another example is a report by NBC News correspondent Mike 
Viqueira on the October 5 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris 
Matthews:

CHRIS MATTHEWS (host): So much of this involves: Who do you believe? 
Mike, as you know, the speaker has one point of view. He says nobody 
really warned me. A couple of the other leaders said that Reynolds, of 
course, and Boehner said, they did warn a staff member. He's just 
resigned. Said he did warn the speaker's staff people. Why don't they go 
lickety-split to the question at the top: Who's telling the truth? Why 
do they take weeks to do that? 

VIQUEIRA: Well, good question. You know, Hastert has largely stuck by 
his story that he didn't learn about the emails and the IMs and the rest 
of it until last Friday, the day that Foley quit. I think a lot of 
Republican members now are starting to sympathize with the speaker, 
Chris. I'm hearing a lot about a potential backlash -- you know the 
speaker brought out the George Soros card today -- that the Democrats 
were after him. He singled out ABC News. 

The alleged Foley emails that House Republicans possessed were merely 
"overly friendly"

Many media reports have uncritically repeated Hastert's characterization 
of alleged emails between Foley and a page sponsored by Rep. Rodney 
Alexander (R-LA) as merely "overly friendly." As Media Matters has 
noted, Hastert has called the alleged emails "over friendly" to justify 
the House Republican leadership's failure to investigate Foley's alleged 
behavior when it was first informed of them. However, as Media Matters 
has noted, the Los Angeles Times reported that experts in psychiatry and 
sexual misconduct have suggested that Foley's alleged emails go well 
beyond "overly friendly"; for example, one psychiatry expert told the 
Times that "they do in fact raise a red flag." In addition, as Media 
Matters has documented, several conservatives and Republicans have 
objected to Hastert's characterization of the emails as "over friendly" 
and have argued that they should have provoked deeper scrutiny from 
House Republican leaders when they first came to light.

But news reports have uncritically relayed Hastert's terminology for the 
emails. For example, Fox News chief political correspondent Carl Cameron 
reported on the October 4 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit 
Hume: 

CAMERON: Reynolds says he acted appropriately, alerting superiors in the 
spring when he learned of Foley's overly friendly emails to former 
pages, then Friday, when he learned of the salacious communication and 
demanded Foley's resignation.

Another example is a report by NBC's Mike Taibbi on the October 2 
broadcast of NBC's Today: 

TAIBBI: At least five Republican house members did know ahead of time, 
some nearly a year ago, about emails described as "over-friendly" that 
Foley sent a 16-year-old male page, though not about any overtly sexual 
messages. 

The Foley scandal has not affected voters or congressional races

Some media outlets, such as CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington 
Post, have reported without challenge Republican claims that the Foley 
scandal has not affected voters or congressional races, as Media Matters 
documented. In fact, at this point, several public opinion polls 
indicate that the Foley scandal could be hurting Republicans. A CBS/New 
York Times poll conducted October 5-8 found that 13 percent of 
independent voters, and 21 percent of all voters, said the Foley scandal 
had made them more likely to vote Democratic. An AP/Ipsos poll conducted 
October 2-4 found that 66 percent of respondents said that the "recent 
disclosures of corruption and scandal in Congress" would be at least 
"moderately important" to their "vote in November," with 48 percent 
indicating it would be "very" or "extremely" important. The poll also 
found that 62 percent of respondents were either "dissatisfied" or 
"angry" with "the Republican leadership in Congress." The AP poll had a 
margin of error of +/- 2.8 percent. Similarly, an October 5 Time 
magazine poll found that a "quarter" of respondents "say the affair 
makes them less likely to vote for Republican candidates in their 
districts come November," and that "[t]wo-thirds of Americans aware of 
the lurid e-mails set [sic] to congressional pages by a G.O.P 
congressman believe Republican leaders tried to cover up the scandal."

While three recent polls -- ABC News/Washington Post, CBS News/New York 
Times, and Newsweek -- have shown no change outside the margin of error 
on whether respondents would vote for a Democratic or Republican 
congressional candidate in November, two other recent polls showed large 
shifts toward Democrats. A USA Today/Gallup poll conducted October 6-8 
found that Democrats had made significant gains among likely voters 
since the Gallup poll last month. While Democrats and Republicans were 
tied at 48 percent in Gallup's September 15-17 poll, that has now 
shifted to a 23-point advantage for Democrats, 59 percent to 36 percent. 
Similarly, a CNN poll conducted October 6-8 found that, among likely 
voters, Democrats led Republicans 58 percent to 37 percent; by contrast, 
a CNN poll conducted as the Foley scandal broke, on September 29-October 
2, had Democrats leading Republicans 53 percent to 42 percent.

In addition, the Foley scandal appears to be affecting some individual 
races. For example, one member of the House leadership, Rep. Tom 
Reynolds (R-NY), appears to have lost ground since the scandal broke. 
While a September 28 SurveyUSA poll had Reynolds ahead of his Democratic 
challenger, Jack Davis, 45 percent to 43 percent, SurveyUSA's October 5 
poll of the race has Davis leading, 50 percent to 45 percent. While the 
margins of error for these polls were plus or minus 4.5 points and 4.6 
points, respectively, the trend toward Davis appears to be supported by 
another recent poll in the district, a Zogby International poll 
conducted for The Buffalo News and released on October 7. In that poll, 
Reynolds trailed Davis 48 percent to 33 percent.

