Foley scandal goes back 10 years: Ex-page comes forward

[kpete]

Ex-page says Foley messaged him in 1990s

ATLANTA - An Atlanta man told a local television station and newspaper that former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record) sent him sexually suggestive messages after he served as a congressional page 10 years ago.

Tyson Vivyan, 26, of Buckhead told WAGA-TV in a Wednesday interview that Foley began sending him instant messages about a month or two after his nine-month stint as a page ended in June 1997

Vivyan told the station that when he was a congressional page in 1996 and 1997 he barely spoke to Foley. But after he left the program — when he was 17 years old — Vivian says they had contact via e-mail about things he says where inappropriate.

"He somehow got ahold of my online identity on AOL and began sending me sexually illicit ims," Vivyan said in the TV interview

more at:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061005/ap_on_go_co/foley_georgia;_ylt=Apw_0vT5FcptN3xEq6LTjTGyFz4D;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

[carolinayellowdog]

1. Foley was being enabled by the same people who impeached

Clinton for a consensual affair with a 22-year-old college graduate.

[Double T]

5. You must mean 'the integrity and family values crew'...........

nice to see bushco and the rethug congress so concerned about protecting minors from sexual predators.

[Divernan]

6. Monica was 24, and the vet of a 5 year affair with a married teacher

She babysat for him and his wife - and before she even left the west coast for DC or ever met Clinton, she told friends she planned to get a pair of presidential kneepads

[Double T]

10. real 'naive and innocent' with the presidential kneepads

she was a girl with a mission

[MemphisTiger]

11. Exactly, and that makes the leadership AS guilty as

Foley. If you help someone hide a body it's as bad as murder in the eyes of the law.

[HereSince1628]

2. So it makes him the problem of Gingrich and DeLay as well.

I suppose it allows Hastert and the RW'ers to say--I was just carrying on with decision made during the Clinton administration.

[fishnfla]

3. When Fordam says he told the highest levels of house leadership

I think he meant Delay

[HereSince1628]

4. And since Delay is already mushed under the bus...

they blame an already discredited R.

[fishnfla]

7. shit, and hastert has an out

?

[HereSince1628]

8. Sad thought, ain't it? But as they say any port in a storm.

[Jawja]

9. No out.

He's been Speaker since Newt had to resign and if this goes back 10 years, he knew about it for a LONG time.

[Dora]

12. Something is fishy.

Leopold's Ghost last night posted a thread (somewhere on Greatest now, I think) that explained the possiblities of how these events can indeed be seen as intentional political strategy. Perhaps I'm just too open to the power of suggestion, but I'm beginning to distrust a lot of what I am hearing. It all seems too made-to-order.

I don't disbelieve these allegations. But I am more and more inclined to think that something in all of this seems highly choreographed.

1) Vivyan is "disappointed" in himself. Say what? Why would this be one of the first things he says. Why not address the inappropriateness of Foley's behavior first.
2) He's practically apologetic about Foley. "To me, it was simply a very lonely, very sick, very desperate man seeking attention from someone he apparently found attractive."
3) "It's affected more people than I ever hoped it would." What does that mean? Why would anyone use the word "hope" in this context? The obvious and instinctive word choice here would be "thought."
4) The language in his quotations comes off as canned and unnatural: "The behavior that he perpetrated was wrong." Nobody except for lawyers, politicians, and speechwriter speak like this.

I am NOT blaming the victim, but I want to know more about Vivyan, who he is, and what he does today.

**snip**

"I'm very disappointed in myself for not having the courage to do it back in 96-97. I was hoping and praying it was an isolated incident — myself, maybe one or two others. Now it seems this has been progressive manipulative and wide-ranging abuse of adult authority on mark's {sic} part and it's affected more people than I ever hoped it would."

"I consider myself a victim but I don't consider myself traumatized. The behavior that he perpetrated was wrong," he said in the interview.