Posted by
Gary Gross on Thursday, October 05, 2006 8:44:53 PM
Democrats are about to get whip-sawed if they keep their jaw-jacking up much longer. They're acting as if
this Drudge Report didn't exist. That's a monumental mistake.
CLAIM: FILTHY FOLEY ONLINE MESSAGES WERE PAGE PRANK GONE AWRY
**World Exclusive**
**Must Credit the DRUDGE REPORT**
According to two people close to former congressional page Jordan Edmund, the now famous lurid AOL Instant Message exchanges that led to the resignation of Mark Foley were part of an online prank that by mistake got into the hands of enemy political operatives, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal.
According to one Oklahoma source who knows the former page very well, Edmund, a conservative Republican, goaded an unwitting Foley to type embarrassing comments that were then shared with a small group of young Hill politicos. The prank went awry when the saved IM sessions got into the hands of political operatives favorable to Democrats.
The primary source, an ally of Edmund, adamantly proclaims that the former page is not a homosexual. The prank scenario was confirmed by a second associate of Edmund. Both are fearful that their political careers will be affected if they are publicly brought into the investigation.
The prank scenario only applies to the Edmund IM sessions and does not necessarily apply to any other exchanges between the former congressman and others.
The news come on the heels that Edmund has hired former Timothy McVeigh attorney, Stephen Jones.
Developing...
The Drudge Report article notwithstanding,
Howard Dean issued the following incendiary statement:
"What Republicans don't understand is that this is about children, not politics. People are looking at this as concerned parents, not as Republicans or Democrats. It's disgraceful that Speaker Hastert and the Republican leadership didn't stand up for our children and do the right thing when they learned about the problem years ago, rather than a week after it became public. They chose to protect Congressman Foley and their party instead of the victims. Americans don't want to see finger pointing from the Republican leadership, they don't want to see the Speaker dodging tough questions. They want to see the people involved unequivocally stand up, take responsibility for their failures and investigate immediately."
Excuse me, Gov. Dean, but the IM's were to an adult, age 18. Furthermore, the thought that "Democratic operatives" had this information and did nothing with it until now suggests that Democrats weren't interested in children as much as they were interested in playing political games with the information. In fact, it suggests that Democrats were counting on this 'October Surprise' all along in their efforts to win control of the House and Senate.
Not to be outdone,
Harry Reid issued his own statement:
"It is not enough for House Republican leaders to work to ensure this disgrace is not repeated in the future. Every parent in America expects them to fully investigate why it was permitted in the first place. The problem today isn't the page program, which has been in existence since the time of Daniel Webster. The problem today is that House Republican leaders had evidence of a sexual predator in their ranks and chose to cover it up instead of choosing to protect these children. What is needed is for Republican leaders to testify under oath about what they knew, when they knew it, and why they didn't properly act."
Excuse me Senator Reid, but who's the sexual predator you're refering to? It seems to me that Drudge's article proves that the lurid IM's were a prank, not reality. It also says that Democratic operatives had this information and held onto it until they could spring an 'October Surprise' in their desparate attempt to win back the House and Senate. Too bad
it's about to backfire:
Let’s think about the implications of all this if it is true and Jordan Edmunds, Republican, was simply a person in on joke IMs from 2003 with Foley. It means ABC News did not perform minimal due diligence since bloggers Wild Bill and Ms. Underestimating were able to get a brief glimpse at the AOL account name and find the young man in Oklahoma in a few short days. Can we assume ABC was able to get that far? Why not, they should have been able to. Then how is it they did not get the potentially damaging story that these were pranks emails, not for real? How could they miss that? And how could ABCNews miss the fact the source was a Democrat operative?
Well, there are only so many reasonable conclusions we can speculate about. Option (1): The Democrat operative could have pretended to be Edmunds and lied to a lot of people about a lot of things. But recall these IM messages came AFTER a well publicized leak regarding questionable (but legal) emails from 2005. So were these two different sources? Still, how is it ABCNews missed the real Jordan Edmunds? Option (2): Edmunds was approached about the IMs and provided them to the Democrat operative, possibly for something in return (e.g., cold hard cash, keeping quiet). This way Edmunds would pretend to be the victim to ABC News when it caught up to him. Option (3): ABCNews was so sloppy (or negligent) they printed anything they got and did no due diligence whatsoever, or were never inclined to for other reasons.