You know how the standard Republican response is always to blame the Democrats? Well, they’ve been doing it again in the Foley case, blaming Democrats for having known of the infamous emails and IM messages. The Dems then supposedly waited until the Fall election campaign to leak them to the Press rather than do the responsible thing and inform the Republican Leadership. And it’s a nice story, except for one small detail: It’s a LIE (via Alexander Bolton’s report in The Hill:
The source who in July gave news media Rep. Mark Foley’s (R-Fla.) suspect e-mails to a former House page says the documents came to him from a House GOP aide.
That aide has been a registered Republican since becoming eligible to vote, said the source, who showed The Hill public records supporting his claim.
The same source, who acted as an intermediary between the aide-turned-whistleblower and several news outlets, says the person who shared the documents is no longer employed in the House.
But the whistleblower was a paid GOP staffer when the documents were first given to the media.
As soon as this ex-staffer is outed, I’m sure we’ll be hearing about how he or she was secretly a mole operating on behalf of the Democratic Party. For years. Probably since birth. Probably while still in utero. Because Democrats are just so damn devious and sleasy, doncha know.
Meanwhile, for something that will really turn your stomach, something that demonstrates how low conservative (i.e., wingnut) bloggers will go when it comes to defending the righteousness of the Grand Old Party, follow me below the fold …
(cont)
It seems that a blogger going under the nom de plume “Wild Bill” at Passionate America (and I’m not providing a link to that site for reasons which will soon be obvious) has has taken it upon himself to discover the identity of the page who supposedly complained about Foley’s emails, and then out his identity publicly at his blog.
This crusading right wing zealot, in the interest of Truth, Justice and the American Way, no doubt, has not only printed the former page’s name, he has also posted numerous pictures of him at the blog, as well as pictures of other pages. In addition, he posted screenshots of this boy’s MySpace webpage, and informed everyone where he lives and works. Specifically, “Wild Bill” identified the city where this former page is currently working as a member of a Republican Congressman’s re-election campaign.
Sort of makes you feel good all over, doesn’t it? I’m sure Mr. Bill had no intention of seeing harm come to the individual he has identified as source of the Foley emails. After all, no one could anticipate that this young man might receive death threats or other harm as a result of Bill blasting his name and place of occupation all over the internets, now could they. Billy was just doing what any good Republican character assassin journalist would do under the same circumstances. Just working the story to get a scoop. Right?
Wrong. Very, very wrong. But what did we really expect from this crowd? Honesty? Compassion? Ethics? Responsibility?
Update [2006-10-5 8:43:33 by Steven D]: Matt Drudge (again, no link) has been running Wild Bill’s investigative report identifying this young man’s identity as a screaming banner headline on the front page of his website. So, let me say a few more words about this outing.
Not only is this reprehensible and morally defective conduct, it may also be untrue for all we know. Despite Wild Bill’s claims, and the so-called “proof” he displays on his blog, this story doesn’t satisfy the usual journalistic requirements of multiple sources for the claims being made. Mostly it is a lot of circumstantial evidence assembled by Wild Bill by using google and his own powers of deduction. That isn’t enough proof in my mind to justify turning this young man’s life into a living hell. Indeed, even if he was the person who was contacted by Foley via these lurid email messages, that still doesn’t justify exposing his identity to the wworld merely so Mr. Bill can claim his 15 minutes of “Gotcha!” glory.
I hope this individual sues Mr. Bill’s pants off for invasion of privacy and defamation. It probably won’t happen, but that would be justice.
