NY Times uncritically reported Hastert statement about ethics committee report
SUMMARY: A New York Times article uncritically reported Dennis Hastert's statement that the ethics committee's investigation into former Rep. Mark Foley's conduct toward congressional pages "found no evidence that anyone knew about the sexually charged instant messages that led to Mr. Foley's resignation." However, it did not report evidence found by the committee that, in 2001, a former page provided Rep. Jim Kolbe with sexually explicit IMs allegedly written by Foley.
A December 9 New York Times article uncritically reported House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's (R-IL) statement that the House ethics committee's investigation into former Rep. Mark Foley's (R-AZ) conduct toward congressional pages "found no evidence that anyone knew about the sexually charged instant messages that led to Mr. Foley's resignation." Hastert's statement is technically true -- the committee's report did not find any evidence that House members or staff knew of the sexually explicit IMs Foley allegedly sent a former page in 2003 and that ABC News obtained in late September, leading Foley to resign. But while the Times reported Hastert's statement about the lack of awareness regarding the 2003 IMs, the article ignored evidence separately found by the committee that, in 2001, a former page provided Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) with sexually explicit IMs allegedly written by Foley.
In its "narrative summary" of the Foley scandal, the ethics committee found that, prior to ABC News' September 29 and 30 reports, no one on Capitol Hill had known of the sexually explicit messages Foley had allegedly sent several former pages in 2003. From the report:
ABC News included a "tip line" on its website, and on the evening of September 28 a former page ("Former Page X") contacted ABC News and reported that he had information regarding Rep. Foley's interaction with former pages.250 In 2003, Former Page X had received copies of multiple sexually explicit IM conversations from Rep. Foley to two other former pages. ... Former Page X did not forward the IMs to anyone or take any other action when he first received them in 2003, but he stored the IMs on his computer where they remained until September 28, 2006.
[...]
On the evening of September 28, Former Page X was alerted to the ABC story by another former page, and he remembered the IMs that he had received in 2003. ... Former Page X contacted ABC through the tip line, and he forwarded the IMs on the evening of September 28 and the morning of September 29.
[...]
Prior to September 28 and 29, 2006 the IMs were apparently known to a number of pages and close friends of the IM recipients.
[...]
The Investigative Subcommittee uncovered no evidence that the IMs were provided to, or were possessed by, any House Member, officer or employee, the press, or any political organization prior to September 28 and 29, 2006.
In his December 8 statement responding to the ethics committee's report, Hastert quoted the section bolded above, noting that the committee had "confirmed" what he had "said at the time" of the controversy:
I asked the Committee to do this tough job promptly, and they have. I want to thank them for their diligent and hard work in preparing a thorough and final report. My staff and I voluntarily and fully cooperated with this investigation. I am glad the Committee made clear that there was no violation of any House Rules by any Member or staff. As I said at the time -- and the Committee has now confirmed --.
"The Investigative Subcommittee uncovered no evidence that the IMs were provided to, or were possessed by, any House member, officer, or employee, the press, or any political organization prior to September 28 and 29, 2006." (Report, page 63)
In its December 9 article, the Times reported the content of Hastert's statement:
In a written statement on Friday, Mr. Hastert noted that the investigation found no evidence that anyone knew about the sexually charged instant messages that led to Mr. Foley's resignation. "I am glad the committee made clear that there was no violation of any House rules by any member or staff," he added.
But while the Times highlighted Hastert's statement -- which referred to the part of the ethics committee report that focused specifically on the 2003 messages published by ABC News -- the article ignored that the committee also uncovered evidence that a former page had provided Kolbe with a separate set of sexually explicit IMs allegedly written by Foley in 2001.
Indeed, the committee found that, in late 2001, one of Kolbe's former pages received an IM allegedly written by Foley that "made reference to the size of his penis." According to the former page's testimony, the page subsequently sent Kolbe an email about the "inappropriate" message and "forwarded Foley's IM as an attachment." From the report:
In approximately October 2001, while he was a freshman in college, the former Kolbe page told Rep. Foley in an IM conversation that his girlfriend was coming to visit him. While the former page cannot recall the precise wording of the IM he received in response, he recalls that Rep. Foley made reference to the size of his penis.74 According to the former Kolbe page, after consulting with his parents, he forwarded Foley's IM as an attachment to an e-mail directly to Rep. Kolbe through Rep. Kolbe's personal e-mail account. In his e-mail to Rep. Kolbe, the former Kolbe page explained that Rep. Foley had said something inappropriate to him and asked Rep. Kolbe to "take care of it." The former Kolbe page did not request any particular resolution, believing that such a request would be "presumptuous."
