Matthews let Republicans push Conspiracy Theories about Foley Scandal

[ck4829]

On the October 6 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews allowed two Republican congressmen, Jack Kingston (GA) and Patrick McHenry (NC), to push wholly unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about Democrats' purported prior knowledge of communications former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) allegedly had with former congressional pages. While Matthews did occasionally press Kingston and McHenry to support their accusations during the segment, he did not host a Democrat or progressive to balance the discussion.

When Matthews asked McHenry if Democrats "had anything to do with holding information" about Foley's alleged communications with the former pages "and dropping it on ABC," the network that first publicized the story, McHenry replied that "I don't know that they did not," and then noted that he has written a letter demanding that " Nancy Pelosi (CA) and (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman) Rahm Emanuel (IL) ... submit themselves under oath and say clearly, yes or no, did they have prior knowledge of the instant messages and/or emails." When Matthews asked if House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) should also have to take such an oath, Kingston replied affirmatively, because "I think that would exonerate him." But McHenry later stated that "this is not about Dennis Hastert" and added: "(T)he only question that remains is what did the Democrat (sic) leadership know and when did they know it?" Matthews also failed to challenge Kingston's statement that he "would be very surprised if Foley's opponent (Democratic challenger Tim Mahoney) knew absolutely nothing of this."

As Media Matters for America has noted, The Hill newspaper reported that the media received Foley's alleged emails "from a House GOP aide" who "has been a registered Republican since becoming eligible to vote." As Media Matters has also noted, ABC investigative reporter Brian Ross reportedly said that the sources for his initial Foley report -- to the extent they had partisan affiliations -- were Republicans.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200610070004

[MADem]

1. But that was funny, because they were AFRAID to show their faces

And the tape will be useful, because in time all will be revealed, they will look like assholes, and the audio alone will be a gift that keeps on giving.

And since it turns out FAUXSNOOZE had the IMs for what, a year, ya gotta ask yourself why they didn't do some investigative reporting, or at least WARN their cronies of an impending problem.

[havocmom]

2. How is Tweety's GOP brother doing? I don't follow PA politics much

Shill for the party = party help for your brother, Chris?

[DemInDistress]

3. rotf.. what did pelosi and emanuel know and when did they know

it and they want them to swear under oath? funny, how about bush/cheney step up and swear under oath what did they know about 911 and when did they know it?

the chaos in the world today was born on 911. the conception was dec.7 2000.

got to love these go-pigs. their amazing sometimes. what else lurks in the minds of these criminals?

[stopbush]

4. I think Tweets set these guys up in this segment.

In the past week I heard him say a number of times that "we have tons of video tape that we
can go back to to show what people said in the past."

I think he wanted to get these guys on record to throw it in their faces later.

[Jack Rabbit]

5. At this point, that may be the right thing for Tweety to do

The broad news story is that a congressman made improper advances to pages; if that had been all there was to it, it would have been forgotten less than 48 hours after he resigned his seat.

So, the story is also about how his party's leadership knew about this for some length of time -- months at least, more likely three years or even five according to some sources -- and did nothing to either modify his behavior or ease him out of Congress. This secondary story is the important one. One congressman behaving badly, even making sexual advances to minors, and resigning when caught is a little more newsworthy on a national level than a missing blond teenager in Podunk, Idaho, but not that much; his party leadership covering up for him and letting it slide is a congressional crisis.

Now, all of this comes at at awkward time, being that there is a congressional election coming up; even before this came out, the congressman's party, which is the majority party in congress, appeared poised to lose enough seats for control of Congress to change hands. Now it looks like the party is going to lose seats by the dozen.

That leads to a tertiary story: how the majority party's hacks, including other congressmen, are spinning the story about what the Speaker of the House knew and for how long what he didn't do about it. Rule One is protect the Speaker. To that end, they can never say he is to blame, even when the facts speak otherwise. Therefore, it must be somebody else's fault. There is no evidence to show that anyone in the congressional opposition was aware of this, but to listen to the members of the Speaker's party the opposition was behind the revelation, timing to be most embarrassing to the majority party.

Like most conspiracy theories, this one is utterly ridiculous. The fact that members of Congress will go to such lengths to make fools of themselves protecting their party's leaders is news in itself.

Meanwhile, as they make fools of themselves for the Speaker's sake, it looks like their party will lose House seats by the bushel.

[Mz Pip]

6. And they sounded like crack pots

The "Investigate the DEMS!" whining that McHenry yammered on about was laughable. He sound completely delusional.

They would have us all believe that the Dems, who are kept out of the loop on just about everything in Washington somehow knew what Foley was up to, got the goods on him, plotted to release it close to the election and managed to keep their involvement a complete secret. THose all powerful Dems. Gotta hand it to them. :sarcasm:

I think Tweety gave them all the rope they needed to hang themselves.

Mz Pip
:dem: