A special Media Matters for America report:
debunking the Foley myth machine
Table of Contents
Democrats and their allies orchestrated the
Foley scandal as a political dirty trick
Many media outlets, without any basis whatsoever, have
repeated the charge by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL)
and others that Democrats or liberals are behind the Foley
scandal. The charge has appeared in various ways; some examples
include:
Hastert, as reported
in the Chicago Tribune: "The people who want to see
this thing blow up are ABC News and a lot of Democratic
operatives, people funded by George Soros." ... "All
I know is what I hear and what I see. I saw Bill Clinton's
adviser, Richard Morris, was saying these guys knew about this
all along. If somebody had this info, when they had it, we
could have dealt with it then." At the time, Hastert
acknowledged
that he had no evidence to support his charge.
Former House Speaker Newt
Gingrich (R-GA), who asked:
"What if it does turn out that, in fact, this entire thing
was rigged by liberals and Democrats, that this entire thing
was done deliberately and methodically, and in fact, it is the
equivalent of a large dirty trick."
Rep. Jack
Kingston (R-GA): "Are we saying that a 15-year-old
child would've sat on e-mails that were XXX-rated for three
years and suddenly spring them out right on the eve of an
election? That's just a little bit too suspicious, even for
Washington, D.C."
Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC): As Media Matters
noted,
MSNBC host Chris 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 had written a letter demanding that
"[House Democratic Leader] 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." 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."
But these various charges -- that Democrats or their allies
knew about the emails and instant messages long ago and,
purposefully and in a coordinated fashion, released them to the
media in a way designed for maximum political advantage -- have
no basis. In fact, several media reports have contradicted such
charges.
An October 11 Washington Post article
undermined such charges. The Post article reported that,
beginning in November 2005, "Democrats" or a
"Democratic operative" unsuccessfully attempted to get
several news organizations -- including Harper's (in May)
and the St. Petersburg Times (in November 2005) -- to
publish the emails. The article reported that "[a] second
source emerged, however, just last month, peddling the e-mails
to several other publications, including The Post." The
article also noted that the reporter who did publish the emails
-- ABC News' Brian Ross -- "has stressed that his initial
source was a Republican," as Media Matters has also
noted.
In addition, 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."
Furthermore, the Post article reported that, according
to Ken Silverstein of Harper's, his " 'Democratic
operative' " source " 'was not working in concert with
the national Democratic Party' " and that " '[t]his
person was genuinely disgusted by Foley's behavior, amazed that
other publications had declined to publish stories about the
emails, and concerned that Foley might still be seeking contact
with pages.' "
As for the more explicit instant messages, the Post
reported that Ross's source for them "stressed that he is a
'staunch Republican' who 'wouldn't vote for a Democrat ever.' "
That source decided to give the messages to Ross after Ross's
September 28 report on the alleged Foley emails, the Post
reported. At that point, he told the Post, "I
decided that it was in the best interests of kids in general,
pages and my friends specifically that Foley be dealt with
quickly and swiftly so that he couldn't hurt anyone else."
The Post revealed that its source for the instant
messages was a former page and college-aged "Democratic
operative" who wants the Democrats to win control of the
House in November, but reported that "when approached by a
Post reporter about the instant messages, he was reluctant to
provide them. Days later, he did so." According the Post,
"[t]he two sources said they had conferred about the
instant messages, which they had known about for months,"
and that their source gave them the instant messages
"subsequent[]" to Ross's having received them from his
reportedly Republican source.
In addition, a Chicago Tribune article reported
that "[s]enior Republican officials contacted Hastert's
office before his news conference Thursday [October 5] to urge
that he not repeat the charges, and he backed away from them in
his news conference," as the weblog TPMmuckraker.com noted.
Nevertheless, several media outlets, including National
Public Radio, NBC's David
Gregory and Tim
Russert, and ABC's George
Stephanopoulos, have reported this allegation, without any
challenge. Notably, as Media Matters documented,
CNN repeatedly
reported
Hastert's allegations and similar charges made by other
Republicans on October 5 but did not once mention the article in
The Hill or Ross's statement.
Hastert did not learn about Foley's
alleged behavior until September 29
Several media accounts have reported, without challenge,
Hastert's initial claim that he learned of the concerns
regarding Foley's alleged behavior only on September 29, the day
that Foley resigned. But, as Media Matters documented,
Hastert later said he would not dispute the contention by Rep.
Thomas Reynolds (R-NY) that Reynolds had brought the issue to
his attention in the spring of 2006 (though Hastert claimed not
to remember the discussion), and conceded
that his aides had learned of it in late 2005. Further, several
outlets entirely ignored House Majority Leader John Boehner's
(R-OH) conflicting statements regarding whether he discussed the
problem with Hastert.
Examples
of media uncritically reporting Hastert's claim that he only
recently learned of Foley's alleged actions include October 2
reports from The New York Times, the Los Angeles
Times, and the Associated Press. Another example
is a report by NBC News correspondent Mike Viqueira on the
October 5 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:
CHRIS MATTHEWS (host): So much of this involves: Who
do you believe? Mike, as you know, the speaker has one point of
view. He says nobody really warned me. A couple of the other
leaders said that Reynolds, of course, and Boehner said, they
did warn a staff member. He's just resigned. Said he did warn
the speaker's staff people. Why don't they go lickety-split to
the question at the top: Who's telling the truth? Why do they
take weeks to do that?
