The Foley Fest: Texas Angle Part I

Which Texas papers are pushing the propaganda, i.e spouting GOP talking points from the Karl Rove memo? Which papers are downplaying the Foley scandal? Which papers are dealing with the issue in a forthright manner?

The Houston Chronicle online edition wins the pushing the progaganda award with this headline 'Hastert rejects call to resign over e-mail scandal'. 'email scandal' sounds so innocuous. How about congressional pedophile scandal? The story's actual title is better 'Pressure grows for Republicans over Foley scandal' Lets see - 'Foley' has 5 letters and 'email' has 5 letters. Can't be edited for length. The Chronicle uses the AP stories.

Another Houston Chronicle/AP special is 'Foley checks into rehab as e-mails probed'. Foley excuse highlighted. Innocous email word used. [Note that email expands to 6 characters here.] Remember corrupt Republican Congressman, Ney, used alcohol as his excuse for corruption. You know how those Republicans love to reject responsibility for their actions.

The Austin American Statesman does better. Laylan Copelin gets high marks for calling James 'Rick Perry and Greg Abbott on their hypocrisy over their 'protecting children from the internet tour':

The message is the perfect stump spiel. Opponents can't argue against protecting children, no matter how remote the threat might seem. And it costs just pennies on the dollar compared with the hundreds of millions of dollars that would be necessary to improve the welfare of the children of the working poor and impoverished. More important, perhaps, the threat of child predators touches the suburban voters who are a large part of the Republican incumbents' support base.

I can't wait until Laylan adds the Foley scandal to the mix.

The AAS looks at whether pages were warned in 2001 about Foley. The article focuses on how the pages mentioned are grateful for the program and neglects the subtext that hints were made about Foley in 2001, but no offical action was taken.

Next the AAS looks at Hastert and properly notes that Hastert is on the defensive. The article includes the trick that Hastert uses to distinguish Instant Messages versus emails and notes two views of the Republican leadership actions -

"This thing should have been looked into months ago," said Rep. Walter Jones Jr., R-N.C. "That's abnormal for a 52-year-old man having those kinds of e-mails going to a 16-year-old child.

"House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, rejected criticism that the leadership had done too little. He said three newspapers had the e-mails for almost a year and did not print them. "The House did more to confront the situation than anyone else," he said.

Evidently, the Republican House leadership blames the media for not investigating the Foley scandal.

More Foley Fest at the AAS.