The Times and Foley story

We've had a number of e-mails and blog posts from people who read our Foley coverage yesterday and today and see that we had looked into some of these matters nearly a year ago but never published a story. Why didn't we? Here's what Government & Politics Editor Scott Montgomery told someone yesterday:

"Adam sent me a copy of your email seeking comment. Here's what I can tell you. As a matter of policy, the St. Petersburg Times doesn't publish stories that make accusations based upon sources we can't name. At the time we first looked into this, the information we had simply didn't meet our standard. But when Tim Mahoney went on the record on the matter, we felt we should tell readers what we knew."

Comments

... but when you get accusations from sources you can't name, as journalists, isn't there an obligation to actualy do some "investigative reporting?" I mean if journalism has come down to people just making accusations and going "on the record" instead of journalists actually finding concrete stuff to go on... we're all in trouble.

I love the St. Pete Times. It is by far the best paper inthe state and their political guys are second to none including Adam and Bill. But this time, they should have earned their pay and done some investigation once the accusations were made.

By waiting they may have put other children at risk. This isnt about politics.

[tdubb]

can't help but agree with 8:54. However, based on the content of the email, how doggedly would you pursue something that could easily be harmless chat. Far more disappointing is that the House Leadership did not investigate after the matter was brought to their attention. They didn't even bring the matter up with Foley, according ot reports. I would suggest a full story from the SP times on the development of this story.

typical crap from the St. Pete Times. "Let's sit on the story until they get closer to the election then we will drop the bomb and the Republicans can't recover." This newspaper put children at risk.

They clearly dropped the ball and need to fess-up that they allowed an abuser to stay in office since August 2005. Shame shame shame.

[zenator]

I respectfully disagree the SPT acted entirely correctly.

Personally, I generally deplore the use of sex stories by the opposition to do political damage. I respect the right of adults to have private lives free from press intrusion. However, there is an obvious exception, where the politician in question abuses his public office and/or breaks the law as occurred with Foley.

In other words, I don't care that Foley is gay. I do care that he abused his office to solicit sex from Congressional pages, some of whom were minors.

What is worse is that the pages were apparently warned about Foley, which suggests that Congressional officials in charge of the page program knew about Foley and chose to allow him to continue. These nameless bureaucrats, not the SPT, were charged with the duty of protecting the pages from a known predator, like Foley.

Tdubb and all liberals,

Mark Foley was a sicko who deserves what he gets. Get over yourselves in tying this to republicans and Crist. ALl of the false allegations about reps knowing it a long time ago came from the far left smear sites. Pelosi gets her talking points from there, and thus wants an investigation. Nothing will happen from it.

Governor Crist will be great for our state. He is up 10 points avg, and the longer people gripe and moan about this sick disgusting freak Foley, the longer Crist holds his lead.

All the better for us GOP's, especially since the cabinet races have the GOP leading as well, but by less points.

[zenator]

I apologize for my typing. I believe that the SPT acted correctly.

[Scribe]

Foleygate goes to the heart of a Republican coverup to maintain power at the expense of American youth. The Republicans gambled they could sneak another example of their family values through another election cycle. Whether it's Republican or Democrat, we don't need that kind of leadership.

Is there anyone out there who doubts Mahoney engineered the "outing" of this story at this particular time?

Second question: as the above becomes increasingly clear to larger numbers of people, will it cost Mahoney?

republicans and a perverted sex scandal

what more may fall from the heavens?

[anonymous]

from today's SPT story:

St. Petersburg Times reporters obtained the original e-mails last fall and interviewed two former pages, but didn't write a story. The 16-year-old boy did not want to be named. The other boy, who was willing to be named, said Foley hadn't done anything inappropriate. It's a Times policy not to make accusations in stories based on unnamed sources.

[anonymous]

SPT did not have the instant messages, just the emails.

http://pageoneq.com/news/2006/foley_093006.html

GOP Family Values? SICK!

can we say hypocrite ...

JULY 28TH IS INTERNET SAFETY DAY -- (Extensions of Remarks - July 22, 2004)

Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker, today, we live in a new age and it is becoming increasingly apparent that our laws must meet the challenge of protecting our children in the face of new threats and new technology.

The Internet is a powerful tool that has brought new opportunities for education, commerce and self-empowerment to millions of Americans. However, it also provides a new medium for pedophiles to reach out to our most vulnerable citizens-America's children.

