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Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 352 -- LOL, OMG, FOLEY'S DIRTY IMS ARE LIKE THE BIGGEST DEAL EV-AR!

The Networks = Mouthpiece For Democrats-

First, before we go any further, let's just all agree to agree that former Representative Foley is a strange dude, a complete fool on several levels, and it's a good thing he's no longer in any position of power.

That being said, the media coverage has been nothing short of a full blown gossip fest, rife with the sorts of factual errors and messily reported innuendoes that one usually only finds at the end of the "telephone game."

From the inability to distinguish between the concept of an email (which, while creepy-ish, were mostly harmless) and an instant message (which contained the explicit sex talk), to the incessant need to infer and imply that one creepy guy's internet chats from a few years ago with someone who is now 21 ought to have some major-- and broader-- ramifications on elections in places like Ohio and Minnesota and Connecticut, the media have really just sunk to a new low on this one.

Moreover, media coverage of this story deviates from precedent. Roughly 11-12 years ago, a member of Congress did something similar-- but oh so much worse-- with almost no meaningful network coverage:

Is this feeding frenzy what the networks would do for any scandal where a middle-aged Congressman is caught talking dirty to a teenager? No. Consider the case of Rep. Mel Reynolds (D-Illinois). In 1994, Reynolds was indicted over a consensual sexual relationship with a girl named Beverly Heard, beginning when she was 16. Heard testified that Reynolds gave her cash at each meeting and supplied her with his pager number and apartment keys.

In taped phone conversations, they even plotted group sex with a 15-year-old Catholic high school girl Heard had said wanted to have sex with him. Reynolds responded on tape: "Did I win the Lotto?" He asked Heard to take naked photos of the girl. He was indicted on August 21, 1994, and convicted on August 23, 1995 on 12 counts of sexual assault, obstruction of justice, and solicitation of child pornography.

Yikes.

A veritable media blackout, compared with the gleeful media gigglefest we've seen (and are still seeing) this year.

To recap, Mark Foley now versus Mel Reynolds then:

What Foley did was wrong. Okay. Everyone gets that. But one man's embarrassment should never have become the kind of prolonged, front-and-center, national news story that it was/is, and only in the most twistedly partisan of Democrats' minds should Foley's internet behavior have any bearing whatsoever on election contests in other parts of the country.

Unfortunately, the collective establishment media is made up almost exclusively of twistedly partisan Democrats; the coverage of this story once against demonstrates that.

Thank goodness for the Media Research Center, always there to call out media inaccuracies, double standards, hypocrisies, and biases.

Previous Trivia Tidbit: Tax Cuts Led To 6.6 Million New Jobs.

Posted by Will Franklin · 11 October 2006 06:08 PM

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