I can see from the fact that the Foley scandal is still news that it is time for a little bit of non-partisan logic to be interjected in the debate. I had hoped that some alert media personality would point out the missing obvious logic, but thus far they have not surfaced. Maybe covering the “he said, she said” aspect is easier than actually doing any real reporting. I can’t say for sure, but the media does seem to be enjoying the game.
I have spent the last few weeks watching the Republicans accuse the Democrats and the Democrats accusing the Republicans over who knew what when. They are pointing fingers back and forth to obfuscate their own part in the scandal and the media is busy trying to take a side instead of saying “you both screwed up royally on this one and you know it.”
The first question is “did the G.O.P. know about Foley’s desire to talk dirty to pages?” The answer is a big and certain YES. Hastert himself has admitted to talking to Foley about emails he received complaints about in 2003. He admits to asking Foley if they were sexual in nature. Why would you ask that unless you suspected or even knew? If you suspected why would you take the person’s word they were not. Did he actually expect Foley to admit to sending sexual emails?
The truth is that Hastert knew about this and made the decision to try and keep it quiet until after the elections. Hastert wanted to handle the scandal quietly and leave open plenty of room to deny knowledge, but he acted in 2003 so he cannot deny knowing Foley was suspected to be doing this. That only leaves his choice to not investigate it and keep a pervert in Congress over losing the seat to the Democrats.
The second question is “did the D.N.C. know about Foley’s desire to talk dirty to pages?” The answer again is a big and certain YES. It almost seems like common knowledge around D.C. that Foley was doing this and it seems that the pages were complaining to anyone who would listen from either party. There is zero chance of the Democrats not at least hearing rumors.
Article comments
1 - Jet in Columbus
Brad, I'm going to post this yet again.
In a three way race for president, if the results are close the winner will still have been elected by only slightly more than a third of the voting population.
In a country where majority rule is gospel of God, it just won't work!
Look at what havoc the 2000 election wrought!
2 - brad schader
Jet,
There is no presidential race this year. I am discussing Congress. There are many elections that have nothing to do with the President. If we keep resting the country on one man we should just get rid of Congress entirely then. The President is just a CEO. The board makes the rules.
3 - Jet in Columbus
If three kids on a playground want to be the captain of a pickup basketball game, two will be disappointed that they didn't get picked by the gym teacher. What is that such a tough concept to grasp?
Personally I blame it on the U.S. being forced to stop teaching about Jesus in the schools and forcing their evolution theories on us, by the damned liberal reactionary judges.
4 - Donnie Marler
I believe the American people doing their duty in holding the officials we elected accountable would do far more long-term good than any third party you could implement.
If the system is indeed broken it was not done by politicians in Washington, it was done by apathy in the masses.
Democrats or Republicans, black, white, yellow, red, or brown, I believe most American's share the common core values of love of country, patriotism, and a desire to pass on a better land than we inherited to our children.
To that end, we need to demand accountability from our elected officials of any stripe. Not to do so is to fail ourselves and our country.
5 - tadrinth
or perhaps the democrats told the media repeatedly about foley, and no one would run it? no one would touch the story until a republican leaked it. all of the major news sources new about him and said nothing.
6 - brad schader
"If three kids on a playground want to be the captain of a pickup basketball game, two will be disappointed that they didn't get picked by the gym teacher. What is that such a tough concept to grasp?"
I do not care if two kids are disappointed or 100. If there is room for only one team captian why do we limit the amount of people applying for the job just because someone's feelings will be hurt?
7 - brad schader
"If three kids on a playground want to be the captain of a pickup basketball game, two will be disappointed that they didn't get picked by the gym teacher. What is that such a tough concept to grasp?"
I do not care if two kids are disappointed or 100. If there is room for only one team captian why do we limit the amount of people applying for the job just because someone's feelings will be hurt?
8 - brad schader
Donnie,
I think most Americans think like Jet's comments of "In a country where majority rule is gospel of God, it just won't work!"
A majority just means more than anyone else, it does not mean over 50%. The parties we have now are not the parties this country started with. There have been many parties to come and go because times change and needs change. This failed belief that we need either a Dem or Repub to save us is ridiculous and causing this partisan nonsense.
If I had my way I would outlaw parties all together, but I know that will never happen so we need a real third option.
9 - Nancy
We do need a 3rd party - and a 4th, and a 5th, too. More importantly, we need an independent oversight committee from which lobbyists & former congressment are banned to keep an eye on and investigate all of them, without prejudice or fear of retaliation from congress or the WH. Sort of a permanent Independent Counsel, as it were. Such abuses as Hastert's attempt to change the rules to allow an indicted congressment (DeLay) to continue sitting is the most blatant & obvious reason I can think of to remove control & participation of this committee from the clutches of congress - and the WH as well, whichever party is running it.
10 - Donnie Marler
Brad, I agree with you to a point. I don't believe we should be relying on anyone to 'save us', I think the responsibility belongs to us to save ourselves. I'm not sure a third party is the answer though.
I still hold that the most effective tool we could use is an informed and involved public. We are well short of that according to the number of folks that actually vote in this country.
11 - Traal
"A majority just means more than anyone else, it does not mean over 50%."
A relative majority (plurality) means more than anyone else. An absolute majority means over 50%.
Duverger's Law explains why it's so hard to have more than two parties in a plurality election system. The solution is a preferential voting system.
12 - brad schader
The problem is that most people want to win over being right. They believe that both parties have abandoned us, but still want to be part of a winning team. As a result they vote for one of the two major parties. You hear voting for a third party as "throwing away your vote" all the time. If we would all stop fearing losing and actually vote what we believe we would find a third party would get more than 50% of the vote. The truth is that my calls for a third party are not totally accurate because right now we only have one party. We need a second.
