The lie that the Dems sat on Foleygate is ridiculous on the face of it

[NNN0LHI]

What would have happened had Foley decided not to run for reelection this year? No story. Blip on the news radar months ago. Forgotten by now.

No the Dems didn't sit on this story. They would have come out with it as soon as they were aware of it had they known.

Don

[ComerPerro]

1. Their basic flaw (that the media should just slap them down with)

is that even if the Dems knew about Foley, then the Republicans are just as guilty.

I can't imagine any possible scenario where Dems would know but Republicans would not.

[Gabi Hayes]

16. this is a GREAT response! why can't the dems come up with something

like this: SHORT, simple, and logically uncontestable

it's HARD to come up with retorts to their simplistic, mendacious assertions, and this one is perfect

I've yet to hear anybody use it in public

have you tried to get it to somebody who can use it, cause you KNOW this looks to be the pugs' best hope of deflecting the story, to try to make the dems look defensive on this

as for the M$M ever countering with this, are you kidding? they're doing their best to keep the dems on their heels, always (with a very few exceptions) repeating these baseless charges without questioning the logical underpinnings, as you've stated, not too mention the COMPLETE LACK of evidence for said assertions

can you say SwiftBoat, anyone?

sure reminds me of that, when the M$M casually repeated EVERY baseless charge they made, without doing anything to see if any of it was true

[ComerPerro]

17. I can't have been the first person here to say it. It so simple, obvious

but, thank you very much for the words.

Its just one of those things where you just gotta step back.

There is no conceivable way, at all, that Dems could have found out but Repigs didn't.

Moreover, for the Dems to bring it foreward, they would need some really solid evidence, not just rumours (which is likely all they would ever have had)

[Gabi Hayes]

20. any time, but, see? you're even doing it. just STOP with your

original statement....the pugs have gained control of the dialogue with just such pithy, brief conversation stoppers as the one you provided

anything much longer than that meanders into Kerry-eyeglaze territory

the public just can't handle anything more than soundbites anymore, which is sad, but this whole masturgate thing is perfect proof of that.

condi being TOLD in scarifying terms that AL Qaeda (who's THAT) is going to blow us all up? too fricking detailed!

there were NEVER any WMDs, never any aluminum tubes, never any bio labs? they STILL believe there were

Saddam had nothing to do with 911? over 40 percent of those recently surveyed STILL think he did

Zarqawi was NOT under control of Saddam when he established a base in Norther Kurdisan? Who's Zarqawi? What's Kurdistan?

etc

etc

have you seen/heard about Mike Judge's new movie, Idiocracy? He sets it hundreds of years in the future, but it could just as well have taken place today

[ComerPerro]

21. heard of it, didn't realize it was already out

thought it was a work in progress

[stevedeshazer]

2. Of course

There is zero evidence that any Democrat knew.

This is a Republican scandal, plain and simple.

[seabeyond]

3. the person sent emails a year ago, this summer to crew and aug

to the abc reporter. that alone tells the ridiculousness that it is an oct surprise for nov election.

i do not get why this is allowed to be even stated as a guess let alone possiblity

[NOLADEM]

4. HAHA...One of the luxuries of being out of power is that it is difficult

to ultimately be responsible for anything, really.

They keep floating them down the river, but they keep sinking.

They really should have tossed Denny, and said they were sorry, and explained what happened. Reynolds and Denny doin a dance is a continuing disgrace, as are the continuing revelations about the scope of Foley's exploits, showing the public that perhaps someone should have done something somewhere along the way.

[Jacobin]

5. FIRST they try the spin that we ratted on them, NOW

they try the spin that WE knew about it and hid it?

What a bunch of dweebs.

[rpannier]

6. Especially since

the pukes made a coordinated effort to keep the House Democrats from knowing.

[TheCowsCameHome]

7. The Repugs wanted to sit on it until after Nov. 7, if not longer.

They have no desire to watch out for the kids - only their own selfish agenda.

[BlooInBloo]

8. Duh. If they HAD sat on it, it got out that they sat on it...

... they'd be in worse shit than the republicans.

It doesn't even pass the laugh test to suppose that Dems knew and sat on it.

[HereSince1628]

9. Dems made an agreement with R's not to make ethics charges

of members of the opposite party apparently back in 1998. A Melanie Sloan essay on this was posted on TPM over a year ago.

It's one of those little known "gentlemen's agreements" that the DC insiders do from time to time that no one pays attention to, until the consequences are burning across the headlines of major newspapers.

It is now more obvious than ever that the agreement completely destroyed credible concern about ethics in Congress.

If the Dems HAD the goods on an R, Pelosi probably wouldn't have let it move forward to the ethics committee.

[slaveplanet]

10. This quote is especially

delicious:

GOP hitman says-

"This was a professional hit," says Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform and a leading GOP activist.

then newsweek says-

No evidence of Democratic Party involvement has turned up, though whether the blogs got any information from party sources is open to question.



good stuff...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15178112/site/newsweek/page... /

they even threw in this at the end:

[bklyncowgirl]

19. "This was a professional hit" That pretty much rules out the Democrats

C'mon, since when have the Democrats gotten good at political dirty tricks. The Republicans have kicked them from here to Broadway and back for the past eight years.

Personally I'd LIKE to see the Democrats throw out a few curveballs but unless someone has taught them to play a much tougher political game then before, this isn't one of them.

[MadMaddie]

11. If this were the case then the Dem pages would have known

about Foley....I haven't read anything about them being warned.....

[Awsi Dooger]

12. Yeah, let's release it more than 5 weeks before the election

That would have been sheer brilliance. Hold it until we know it will partially drown out the release of the Woodward book plus the other flood of news.

It's remarkable how we changed our hold-and-release strategy. Remember, in 2000 Democrats withheld the news of Bush's old DUI until the last few days. But six years later we've decided slightly more than 5 weeks is ideal for max impact.

You wonder how the newscasters don't absolutely mock and ridicule the Republicans or righty pundits who spew that type of crap. I would savage them.

[madmusic]

13. A different take: Republicans sat on it:

The House is Burning

by creepers, Sat Oct 07, 2006 at 10:00:57 AM EST
Republicans would have us believe the outing of Mark Foley is the October surprise concocted by the Democrats.


Republican finger pointers wail that Foley's eye for the young page was well known throughout Washington and only now, on the cusp of the midterm elections, has the blow below the belt been delivered.


All in the name of politics.


Well, my view is different.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/7/10057/7708

Yes, different and very interesting. It was a Rethug setup by "the Tony Soprano of the House, James Sensenbrenner (R-WI)"

[Philosoraptor]

14. lame and desperate

[and-justice-for-all]

15. Repubicans are desperate....they will sink to anything......

...To try and maintain control, but they are spinning out of control and they will be facing the Impeachment of their king by March.

[Poiuyt]

18. They could also just report what ABC had said...that they received the

emails from a Republican staffer.

[Matariki]

22. THIS IS JUST A TYPICAL DEFLECTION STRATEGY

It doesn't matter if it's a lie, it doesn't matter if it's absurd - it just gets the media (and apparently us too) talking about the Democrats and not the Republicans and the issue at hand. Or any of the issues.

This absurdity needs to be ignored and/or dismissed with a deriding laugh. And we need to keep pounding the republicans on all their scandals and corruption.

Don't succumb to their 'talking points'

[jazzjunkysue]

23. McLaughlin on TV today: "What kind of queston is that?" when asked,

"Were the democrats involved in the cover-up or the spreading of this story?"

He's finally right about something.