In his testimony before the committee, Kolbe disputed having received such an IM. The committee reported that Kolbe "recalls having been contacted by his former page about Rep. Foley, but denies having seen the actual IM."
Furthermore, the former page testified that after ABC News reported on the 2003 IMs, Kolbe tried to convince the former page to keep quiet about the sexually explicit messages he had received in 2001, as a December 9 Washington Post article noted:
[A]fter the Foley matter exploded in the media, the former page contacted Kolbe again to ask whether he should divulge the instant message. He testified that Kolbe responded: "It is best that you don't even bring this up with anybody. ... There is no good that can come from it if you actually talk about this."
"NY Times uncritically reported Hastert statement about ethics committee report"
That's what a neutral reporter is supposed to do. They should report the story without adding their own left wing opinion. Thanks Media Matters for pointing out that you want a partisan media in this country.
a free press is supposed to be critical. It is supposed to present many sides of an issue and use factual information. "Liberal media bias" is an empty phrase used by conservatives to dismiss whatever is being reported.
Are you REALLY happy KNOWING that Hastert, Boehner, and others in GOP leadership knew about Foley's diddling with the pages, but chose to look the other way?
You are aware, I'd guess, that the GOP leadership scrambled to blame each other, saying "I TOLD Hastert about it, and he said it had been taken care of." Hastert, for his part, denies being TOLD, so they're calling each others LIARS. Yet, here comes this report, and it whitewashes the entire matter. "Nobody knew nothin' ", and the American People are supposed to say, OK, I guess nothing went wrong, then. Nobody messed up, nobody covered up, nobody FAILED to protect the children in their care.
Well, YOU may be happy with the whitewash, and the GOP leadership hoping this report that says they may not have known about the SPECIFIC messages that "Foley resigned over", but that's a hole big enough to sail the 7th fleet through. So they didn't know a SPECIFIC chat conversation, the one Foley CHOSE to resign over ... what DID they know, and WHEN? Is this like Condi, saying a warning stating "BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO STRIKE IN THE USA" is merely an "historic" review?
I can't believe you think it PARTISAN to want to have a report confirm what has already been ADMITTED: The GOP leadership KNEW, they covered it up and failed to correct it, and instead pushed to have the offender run AGAIN against his wishes, because his was a "safe seat" and the GOP needed to keep the majority (and to HELL with the kids!).
That's not partisan reporting, that's the FACTS. And you seem alergic to FACTS, thinking that the TRUTH has a "Liberal Bias." You call yourself an American?
Its the medias job to uncritically repeat rightwing talking points even when there is plenty of evidence they arent true. Got it.
Of course the reporter's job is to report the news without a left or right wing opinion, but in this case, when the (former) Speaker of the House makes a blanket statement concerning the page scandal that is contradicted by widely available reports to the otherwise, that contradiction should be noted. Are you saying that if Pelosi were in the same position, Fox News or the Washington Times would fail to note the contradiction? I don't think so.
"Hastert's statement is technically true -- the committee's report did not find any evidence that House members or staff knew of the sexually explicit IMs Foley allegedly sent a former page in 2003 and that ABC News obtained in late September, leading Foley to resign."
Exactly. There's no need to claim that someone lied when what they said was true.
Word parsing is ok for Republicans eh? What's hard to understand about this? Hastert was negligent and he was less than truthful. He was also at the center of the storm. I guess if you are guilty of something as long as your technically true it doesn't matter.
"depends on what the meaning of is, is." ok, its an old line, but it does point out that when it comes to parsing words, neither side has a monopoly. The majority of politicians are lawyers, so what do you expect?
Yeah, right, all politicians lie, all lawyers are sleazy weasels, and since "most" politicos are lawyers, then they are ipso fatso (as Archie Bunker would say) all sleazy lying weasels. Cut me a break, dude! My own congressional representative is a hardworking man of integrity who would never be even remotely involved with anything as sordid as the page scandal, let alone try to cover up involvement in it. Hastert and company's reprehensible conduct in this matter is the perfect punctuation to what has been the most stinkingly corrupt and influence-addled Congress in most of our memories, and the fact that the Ethics (lol) committee has whitewashed yet another blatant act of misconduct makes it very clear why we should all be so glad to see this cesspool drained. Besides, don't you and "truth detector" (again lol) think that the NYT article should have mentioned some of the salient history here? That's Journalism 101.
working, straight talking ones, that reside on both sides of the aisle, just as there are parsers on both sides of the aisle. Not saying what was or wasn't said was "the truth as defined by MMFA", just saying that I have seen instances here over the past couple of years, where certain posters will go out of their way to defend someone parsing in response to a post, just as you are accusing me of doing. Lawyers don't have a stranglehold on parsing but their training certainly helps in framing an argument in the way that makes their side look most favorable.
this again, if ever, we can talk about it but in this case it's totally irrelevant.
Convenient editing always does the trick doesn't it? Just leave out the parts that don't gibe with your version of reality. The info about Kolbe is in the report. If anything the article should have mentioned the ethics committee's troubled recent history under the Republicans. Feigned ignorance by the former Speaker and by the NYT speaks volumes.
Ethics don't matter to these people unless you are a Democrat. Then they are the most virtuous of critics.
FOLEY sent 5 sets of IM's, all in varying degrees of improper sexual conversation. A,B,C,D, and E.
Hastert, Boehner, and others knew about different ones of these IMs, but NOBODY knew about E. So here's what we'll do. You resign, and say you did it over IM messages "E". We didn't know about E, so we can say we didn't know about the message THAT CAUSED YOU TO RESIGN.
That should settle the matter, EVEN THOUGH WE KNEW ABOUT A, B, C, and D ... and that was sufficient to DEMAND we do something about it. It's a compliant and incurious press, they should swallow the deception and call the matter closed for us, shouldn't they?
Hey, Dems! Don't swallow this fraud report ... INVESTIGATE this with subpeona power, find out who knew what when, CHARGE these corrupt GOP partisans with deriliction of duty, and do whatever ethics penalties that can be heaped on them, censure, fines, pubic humiliation, and if they LIE when under oath, hit them with PERJURY!
That's right, DO IT LIKE THE GOP WOULD DO IT TO A DEM. It's only FAIR.
And enough of this "bipartisan" nonsense, because I guarantee if and when the Republicans ever take back the majority in both houses of Congress, "bipartisanship" will be thrown out the window. The Dems have a mandate and they should act accordingly.
Tex you are right on, they (GOP leadership) saw that something was wrong and had been for some time. They now want everyone to think its not as bad as it looks, so they now have a window for deniability.
Anyway,what’s the big deal? They think that since Foley has resigned, why not just get back to business as usual. The conservative press can mimic one paragraph out of the whole report as the final result of the entire investigation. The GOP leadership can point out that the bad apple is out of the barrel, then lets just forget the whole thing.
Like Truthdetector, seem to forget all of the so-called liberal media attacking Clinton almost every day that he was in office. From 1992-2001. It was unrelenting. What happened to the "liberal media" then, and then during the 2000 election how they relentlessly attacked Gore, and then how the alleged liberal media gave Bush and his buddies a pass for about 5 years. It's only been about the last year or so that they've actually started to hold Bush and co accountable for the messes that they've created, or helped perpetuate. Truth old boy, pull 'yer head outta 'yer arse.
is an ethics committee with some teeth. If the Dems let that slide then the alarm bells should be ringing. However, I'm sure the rightwing MSM will be there to "serve the best interests of America" and call for a stronger ethics committee.
The US is engaged in war crimes, is running torture chambers, is funding the war crimes of others, and the politicians are using the Bill of Rights for toilet paper....and all the ethics committee can discuss is some guy hitting on some teenage boys. Ethics? They don't know the meaning of the word.