13 - drew
The defacto two-party system that we have in place is just a result of our plurality voting system. If we switched to a voting system that allowed people to better express their preferences, multiple parties could evolve.
Simple Example - You and 9 other people are going to watch a movie together and wish to vote on which movie to watch. The choices are Sci-Fi, Action, and Drama.
If the rough preferences of the group are as follows:
4 people: Action > Drama > Sci-fi
3 people: Sci-Fi > Drama > Action
3 people: Drama > Sci-Fi > Action
Using our current voting system the Action movie would win even though 6 people prefered something other than Action. To prevent the 'Action Fans' from winning the election, it benefits the other viewers to form a single party and block vote against Action, thus two parties are formed.
If we used a Ranked voting system such as Condorce voting, the Drama movie would win as it is the clear compromise candidate.
Read more here:wikipedia
14 - Capt. Jean-Luc Pikachu
Do you have any proof that the Democrats knew about Foley, but were sitting on it until the last minute?
15 - cyber_rigger
The largest 3rd party is tha Libertarian party.
I like the fact
that they receive NO corporate contributions
ONLY personal contributions.
lp.org
16 - Ben S
I would love to live in a country that has a coalition Congress, with multiple parties, but that's never going to happen with our 1-legislator-per-district, winner-takes-all system.
17 - pleasexcusetheinterruption12
All this complaining that the problem with America is the two party system just doesnt hit home for me. There ARE other parties out there including some well established ones (green, libertarian...). But NOBODY VOTES for them. Where I live there are at least 7 political parties running candidates in the U.S. house race this fall that I know of. So not only do we have a 3rd party.. we have a 4th 5th 6th AND 7th. The problem is not a need for more parties. The problem is American's loyalty to their party/ideology rather than paying attention to the issues. It's Republican vs Democrat or Liberal vs Conservative everywhere you go. And everyone identifies with and defends one of the two to their dying word.
18 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I disagree with Brad about a third party. There are mechanisms within both parties to force change in them. Bur nobody is willing tro use them. Minnesota uses party caucuses where party members caucus by district to adopt rules, elect officer and nominate candidates.
But most folks are too busy swilling beer in front of a TV set to go to them and make their views known. So a very effective DEMOCRATIC system of controlling the political parties in Minnesota is collapsing.
You get the government you deserve.
And trust me, you do not want a mutiplicity of political parties in the States. Nothing would get done!
19 - Zedd
I don't think that the parties are defined enough to actually be called POLITICAL parties. What we vote on are the ideals of that party and not nec what that party stands for today.
Unfortunately the GOP has spun itself out of existance. They have BS'ed the people to the point where even the candidates that they now produce are shadows of what real Repupblicans are. They have played smoking mirrors so much that the their constituency is totally confused. example: "Personally I blame it on the U.S. being forced to stop teaching about Jesus in the schools and forcing their evolution theories on us, by the damned liberal reactionary judges" - Jet. WHAT??? What does that mean? What does that have to do with the two party system and the corruption in politics?
20 - Zedd
I agree that a third party is not the answer. We have several parties in this country. What is lacking is a knowledgeable population.
The two parties manipulate the public because the public is dumb.
If a stranger told you to hand anything over to him because he loves Jesus you would tell him to take a hike. All politicians have to do is tell the public that they have has some sort of religious experience and the Republicans loose their minds and give away their most charished civic possession, their vote. If they weren't too lazy to read instead of swithching on to talk radio for crazy conspiracy theories and sightings of Jesus attacks, this country wouldn't be in the trouble that we are in.
Its the public. Dumb and lazy. Consumed with soccer practice and getting the latest junk item for their even dumber kids.
21 - Zedd
If you read and are just half aware of your world, you would have looked at what was going on with Newt and the so called revolution and said "this is just BS and it isn't going to end well". Well it hasn't.
If you kept up with anything you would have looked at the rhetoric after 911 and said "that has nothing to do with what has just happened".
When hearing the first utterings of the Axis of Evil speech, if you had any sense of your world, would have said "I smell a set up around the corner."
Definately, when you heard Sadaam's name crop up regarding 911, you would have KNOWN with complete confidence like so many responsible Americans that he and Iraq have NOTHING to do the twin towers being blown up.
You would have cracked up at the color coded terror levels and the duck tape suggestions.
But we are DUMB so anyone can tell us anything and if it sounds good enough; if its emotional and wrapped around the flag and Jesus, no matter how doctrinaly inconsistant that is, or how stupid it is (a la duck tape to repel a nuclear attack) we fall for it, because we are DUMB.
And you want another party to play with our simple, plyable little minds with more false emergancies and threats around the corner?
22 - Zedd
drew- Am I missing something? It seems to me that Drama would still win because those in the third group still prefer Drama over Action so they would be more apt to volte with group 2.
Our problem is not having choice. It is that we don't know what the categories mean.
If the Action guys tell you that Drama is for French/foriegn loving, unAmerican,unrealistic immoral types and that Action represents everything that this country is about (hard work and determination, God and capitalism), the majority of voters (who would be stupid) would vote for Action.
The problem is not a lack of choice, it is a population that is easy to manipulate. They are not voting for what they really want but are voting on things that have NOTHING to do with the issues at hand and their consquences, because they are simple minded and easily manipulated. They are easily manipulated because they dont have any confidence in their own knowledge. They don't have knowledge because they don't read.
23 - brad schader
Third party was the wrong term because it implies we have two parties now. The Demo-publicans are a single party at war with itself. We need a REAL second option actually.