Webloggin » The Associated Press is Full Of Crap - Foley Follow Up Demonstrates Bias

The final ethics committee report on the Foley scandal is out and the press is covering it with the typical lack of analysis and insights that would be expected of professional journalists. Of all the mainstream media outlets covering the story perhaps none is more amateurish, predictable and inane than that of the Associated Press – an effort that solidifies their standing as the premier third rate clearing house of news and information.

The ethics committee report contains 92 pages of testimony, history and corrective recommendations. Yet the AP came away with a story that singled out the GOP as being the negligent party in a case that found that no House rules were violated in handling Foley’s actions.

Contrary to the AP coverage of the report that states that the Committee slams the GOP (a broad brush that is a lie), the ethics committee slams all parties involved – many of whom were not republicans.

The AP and most other hacks covering this story conveniently overlook the following conclusion by the ethics committee.

The Investigative Subcommittee identified several factors that may have been in play. Some may have been concerned that raising the issue too aggressively might have risked exposing Rep. Foley’s homosexuality, which could have affected him both personally and politically. There is some evidence that political considerations played a role in decisions that were made by persons in both parties.

The above paragraph is a scant five pages into the conclusions section on page 71 of the report.

For its part in this whole scandal the press finds what it looks for. The ethics committee report provides ample fodder for cherry picking activist liberals who conveniently side step any implications that knowledge of Foley’s actions spanned both sides of the aisle. Likewise they also sidestep the hard questions as to why republican Jeff Trandahl downplayed reports of Foley’s behavior as non-threatening.

It is clear to me that Republican inaction in the report was done to prevent the very scandal that it turned out to be. Yet the press never goes back to visit the hard questions that should be asked in hindsight.

For instance, Barney Frank accused the republican leadership of covering this up out of fear that the base would reject gay republicans. In other words republicans were acting out of a homophobic fear that is basically discriminatory.

Yet none of that explains why the Clerk of the House in charge of the page system didn’t do more to protect the pages. Jeff Trandhal, the Clerk, was playing a back and forth game for almost seven years without really blowing the whistle. Yes, he raised the issue but he was very careful to limit the concern to one of political risk based on the appearance of an indiscretion.

Page 34 of the report (37 pdf) contains testimony from Trandahl where he was concerned that Foley’s actions laid rest to concerns that were two fold.

Here you had – which I think is appropriate to say – a closeted gay who was putting himself in a situation of being one with young people. And if an accusation is made, he would be immediately presumed, in a political light, guilty unless he could prove himself innocent. So my counseling to him was, one, you don’t need to be in the middle of this community of children; and two, you are creating an enormous political risk for yourself.

Is Trandahl a closet homophobe? Hardly.

I am going to point out one aspect that the press doesn’t delve into as far as connecting the dots. Mainly that Trandahl has interests that go beyond that of Foley’s political career and the safety of the teens in the page program. Trandahl, as a board member and representative of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Human Rights Campaign has an interest in preventing any scandal that could include a member of the gay community. So what was originally framed as a homophobic cover up by Republican leaders can actually be seen as an attempt to protect gay sensitivities from being associated with Foley’s deviant behavior.

Given that Trandahl knew about Foley’s actions as early as the late 90’s it is pretty clear that Foley was allowed to continue his behavior for years while everyone sat on their hands. For Trandahl to state that his concerns were of a narrow twofold concern as described is misleading IMHO. Trandahl was so concerned about Foley that he intentionally rigged a vote to prevent Foley from speaking at a graduation ceremony for pages. Yet the hand waving continued for over a decade without any real action by anyone.

Trandahl’s protection of Foley makes no sense. Foley was a threat yet Trandhal couldn’t find any way to blow the whistle. Instead he continued with actions that can not be explained with any sense of credible purpose. Trandahl repeatedly characterized Foley as a nuisance and a distraction but he never reported Foley’s conduct to the page board. The AP never ponders why.

People should note the emphasis that everyone is putting on Foley being gay. I just can not remove this aspect from the picture. It seems to me that everyone was concerned with protecting fallout from that association - republicans because of the belief that it would be a career ender for Foley and lead to a wider republican scandal and democrats because they must protest any implication that a gay person be associated with deviate behavior.

Kirk Fordham echoed this sentiment in the report.

“I went in to the boss again – very uncomfortable conversation to have – and again relayed basically what Mr. Trandahl shared with me. I reminded him that because, you know, he is gay – most of his colleagues had figured out, even though he hadn’t announced that he was, you know, people were watching what he did. There [sic] were paying attention to his behavior and he needed to be more conscious of how he interacted with younger staffers, interns, pages.”

Democrats for their part did not act on the e-mail communications they received in 2005 either. Instead they took the e-mails to the press. Those e-mails would not officially surface until 2006, right before the elections. The AP report that I linked above ignores all of this in the sort of amateur write off that reeks of bias.

Democrats received a brief mention in the report.

The committee said that one Democratic aide, Matt Miller, had possession of suggestive computer messages written by Foley, and passed them along to reporters as well as a communications aide at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The investigation suggested politics was a consideration for Republicans, too.

A more accurate report would go beyond the small mention of Democrat involvement followed by a Republicans did it too statement. Democrats in the know did not make any attempt to protect the pages unless someone can explain to me how waiting for a year implies concern.

Matt Miller who was the communications director for the Democrat Caucus received the disturbing e-mails that outlined Foley’s inappropriate communications from a lobbyist. His action plan was specifically focused on going to the press. There isn’t any mention of concern for the pages; otherwise he would have sought action that would have removed Foley from the position to harm the teen pages.

Miller, who works for Democrat Senator Robert Menendez did not see fit to discuss the e-mails with Menendez who was the chairman of the Democratic caucus while Miller was its communications director. Are we to believe that Miller took it upon himself to bypass Menendez and go directly to the press with what could turn out to be one of the biggest scandals to hit Congress in decades?

I find this very hard to believe. Yet this is what Menendez and Miller are claiming. Where are the Democrats with their cries of cover up on this story? It seems to me that innuendo was enough to hang Hastert on yet here we have two prominent figures from the Democrats who pretty much figure to gain by not doing the right thing and stopping the scandal when they learned about it. Rather the story was held until right before the elections.

One can only assume that either the pages were not in any danger or that Democrats ignored that danger for electoral gain. I think either one of these scenarios is negligent.

It also appears that Democrat Rahm Emanuel also knew of the e-mails in 2005 according to Newsbusters.

Also absent from such reports was the possibility that high-ranking Democrat Rahm Emanuel of Illinois might have been aware of these electronic transmissions even though he told ABC News on October 8 that he hadn’t heard anything about them until the story broke (video available here, hat tip to Gateway Pundit).

This is being reported by CNN of all places:

The head of the House Democrats’ campaign committee, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, had heard of former Rep. Mark Foley’s inappropriate e-mails to a former male page a year before they became public, a campaign committee aide told CNN.

We can see clearly that we can not rely on the AP to get the story straight. None of the above questions and insights are brought up by those who live under the self imposed ignorance of the agenda driven AP. The childish activists couldn’t even muster a cursory read by simply skipping the report and heading to the conclusion section. As hacks go, the Associated Press is proving to be expert.

Others : Gateway Pundit, Hot Air