WSJ's Miniter falsely asserted Shimkus told Foley "to cut off all direct contact with underage pages"
SUMMARY: OpinionJournal.com assistant editor Brendan Miniter falsely asserted that Rep. John Shimkus, chairman of the House Page Board, decided "to confront [former Rep. Mark] Foley and tell him to cut off all direct contact with underage pages." In fact, according to a statement Shimkus put out, he ordered Foley to cut off contact with only one specific page; he otherwise advised Foley "to be especially mindful of his conduct with respect to current and former House Pages."
In an attempt to recount "what we know so far" about the emerging scandal surrounding former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL), who abruptly resigned from Congress on September 29 amid allegations that he sent sexually explicit emails and instant messages to underage former congressional pages, Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal.com assistant editor Brendan Miniter falsely asserted in his October 3 column that upon "look[ing] at the few emails" Foley had written to one page, Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), chairman of the House Page Board, decided "to confront Mr. Foley and tell him to cut off all direct contact with underage pages." In fact, as Media Matters for America has noted, Shimkus limited his warning to Foley only to the specific page in question, telling Foley "to cease all contact with this former House Page," according to a statement published on Shimkus's website. In his statement, Shimkus also asserted that he and "the then Clerk of the House, who manages the Page Program," had advised Foley "to be especially mindful of his conduct with respect to current and former House Pages," but nowhere in his statement did he say that he or anyone else told Foley to "cut off all direct contact with underage pages."
From Miniter's October 3 OpinionJournal.com column:
Here's what we know so far: Late last year, when informed that there might be something amiss, the speaker's office referred the issue to Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois. He heads the committee in charge of the page program, and he took a look at the few emails that had surfaced. Mr. Shimkus was concerned enough by what he saw to confront Mr. Foley and tell him to cut off all direct contact with underage pages. The Florida congressman apparently spun a story that he was only mentoring the boy who had received the emails. And, looking over messages asking for a picture and what the page wanted for his birthday, Mr. Shimkus apparently bought it. But the question that will haunt Republicans now is, if the evidence was compelling enough to confront Mr. Foley, why wasn't it also compelling enough to dig deeper?
I suspect over the next few days, if not hours, that minute, almost unnoticed, changes in this rotten story will begin to creep into the right-wingers' reporting of it. Within a week or so, it will be whittled down to a "no-big-deal" episode and then the attacks against those who know the truth will begin: "politicising the pain of a teenaged boy", "far-left smear sites", "it's Clinton's fault", etc. Good god, if Democrats can't win huge in this election cycle, given ALL the crime and corruption these Repukelicans have generated, they should fold their tents.
that it gets back into proportion in terms of the seedy and salacious preempting the coverage of what is truly new surfacing from the reporting on the heels of the book by the jackal in wolve's clothing, Woodward. We are flooded with stuff diverting attention from the fact that Tenet not only told Rice about the proverbial "dots drawn together but within a week on her orders presented a powerpoint demosntration to Rumsfeld (who has denied this) and ... get this ... showed the same powerpoint presentation to Phillip Zelikow on the commission (Rice's former book collaberator subsequently rewarded with a 2005 appointment to her office in State) that was unreported by the Commission, and Zelikow is not saying why. Looks like Tenet was what a lot of people thought he was: the scapegoat. It would be interesting to know if he really ever used the "slamdunk" language on Iraq, and if he did, why? The only thing I can figure is that he has bought into the line of thinking of the 9/11 Commission as described in Harper's: that they had to come up with a milk and honey presentation when they realized Bush lied to them and didn't think the Republic was strong enough to deal with the lie. Why not? It withstood the impeachment when Clinton lied about his zipper.
If you haven't the Harpers article yet, you need to now: [link to www.harpers.org]
and with regard to the sources re Tenet, then see [link to www.realcities.com]
Here is a faster link re tenet: [link to www.realcities.com]