Hastert and the GOP leadership forced Foley to resign after they learned 
of the lurid instant messages

Several media figures have uncritically reported that Hastert and the 
GOP leadership forced Foley to resign from Congress after they heard of 
his alleged sexually explicit instant messages with underage pages. For 
example, as Media Matters noted, in an October 3 entry on the National 
Review Online's weblog The Corner, National Review White House 
correspondent Byron York uncritically noted Hastert's claim on the 
October 3 Rush Limbaugh Show that "[w]e took care of Mr. Foley" and that 
"[w]e ... asked him to resign." But, a day earlier, when asked in a 
press conference "whether the leadership asked Foley to resign," Hastert 
had responded: "I think Foley resigned almost immediately upon the 
outbreak of this information, and so we really didn't have a chance to 
ask him to resign."

The claim that Hastert and the Republican leadership forced Foley to 
resign has recently gone unchallenged in several media venues, despite 
the contradictions in Hastert's own account. For example, on the October 
6 edition of NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams, NBC News 
correspondent Chip Reid uncritically reported Rep. Adam Putnam's (R-FL) 
claim that the House leadership "acted aggressively and within hours -- 
within hours of the explicit emails coming to light, they demanded 
Foley's resignation." Putnam was presumably referring to the sexually 
explicit instant messages Foley allegedly sent to an underage former 
page, because Hastert's office reportedly knew of the emails by at least 
February 2006. From the October 8 edition of NBC's Nightly News Weekend 
Edition:

REID: But Republican Adam Putnam says there's only one culprit: Foley 
himself.

PUTNAM [clip from ABC News' This Week]: The speaker's office acted 
proactively. They acted aggressively and within hours -- within hours of 
the explicit emails coming to light, they demanded Foley's resignation.

REID: Putnam appeared on the show because of the Foley scandal, sitting 
in for Congressman Tom Reynolds, head of the Republican campaign 
committee. He's in upstate New York struggling to hold on to his job. 

Gay men are more likely than heterosexual men to sexually abuse children

As Media Matters has documented, during an appearance on MSNBC's 
Hardball with Chris Matthews, Family Research Council president Tony 
Perkins used the Foley scandal to promote a falsehood about gay men -- 
that they are more likely than straight men to sexually abuse children, 
based on the claim that gay men are overrepresented in child sex-abuse 
cases. In fact, a 1995 study released by the American Psychological 
Association found that "gay men are no more likely than heterosexual men 
to perpetrate child sexual abuse." The argument that gay men are 
overrepresented in such cases is based on what John Hopkins University 
psychiatrist Frederick Berlin has described as the "flawed assumption" 
that men who abuse young boys are also attracted to grown men.

Kirk Fordham's claim that Hastert's office was told about Foley before 
2005 is uncorroborated

Recently, former Foley chief of staff Kirk Fordham asserted that he told 
Hastert of Foley's alleged behavior long before 2005, an accusation 
denied by Hastert chief of staff Scott Palmer. Some media reports have 
presented Fordham's accusation and Palmer's denial in a "he said, she 
said" manner, such as an October 16 article in Time magazine, ignoring 
the evidence that it is Fordham who is telling the truth. But as Media 
Matters noted, an unnamed current Republican congressional staffer 
recently came forth to corroborate Fordham's account, according to 
October 7 reports by various news outlets, including The Washington Post 
and The New York Times. An October 8 Times article further reported that 
Fordham's attorney stated Fordham is prepared to testify under oath 
before the House ethics committee that Fordham arranged a meeting with 
Palmer "as early as 2003" ("2003 or earlier," according to the October 7 
Post article) to discuss Foley's alleged contacts with underage 
congressional pages. 

Speaker Hastert "took responsibility" for the Foley scandal

Numerous media outlets have reported that, at his October 5 press 
conference, Hastert "took responsibility" for the Foley scandal even 
though, as Media Matters has noted, Hastert also stated at the same 
press conference that "I haven't done anything wrong, obviously."

For example, separate October 7 New York Times articles by reporters 
Adam Nagourney and Carl Hulse uncritically reported Hastert's claim, as 
did ABC News chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos, who 
stated the following during an appearance on the October 5 edition of 
ABC's World News with Charles Gibson: 

CHARLES GIBSON (anchor): And we're gonna bring in now our chief 
Washington correspondent, George Stephanopoulos. George, I used the 
phrase that the speaker was working at damage control. So, there's been 
a lot of damage this week. Did he control it?

STEPHANOPOULOS: I think he was pretty effective today, Charlie, and I 
guess President Bush must have thought so, too, because he called him 
for the first time. By apologizing, accepting responsibility, getting 
statements of support from his fellow leaders and promising to fix the 
problem, he lays the groundwork for a political defense, and that ethics 
committee investigation gives all other Republicans a reason to say 
Hastert can stay for now, they can wait until the investigation is done. 