This has become a growing problem and, in 2002, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported that online child pornography and/or sexual exploitation are the most significant cyber-crimes against children.

as to the post 9:57am - Foley should know right he is one of those perverts.

& he had the nerve to say this about CLinton:

St Pete Times Sept 12th 1998,
"It's vile," said Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach. "It's more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction."

Hypocrate! Karma anyone?

attention spt editors:

i would think that after covering politicians for many years, listening to their spin and attempts at damage control, and given the fact that you had over 24 hours to come up with a spin to put out that you would do a better job than issuing such a pathetic statement. if a politician attempted such bs spin you would blast them in your paper. Were can I do a "public records request" to search the spt email files, hard copy files, notes and all other records so that the public can judge for itself the truthfullness of your responce. Isnt that what you would to to a politician? Oh ya I forgot, you will hide out like scared children who know they've been caught and tell us that those are all private information that we have no right to. I hope your spin gets better because this attempt was crap!

Typical Democrat MO:

One leaks a terrible story just in time to help him win a set in Congress all his money couldn't buy him.

Meantime the others try to use a bad individual situation to create a crisis with hearings, insinuating the existence of a Conspiracy.

9:41 dear - you need to face reality

remember, Republicans like to call their party the Party of Personal Responsibility

Foley exploited CHILDREN and your republican house leadership knew about it for a year and did nothing while they allowed this pervert to still cochair this committee.

Do you feel safer yet? Are you willing to send your children to DC to work as a page? Would you trust the Speaker of the House with your child now knowing he knew olf a pedophiliac in his midst and DID NOTHING!

10:03 - Typical ROVE MO,, We've learned from the GOP to fight fire with fire... Don't like the taste of your own medicine? LOL Dont blame Dems for the GOP perverts you elect to office...

oh yeah, look at what Foley said back in '98 about a grown man having an affair with a consenting adult woman ...

St. Petersburg Times, published September 12, 1998

Republicans were aghast at Clinton's behavior, with many saying it showed he had lied and abused his power.

"It's vile," said Rep. Mark Foley, R-West Palm Beach. "It's more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction."

Do you feel safer now?

[Jano]

Wait a minute. You have evidence that a congressman is attempting improper acts with a minor and you don't investigate? Shameful. Just shameful.

all you republicans who are so so very shocked that the dems are jumping on this - remember two words - BILL and CLINTON.

stop the hypocrisy.

Sorry you can't compare Bill Clinton to this PERV!

Bill had a consensual affair with a woman of LEGAL AGE.

This guy was trolling the internet for UNDER AGE BOYS!! NO comparison...

No only that why are Republicans angry the this news paper for not reporting this earlier when it was the GOP run congress that KNEW about this since 2005 & did nothing!!!

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/09/29/national/w123452D40.DTL

Still trust the GOP?

[Scribe]

Yes, here comes the tidal wave of Republican righteous indignation that an unfortunate event is being politicized.
Mark Foley preying on boys and the Republican leadership failing to act is what is going on.
Gross mismanagement.
The Republicans have had a year to deal with it. It was their choice not to. Voters should hold them responsible by drumming them out of Congress.

yawn.

next!

what a crock! the spt doesnt publish stories even when they do have people willing to go on record and be named! i know because i personally gave the spt a story of a corrupt politician in the fl legislature, gave them documentation and agreed to go on record even though it would have meant the end of my career. they swept it under the rug and did not publish the story. why? well there is the answer they gave me at the time which was: they still needed access to the politician because of his position. now i think there may be another reason: they are holding the story until they can get the most political pop out of the story. well spt if that is the case then be prepared for my answer when you deciede its time to publish the story and call me: go to hell will be the answer you get. what a crock!!!

[Anonymous]

The real reason that the SPT did not aggressively cover the story is because of the strong homosexual lobby and support for the homosexual community of the news staff and the editorial board. The SPT will wait, wait and then soft spin any story that tends to undermine the homosexual agenda. The real story here is how common this behavior is for male homosexuals. Period. But you won't see THAT angle covered in the mainstream media. No, what you get in the reporting is that the entire homosexual community is made up of a bunch of monogamous old farts who rehab bungalows and revitalize communities . . . unless they're busy on television re-fashioning straight men or redecorating. BULL. This is common behavior for homosexual men. But nobody will say that or even have the discussion. Gay mens mags are not made up of wrinkly old men with balding hair. Au contraire. The younger the better. Cover that SPT.

