Just out of curiosity where did you get your information?

Speculations? There's nothing speculative about it. Studds not only admitted having sex with minors he didn't see anything wrong with what he did either, arrogantly turning his back to the chair when his slap on the wrist censure was read. Foley AFAIK never had actual contact (although apparently he was trying to) so your "FTR" is not only irrelevant, it's a typical example of Democratic party hypocracy.

FTR Clinton/Nixon is speculation.
If you read the whole article the 17 year old was legal by law for that state. Studds wasn't a closet queen. Everyone knew he was gay. He was openly gay. The censure was for unethical realationship with a subordinate. No cover-up. Studds constituents re-voted him in 3(?) more times after the censure so they must not have thought gay's having consensual sex was that bad a thing. Doesn't matter what you or I personally think about it. Studds was facing the speaker who was reading the charge. To do that he had to have his back to the house. Normally I look at who's speaking too. Don't you?
How long did the GOP cover for Foley? 2 years(I think). How many pages was Foley trying to get into and wouldn't take no for an answer. I think Foley and leadership could be held up as an example of GOP hypocrisy. A champion of children's rights and your leaders were covering for him.
The Republican party is supposed to be conservative where the democrats aren't. Different standards.:) Sucks, but hey.......
I notice you didn't mention (R) Crane though.

I didn't know that liberal meant condoning middle aged Congressmen having sex with 17 year olds but you'd know better what's in the Democratic mind I guess. :D

First off, Foley was guilty of at most harrassment via emails, Studds actually did the dirty deed.

Secondly he wasn't the only Congressman in trouble during that investigation. Read up on Dan Crane (R-IL) who tearfully admitted his perversion and asked for forgiveness, contrasted with Studds who was quite belligerant about it. A distinction I see as very telling.

BTW Studds didn't come out of the closet publically until the House Ethics committee began it's investigation.

As long as it's consensual and legal. In CT it's 16.
Again, consensual and no harassment was involved.
She was legal too so it was an ethics violation with a subordinate. Although both were 17 the relationships were consensual and legal. Nothing either of them could be thrown out for. Thats why they weren't.
I didn't read anything about belligerent. Studds was facing the Speaker who was reading the charges so had to have his back to the other members.

So now we're back to a double standard which was my original point. Democrats acting outraged over a Republican trying to do what they condone among their own members. That apparently extends to those they put in the White House as well.

Like i've said before i'm no great fan of the GoP Brad, but Democratic Party hypocracy is just more distastefu to me.

No. It's got to do with whats legal and what's not. No mention was made of Studds making harassing emails trying to pick up on minors. The outrage was from the Republican leadership knowing Foley was harassing minors but ignoring it. Thats a pure political target.
It's a given that the Republican party does not officialy condone homosexuality in any form. Thats another political fact. What happened to Foley is the only thing that could have happened. There is a difference between consensual homosexuality and harassing emails from a homosexual on the hunt for pages who happens to be the chair of Childrens Rights. It's also a given that one party will exploit a chink in another parties armor. Foley could have been Democrat and the same thing would have happened. As far as double standards Crane was not ejected from the Republican for his acts and he lost the next election. Thats what put him out. As far as Studds from that article it was evidently no secret that he was gay amongst his constituants. He was reelected three more times after that. It's not a case of double standards with Foley, it was a case of whats acceptable behavior and whats not.

Thanks for asking!

**
Apr 10, 2007 (AP)— Prime-Time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen Media Research for April 2-8. Listings include the week's ranking, with viewership for the week and season-to-date rankings in parentheses. An "X" in parentheses denotes a one-time-only presentation.
1. (1) "American Idol" (Tuesday), Fox, 26.67 million viewers.
2. (1) "American Idol" (Wednesday), Fox, 26.1 million viewers.
3. (3) "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 21.69 million viewers.
4. (8) "House," Fox, 20.35 million viewers.

**



Straight from ABC and the AP is where that came from:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Entertainm...ory?id=3027643

I only showed the top 4 "shows". Hell, I should've only posted the top three but I threw number 4 in there for added effect. Keep in mind that many of the numbers are crossover viewers between all the shows & stations.

Disturbing what amuses people these days isn't it? It's also disturbing that these same people watching complete sh!t on tv tend to believe anything they hear if repeated all too often. Dell commercials over the years being a perfect example of repetitive idiot programming, but that's a whole 'nother Oprah.

