Congressional Pages and the Politics of Fear

[JHB]

The always-worthwhile Robert Parry has an item up at Consortiumnews.com that touches on Foley's page scandal (if phrasing it that way isn't too creepy), and reviews recent history for some objective lessons the pages were in a position to learn about the hazards of speaking up about Republicans doing wrong...

This fear of retaliation from today’s take-no-prisoners Republican power structure in Washington has been a little-noted subtext to the stories about Foley’s sudden resignation on Sept. 29 over his e-mails to pages since 2003.

The congressional pages who received the “creepy” e-mails “didn’t do anything beside telling other pages about it,” said Matthew Loraditch, 21, who runs the U.S. House Page Alumni Association’s Internet message board. Loraditch, a senior at Towson University, explained that three of the former pages have refused to comment, citing fear of long-term damage to their ability to land jobs.

Fear of retaliation also has limited the willingness of adult Republican staffers from commenting about the Foley case.

“One House GOP leadership aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, conceded that Republicans had erred in not notifying the three-member, bipartisan panel that oversees the page system,” the Washington Post reported.

more
http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/2006/100206.html

[ShortnFiery]

1. I am concerned that Paula Zahn is going to do a hatchet job

on her special tonight on Congressional Pages.

Blame the Victim is the Right Wingers and sell-out M$M's memes. :puke:

[Lone_Star_Dem]

2. A good read, recommended so more might get to see it.