And the List of Corupt Republicans list grows again:

Senator George Allen - racist who uses offensive language, kept a Confederate flag and a noose around, tried to pretend he didn't know any of this was offensive. (I'm from the south and I knew by the age of 8 that using the "n" word was offensive and a big, big no no. I knew by 13 that people who flew the Confederate flag outside their houses were probably not people I wanted to hang out with. So the "I was young" excuse, sorry just doesn't hold any water Senator.)

Senator Conrad Burns - Follow the Abramoff ties

Sen. Thad Cochran -- Follow the Abramoff ties

Sen. John Cornyn -- Follow the Abramoff ties

Senator Byron Dorgan -- Follow the Abramoff ties

Senator Charles Grassley -- Follow the Abramoff ties

Sen. Trent Lott -- Follow the Abramoff ties

Rep. Roy Blunt - Might have know about the Foley scandal months ago. Also tied to the Abernoff scandal

Rep. Eric Cantor -- Follow the Abernoff ties

Rep. Tom Delay -- Follow the Abernoff ties

Rep. John Doolittle -- Follow the Abernoff ties

Rep. Mark Foley - possible pedophile. At best a big creep, at worst possible a pedophile.

Rep. Dennis Hastert - knew about Foley - did nothing about it, supporter of Bush's failed policies. Mr. Hastert it is people like you who allow pedophiles free rein. When you know someone poses a threat to children, and 16 year-old pages are still considered children, and YOU DON'T REPORT IT, you give a pedophile power. Where are your values Congressman? If that weren't enough you can follow his ties to Abernoff

Rep. J. D. Hayworth -- Follow the Abramoff ties

Rep. Ernest Istook -- Follow the Abramoff ties

Rep. Bob Ney - Follow the Abramoff ties

Rep. Richard Pombo - Follow the Abramoff ties

Rep. Pete Sessions - Follow the Abramoff ties

Rep. Don Young -- Follow the Abramoff ties

http://thinkprogress.org/abramoff

[September 30, 2006]

Re Scott Montgomery's editor's note: The Times never names minors victimized in possible sex crimes. Therefore, Mr. Montgomery's excuse for not publishing this story last year is false. As your government and politics editor admits, the parents didn't say the story wasn't true or ask that you not publish it - they merely asked you not to specifically identify their son if you did. The "Times" - by its inaction and lack of journalistic skill, follow through and courage - is as guilty, or inept, as House leadership in the institutional and possibly criminal coverup of Mr. Foley's commonly known-on-the-Hill behavior.

All the focus seems to be on the election--I want to know if Foley is going to be prosecuted. Are we to assume that he never went beyond the emails and therefore his resignation is enough punishment? Is Congress exempt from all laws against pedophiles?

[Ron Mills]

11:43 AM
You Forgot
Mel Martinez- Follow the Abramoff ties

As you may know by now, [Bye-bye] Bob[by] Ney simply plead guilty. I guess the evidence was overwhelming. And while it has been nice to see Ney convicted, Delay indicted and Ralph Reed embarassed, I can't help but feel greedy. Surely Abramoff can bring down others! Right? Right, indeed!!

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001539.php

From the article:

It hasn't gotten much attention, but Bob Ney's guilty plea released today contained dirt on at least one other politician.

In the document, Ney fessed up to lobbying Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL), then a Bush cabinet official, on behalf of an Abramoff client. The official's department later acted favorably toward Abramoff's client, according to news accounts.

Ney admitted to arranging a January, 2003 meeting with Mel Martinez, then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, to "[advance] the interests of Abramoff's Native American Indian Tribal clients."

Ney told Martinez that his "number one priority as the newly installed Chairman of the Housing Subcommittee was Native American Indian Tribal housing," according to the plea.

Martinez has said he can't recall the meeting.

But here's Martinez's problem. He's said that he never met wtih Abramoff while heading HUD; but clearly Ney was acting as a kind of lobbyist for Abramoff, who was trying to win HUD funds for his Indian clients.

And he got plenty. According to The Miami Herald, Abramoff's client The Saginaw Chippewa, for whom Abramoff was working hard to win HUD money, was awarded about $4 million from 2002 to 2004.

Martinez was richly rewarded. Just two months after he left HUD in order to make a run for the Senate in early 2004, his campaign netted $250,000 from a fundraiser co-chaired by Abramoff.

So it seems that it's time for another round of denials from Martinez that he gave Abramoff any special treatment.

Foley is sick, sick, sick, sick. They need to lock this guy up and throw away the key. I dont think however this is a good thing for Mahoney, people are disgusted by this and any name in the mix to directly "benefit" will also turn people off. Negron will win the seat as his name recognition is even higher than Mahoney in this district.