No, any politician who restricts his or her venues of talking BS is only restricting the numbers of American Idol watchers they get their BS to. It's as simple as that. It will be a mistake for any of them to outright blacklist showing their faces on any major network.

In the end.. I would like to think the next presidential candidates would take everything head-on instead of isolating themselves in their respective corners. They certainly won't earn my respect for being so divisively partisan.

Just my opinion, they can certainly do what they want and if it works out for them in the end - more power to them.

No such thing as emails, chat rooms and forums back in those days but obviously Studds made contact with his victim in some fashion. The likelyhood that sexual harrassment, especially homosexual harrassment, would even be reported has increased the years as well. But ireally f you want to talk about outrage how about Tip O'neil keeping Studds little love affair secret for nearly 10 years?

The type of sexuality really has nothing to do with it Brad. A person in Foleys, Cranes or Studds, or for that matter Clintons, position is not supposed to be having sex with the young people who are in their charge, regardless of gender. So you're right. It's a case of what's acceptable behavior and what's not.

Fox News, however, are losing ground in the primetime ratings war to MSNBC. They're still the big dogs but the ground is shifting. One poster said he couldn't blame Fox for the vapidity in cable broadcasting because, and this is correct, it's par for the course. However, CNN wasn't this bad before Fox came on and introduced the perfected infotainment format mixing together politics, news and entertainment into one indistiguishable and heavily editorialized mass.

Ultimately it's not Fox's fault though. It's the viewers. If someone hands them a candy bar and insists it's spinach they'll eat the candy bar convinced they're packing in a day's nutrition that's somehow, inexplicably, more tasty than the green leafy vegetable. And if a micky of political ideology is sprinkled into the mix, who's really to blame when they wake up the next day broke, sticky and confused? And confused they are as that study pointed out. Completely mislead about the facts regarding Iraq. Fox isn't a news channel in any conventional sense. It's the Pravda of the Republican establishment.

Democrats aren't worried about that slant effecting their debate, reallly, they're not. That's not the issue. Likely Fox would just stay out of things and it would be a fairly typical event. Fox's big need these days is to seem like a real news channel given the scruitiny it's currently under and how badly the political tides have turned against its editorial agenda. Democrats are dropping out of Fox's debates for two reasons. One, as noted Fox is starting to flounder and it's not really a crucial venue for Democratic politicians. Two, there's a real desire in the grassroots to pressure Democratic leadership not to enable Fox's charade of being normal news outlet. They are demonstrably biased and not particularly concerned with factual reality. I'm fine with ripping the facade off the Potemkin Village that Ailes created.

I quite agree with oddjob on this one. Here's a quote from Rupert Murdoch in the Hollywood Reporter:

Asked if his News Corp. managed to shape the agenda on the war in Iraq, Murdoch said: "No, I don't think so. We tried." Asked by Rose for further comment, he said: "We basically supported the Bush policy in the Middle East...but we have been very critical of his execution."


If you are really interested in media, you should check out the media matters website at:

http://mediamatters.org/

They examine al of the mainstream media outlets, both print & video, and seperate fact from fiction & bias from unbias.

I personally, watch a lot of C-Span, Olbermann, Matthews & Carlson on MSNBC, but get most of my news from the web from many international sources. I regard Fox News as a contradiction in terms.

I thought you were talking about Fox News and I thought it odd that Fox News would be the highest rated news show.
I don't watch TV except for news but I do watch House every now and then. Pretty good show.

:rotfl:

Can't stop giggling!!! :rotfl:

:rotfl:

Discover The Networks' profile for "Media Matters".

Give me Murdoch's candidness anyday - and I'm not complimenting Fox just for saying that.

And your point about David Brock is?

I have a couple of questions for you?

1. Why have so many people who did hit pieces for the right suddenly seem to be overcome on the road to Damascus like Paul and become liberals & liberal bloggers like Brock or Kuo?

2.If the Bush & PNAC Weltpolitik is so effective and right, why do they always seem to get everything wrong and make things worse?

Regarding the Murdoch quote, how can a fair, balanced & unbiased news organisation provide any support to any political party's agenda and still remain fair, balanced & unbiased?

Just wanted to emphasize the partisan demonization going on here.

Carry on.