And it’s even in the very same district that Mark Foley resigned from two years ago, the 16th District of Florida. In this case his Democrat successor, Tim Mahoney, reportedly paid his former mistress $121,000 in hush money – not only that, he also got her a job at a political consulting firm. Nice work if you can get it.
For those of you who have forgotten, the Foley case revolved around inappropriate e-mails to some of the pages who worked around the Capitol and the cover-up by GOP leaders. Between that and “macaca”, the drive-by media had a field day assisting the Democrats who were running on a platform of cleaning up Washington.
Well, guess again. Even more damning are the allegations of a cover-up on the Democrat side:
Senior Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives, including Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), the chair of the Democratic Caucus, have been working with Mahoney to keep the matter from hurting his re-election campaign, the Mahoney staffers said.
A spokesperson for Emanuel denies that account, but said Emanuel did confront Mahoney “upon hearing a rumor” about an affair in 2007 and “told him he was in public life and had a responsibility to act accordingly.” The spokesperson added that it was a “private conversation” that had nothing to do with Mahoney’s re-election prospects.
Right, because they knew if this came out at the wrong time Mahoney wouldn’t have any re-election prospects. Then again, how long did it take for someone to get John Edwards to ‘fess up about his “love child?” That came out in the National Enquirer for gosh sakes.
What makes this different and more serious than anything Foley did was the money involved. Definitely, the woman in question also has a lot of court time in store for her but you have to wonder where the investigation will be on this compared to the supposed abuse of power Sarah Palin exercised as Governor – a case hurried by a Democrat State Senator to arrive prior to Election Day and extended past its original scope. As originally brought up, Palin was cleared of any wrongdoing in sacking her Public Safety Commissioner because he was an at-will employee.
(If you want to read all 263 pages of the Palin report, you can do so here. It’s noteworthy that the report assumes Palin wasn’t worried about her ex-brother-in-law because she let go part of her security detail. I think the woman can handle firearms herself!)
And I’m not even going to go into the controversy about whether Barack Obama was actually born in America. We know John McCain wasn’t born in the United States but in the Panama Canal Zone (when we still held the Panama Canal,) however Obama’s been less forthcoming. My blogger friend Bob McCarty has been all over this one, beginning with this post of his and culminating with yesterday’s video link.
In any of these cases, if the situation were reversed don’t you think the evening news would be wall-to-wall with it? The answer is blatantly obvious and reveals part of the reason we in the pajamas media are more popular than ever.
You jump so quickly from one unrelated subject to another in this story, my head is spinning. After the quote block, in the matter of just 5 sentences, you jump between 6 unrelated stories. I had to read it 3 times just to figure out what the heck you were talking about.
You’re talking about what looks like a cover-up to keep this out of the news in order to benefit Mahoney’s reelection prospects, and suddenly we’re asking how long it took Edwards to admit his indiscretions. Then Foley is brought back into the mix. Then back to the actual story at hand at least by mentioning Mahoney’s mistress, but then within that same sentence it suddenly jumps over to Sarah Palin.
But hey, I’m really glad you didn’t go into the controversy about Obama’s birthplace. That would be pretty silly to mention in a story about a sex scandal involving another Senator, wouldn’t it? Oh, wait, but you did go into it. What does that have to do with this story?
And of course, no blog post today would be worthwhile without a mention of McCain, so you threw him in here, too, just for good measure I guess.
Then after the roller coaster ride you’ve just taken us on, I think we’re back to the actual story again when you ask if the evening news would be all over this if the situation were reversed. But that’s not really clear either. You could still be talking about Obama/McCain.
Did you write this story with the intent of cramming as many names in it as possible just in the hopes of picking up some unrelated search hits?
Sorry man, but I’m left with no blatantly obvious answers after reading this.
Mike, why did you even mention the ridiculous Obama birth certificate controversy? Someone as level-headed as you can’t really believe there’s any truth to that, can you?
John McCain and all responsible Republicans need to distance themselves from the folks out there spreading the lies that Obama isn’t an American, that he’s a Muslim, that there’s something wrong with being a Muslim, thata Obama’s an Arab, that constantly repeating “Hussein” is a good electoral strategy, etc. The people doing this kind of stuff are ignorant and bigots and our party should not welcome them.
Dear Lord. Was Obama’s mother a U.S citizen? Yes. Her son is a U.S citizen. Maybe that will clear it up for you. I know you love to parrot Rush’s “drive by media” nonsense, but who do you think broke the story? Rush? One of my favorite things is to listen to Rush blast the “MSM” and the “drive bys” and then use the Washington Post, NBC, CNN, The New York Times, etc for his stories. Duh! Why you still listen to the guy is beyond me. He’s a huge (literally) hypocrite, is condescending, arrogant, and frequently wrong, but you would never know it because unlike O’Reilly (who I disagree with most of the time), he never comes back and admits when he was wrong.
Perhaps the transitions needed more work. Let me recap.
Mahoney won his seat because of Mark Foley’s sex scandal and GOP coverup, which was a nonstop news item in 2006. That covered through the blockquote. Then I compared it to another lurid sex scandal which didn’t come out until the father in question was safely out of the Presidential race.
So that’s the argument of a double standard. To buttress it I used the twin examples of Sarah Palin (and trust me, I could have used several recent examples of media beating on her) and the Obama citizenship question – more examples of double standard.
Perhaps I could have stuck with two examples but in this case I felt the more the merrier.
Marc, you know as well as I do that if Barack Obama was a conservative Republican candidate the media would be hounding him about this story. It took the pajamas media to prove Bill Burkett and CBS News were liars about forged documents in 2004, and this has the possibility of being a similar case.
FF, obviously there’s a question about immigration laws here that needs to be cleared up – Obama can easily do so but chooses not to.
And I happen to enjoy listening to Rush, thank you. Having listened to him awhile, I’ve found he is right most of the time…it could be something of a self-fulfilling prophecy but you can’t discount his influence, both on me and in general.
Why should Obama clear up the law? You guys get off your butts and read the Constitution–it isn’t difficult to find! Obama does not need to address every wacky idea they throw out there. Let’s try one: McCain was born in Zimbabwe, therefore he is not a U.S citizen! Now, should McCain scurry over here and PROVE to me he wasn’t born in Zimbabwe? How is he going to prove it to my satisfaction? Show me a birth certificate? Well, that can be faked (right, all you anti-Obama fanatics?)! Give me pictures? Hello–photoshop! Testimony of friends? Well, they must all be liars. Can you see how ludicrous this is? Why does McCain choose not to prove that he wasn’t born in Zimbabwe? There is a principle in logic about “proving a negative.” It is virtually impossible. C’mon Michael, you are smarter than this! I have always respected you even when I disagree with you, but you really should distance yourself from this “Obama is not a citizen” nonsense.
For once I have to agree with Final Frontier. Even if the ridiculous birth certificate story were about McCain I doubt you’d see the mainstream media all over it. The story is just too stupid. It has absolutely no basis in fact and is driven by people who are either filled with hate or filled with ignorance about how citizenship laws work. Our party doesn’t need those kind of morons in it.
Marc, the person who brought the lawsuit is a Democrat. So the Obama story isn’t necessarily partisan, my point was that if the roles were reversed I’m of the opinion that it would be a huge story – it’s why I brought up the Burkett/Rathergate story in my last comment.
Obviously if Obama is elected the question is moot because there’s no way to impeach Obama with the Senate comprised as it may well be (even if one could call this an impeachable offense – after all we didn’t have birth certificates for most Presidents, just their word that they were qualified per the Constitution)…you only need 33 rabidly partisan Democrats in there to keep Obama in office and they’ll have at least 40 to 50.
Mike, let me just ask this: do you believe that Obama is a U.S. citizen? Do you believe his birth certificate has been forged?
I think he is and it’s probably a legitimate birth certificate. But how hard would it be to provide the evidence? Besides, if the media can dig up a 25 year old DUI conviction on the eve of the 2000 election, why not prove this once and for all?
I’m sure either John McCain or the RNC (or both) are doing opposition research so this may be much ado about nothing.