3:01 I find it as awful that Mahoney could benefit from angineering the release of these e-mails as that Negon might.

A wise man hoping to take the open seat would keep his hands very clean and stay far away from this.

Every one knows that most reporters are simply put LAZY about researching facts. Here for example is a rumor that a hard working reporter can verify, there is RUMOR that Pitts and Lee were PAID for their miraculous conversion, the rumor number is 10K each, now lets see if a hard working smart reporter will go get the facts.

Every one knows that most reporters are simply put LAZY about researching facts. Here for example is a rumor that a hard working reporter can verify, there is RUMOR that Pitts and Lee were PAID for their miraculous conversion, the rumor number is 10K each, now lets see if a hard working smart reporter will go get the facts.

09:19 AM
you can have you own opinion you can NOT have your own Facts, you are not Fox News,
you are spinning like a maytag washer

Go ahead, call me a spinner, although untrue. Crist is cruising to the governorship, with a clear 10 point lead. Just think, 4 more years of NO control in FL for the liberal wackjobs. Too bad.

All the better for us GOP's, especially since the cabinet races have the GOP leading as well, but by less points.

Where is McCallum? Shouldn't he be taking a strong moral stand on this like he did on the Clinton investigation?

Where is Crist? If "where there is smoke, there is fire", shouldn't the press be looking at other emails??

[deep_throat_74]

As long as Mark Foley is out of the picture, Joe Negron will be a natural shoe in just as long as Ralph Hughes continues to write him checks.

http://election.dos.state.fl.us/campfin/contrib.asp

Ralph Hughes contributor
Negron, Joe (REP)(ATG) 03/02/2005 500.00 CHE HUGHES RALPH W. 10909 THERESA ARBOR DR. TAMPA, FL 33617 INDUSTRIALIST

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/03/13/news_pf/State/Activist_s_company_bo.shtml

Charlie Crist isn't cruising anywhere, he is a time bomb waiting to happen.. For those of you who don't know some of the facts, CC and MAF54 are best buds... Sickening don't ya think! Very interesting stuff to unfold. Can't wait.

[Ron Mills]

09:19 AM
Roll Call is not the Far Left

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/1_1/breakingnews/15260-1.html

soooo take of that foil helmut "no black helicopters here"

and have a read

Carol Jean Jordan should immediately step down as the Chairman of the RPOF this case is the icing on the cake. Carol Jean and other Florida Republicans leaders have know about Foley's continued issues with underage boys but have refused to show leadership by forcing him out of office. This could have been accomplished in 2004 but Carol Jean refused to listen. Carol Jean wants to travel around the United States and tell everyone how great the Republican Party is in Florida and tell the RNC how they need to be more like Florida Republicans. Now the world is seeing exactly what is going on in Florida and our parties founding Father is turning over in his grave. Maybe the RNC will show a little leadership and request Carol Jean step down as the Chair of Chairs effective immediately.

CAROL JEAN SHOULD STEP DOWN RIGHT AFTER CHARLIE CRIST... WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT.

[Abe Lincoln]

Chairman Carol Jean Jordan’s official resignation letter states that her resignation will be effective Friday, November 17, 2006. This is the first day of the RPOF quarterly meeting in Orlando, she will preside over the morning meeting but hand off interim leadership at 12 noon in a live press conference. In the evening the Chairman’s reception will be held in honor of former Chairman Carol Jean Jordan for contribution to the RPOF. Later on that evening there will be a Governor elect reception for Governor elect Charlie Crist.

Cordially,

Abe Lincoln, Interim Chair of the RPOF

CHARLIE CRIST SHOULD GO FIRST, NOT CAROL JEAN!!!

Foley deceived EVERYBODY. Why cast blame when all were being decieved equally by sicko Foley. Hindsight is 20/20, Sp Times made the right choice and Foley the sicko he is was lieing to everbody. Stop with the partisan nonsense, all have children that they would act to protect. Exploiting this for political gain is making this sick story even sicker.

"U.S. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., chairman of the Page Board, which oversees the congressional work-study program for high schoolers, said he did investigate, but Foley falsely assured him that he was only mentoring the boy."

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/15648866.htm

Crist 51%
Davis 30%

Read it and weep Liberals.

[R. M. Gunner]

please include the following press release in the next issue of Tampa Tribune and St petersberg times

http://grassfire.org/NewsReleases/20061102-195.htm