Conservative evangelical voters are particularly outraged by Foley 
scandal

Many media reports have suggested that conservative Christians are 
likely to be particularly outraged by the Foley scandal. But as Media 
Matters noted, this suggestion is based on a dubious assumption: that 
conservative Christian voters -- so-called "family values" voters -- are 
more concerned than others with protecting children, and therefore will 
condemn more harshly than others allegations of a cover-up of alleged 
predatory behavior toward children. Even veteran Republican pollster 
Matthew Dowd has stated that "[i]t's not just the voters who care about 
'family values' who might be driven away" by the Foley scandal.

Nonetheless, Media Matters documented many media reports suggesting that 
Christian conservatives will be particularly upset by the Foley scandal, 
including:

Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman stated that the "Foley story is aimed 
right at" those "evangelical Bible-believing Christians" who have 
strongly supported Republicans in the past. (MSNBC's Countdown, 10/3/06)
CNN anchor Carol Lin reported that the "scandal is infuriating religious 
conservatives. But will they express that anger with their vote 30 days 
from now?" (CNN Newsroom, 10/8/06)
Upon learning of emails, House Republican leadership or Rep. Shimkus 
told Foley to end all contact with pages
Media reports have also falsely claimed that House Republicans privately 
told Foley in the spring of 2006 to stop all contact with congressional 
pages. For example, Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal.com assistant 
editor Brendan Miniter falsely asserted in his October 3 column that 
upon "look[ing] at the few emails" Foley had allegedly written to one 
former page, Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), chairman of the House Page Board, 
decided "to confront Mr. Foley and tell him to cut off all direct 
contact with underage pages." As Media Matters noted, Shimkus limited 
his warning to Foley only to the specific page in question, telling 
Foley "to cease all contact with this former House Page," according to a 
statement published on Shimkus's website. In his statement, Shimkus also 
asserted that he and "the then Clerk of the House, who manages the Page 
Program," had advised Foley "to be especially mindful of his conduct 
with respect to current and former House Pages," but nowhere in his 
statement did he say that he or anyone else told Foley to "cut off all 
direct contact with underage pages."

An October 2 Washington Post article headlined "FBI to Examine Foley's E-
mails" also falsely reported that Foley was told to "leave pages alone."

CREW withheld emails and other information from FBI, congressional 
leaders

Several conservatives have recently accused Citizens for Responsibility 
and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, 
of withholding information from the FBI in order to preserve the scandal 
until closer to the midterm elections. As Media Matters noted, the 
accusation arose from reports that CREW sent to the FBI in July copies 
of the emails Foley allegedly sent to an underage former congressional 
page. Anonymous Justice Department sources claimed that the copies of 
the emails CREW sent to the FBI were incomplete and heavily redacted; 
that CREW refused to comply with requests for further information; and 
that the FBI did investigate the emails, but determined that there was 
not enough to evidence suggest a criminal act.

However, as Media Matters noted, the FBI has contradicted itself on 
these allegations. For example, the FBI claimed that it did not pursue 
the Foley case after receiving the emails because CREW refused to 
provide enough information. However, the FBI also claimed that it did 
investigate the emails and found that they did not indicate that a crime 
had been committed. 

Despite this, media outlets have uncritically reported the anonymous 
sources' accusations against CREW, without challenge. As Media Matters 
documented, CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena's October 4 report -- 
which first aired on The Situation Room, and re-aired several more times 
on October 4 and 5 -- failed to note the FBI's disputed claims that CREW 
redacted the Foley emails and refused the FBI's request for more 
information, instead reporting: "Now, the FBI is refusing comment. But 
government officials insist that the FBI did investigate. In fact, they 
say that three squads looked at the emails. A public corruption squad, a 
criminal squad, and then finally a cyber squad. Now, we're told that 
agents determined at the time there wasn't enough evidence to suggest 
any criminal activity."

As Media Matters has noted, although CREW brought the emails to the 
FBI's attention, Fox News host Sean Hannity baselessly accused CREW on 
the October 5 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes of "prioritiz[ing] 
partisan politics over the safety and security of children." During the 
same program, U.S. News & World Report senior writer Michael Barone 
stated that CREW "would also have been wise to turn [the emails] over to 
... the House Page Committee," even though the House leadership 
reportedly learned of the emails long before CREW did.

A "velvet mafia" on Capitol Hill knew of Foley's alleged behavior and 
protected him from public exposure

Media accounts have also suggested that a cadre of gay congressional 
staffers protected Foley from exposure. For example, writing in the 
October 16 issue of Time magazine, national political correspondent 
Karen Tumulty uncritically reported that according to "a whisper 
campaign [that] has been launched in Washington," former Foley chief of 
staff Kirk Fordham may have been one of the "gay staff members" 
belonging to "a 'velvet mafia' at the upper levels of G.O.P. leadership" 
that sought to protect Foley.

But as Media Matters noted, Fordham has claimed that he sought to alert 
Hastert's office to Foley's alleged behavior at least three years ago, 
and an unnamed current Republican congressional staffer recently came 
forth to corroborate Fordham's account.

© 2006 Media Matters for America.

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