VIQUEIRA: Well, good question. You know, Hastert
has largely stuck by his story that he didn't learn about the
emails and the IMs and the rest of it until last Friday, the day
that Foley quit. I think a lot of Republican members now are
starting to sympathize with the speaker, Chris. I'm hearing a
lot about a potential backlash -- you know the speaker brought
out the George Soros card today -- that the Democrats were after
him. He singled out ABC News.
The alleged Foley emails that House
Republicans possessed were merely "overly friendly"
Many media reports have uncritically repeated Hastert's
characterization of alleged emails between Foley and a page
sponsored by Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA) as merely "overly
friendly." As Media Matters has noted,
Hastert has called the alleged emails "over friendly"
to justify the House Republican leadership's failure to
investigate Foley's alleged behavior when it was first informed
of them. However, as Media Matters has noted,
the Los Angeles Times reported that experts in psychiatry
and sexual misconduct have suggested that Foley's alleged emails
go well beyond "overly friendly"; for example, one
psychiatry expert told the Times that "they do in
fact raise a red flag." In addition, as Media Matters
has documented,
several conservatives and Republicans have objected to Hastert's
characterization of the emails as "over friendly" and
have argued that they should have provoked deeper scrutiny from
House Republican leaders when they first came to light.
But news reports have uncritically relayed Hastert's
terminology for the emails. For example, Fox News chief
political correspondent Carl Cameron reported
on the October 4 edition of Fox News' Special Report with
Brit Hume:
CAMERON: Reynolds says he acted appropriately,
alerting superiors in the spring when he learned of Foley's
overly friendly emails to former pages, then Friday, when he
learned of the salacious communication and demanded Foley's
resignation.
Another example
is a report by NBC's Mike Taibbi on the October 2 broadcast of
NBC's Today:
TAIBBI: At least five Republican house members did
know ahead of time, some nearly a year ago, about emails
described as "over-friendly" that Foley sent a
16-year-old male page, though not about any overtly sexual
messages.
The Foley scandal has not affected voters
or congressional races
Some media outlets, such as CNN, The New York Times,
and The Washington Post, have reported without challenge
Republican claims that the Foley scandal has not affected voters
or congressional races, as Media Matters documented.
In fact, at this point, several public opinion polls indicate
that the Foley scandal could be hurting Republicans. A CBS/New
York Times poll
conducted October 5-8 found that 13 percent of independent
voters, and 21 percent of all voters, said the Foley scandal had
made them more likely to vote Democratic. An AP/Ipsos poll
conducted October 2-4 found that 66 percent of respondents said
that the "recent disclosures of corruption and scandal in
Congress" would be at least "moderately important"
to their "vote in November," with 48 percent
indicating it would be "very" or "extremely"
important. The poll also found that 62 percent of respondents
were either "dissatisfied" or "angry" with
"the Republican leadership in Congress." The AP poll
had a margin of error of +/- 2.8 percent. Similarly, an October
5 Time magazine poll
found that a "quarter" of respondents "say the
affair makes them less likely to vote for Republican candidates
in their districts come November," and that "[t]wo-thirds
of Americans aware of the lurid e-mails set [sic] to
congressional pages by a G.O.P congressman believe Republican
leaders tried to cover up the scandal."
While three recent
polls -- ABC News/Washington Post, CBS News/New
York Times, and Newsweek -- have shown no change
outside the margin of error on whether respondents would vote
for a Democratic or Republican congressional candidate in
November, two other recent polls showed large shifts toward
Democrats. A USA
Today/Gallup poll conducted October 6-8 found that
Democrats had made significant gains among likely voters since
the Gallup poll last month. While Democrats and Republicans were
tied at 48 percent in Gallup's September 15-17 poll, that has
now shifted to a 23-point advantage for Democrats, 59 percent to
36 percent. Similarly, a CNN
poll conducted October 6-8 found that, among likely voters,
Democrats led Republicans 58 percent to 37 percent; by contrast,
a CNN
poll conducted as the Foley scandal broke, on September
29-October 2, had Democrats leading Republicans 53 percent to 42
percent.
In addition, the Foley scandal appears to be affecting some
individual races. For example, one member of the House
leadership, Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY), appears to have lost
ground since the scandal broke. While a September 28 SurveyUSA
poll had Reynolds ahead of his Democratic challenger, Jack
Davis, 45 percent to 43 percent, SurveyUSA's October
5 poll of the race has Davis leading, 50 percent to 45
percent. While the margins of error for these polls were plus or
minus 4.5 points and 4.6 points, respectively, the trend toward
Davis appears to be supported by another recent poll in the
district, a Zogby International poll
conducted for The Buffalo News and released on October 7.
In that poll, Reynolds trailed Davis 48 percent to 33 percent.
Hastert and the GOP leadership forced
Foley to resign after they learned of the lurid instant messages
Several media figures have uncritically reported that Hastert
and the GOP leadership forced Foley to resign from Congress
after they heard of his alleged sexually explicit instant
messages with underage pages. For example, as Media Matters
noted,
in an October 3 entry
on the National Review Online's weblog The Corner, National
Review White House correspondent Byron York uncritically
noted Hastert's claim
on the October 3 Rush Limbaugh Show that "[w]e took
care of Mr. Foley" and that "[w]e ... asked him to
resign." But, a day earlier, when asked in a press
conference "whether the leadership asked Foley to resign,"
Hastert had responded: "I think Foley resigned almost
immediately upon the outbreak of this information, and so we
really didn't have a chance to ask him to resign."
The claim that Hastert and the Republican leadership forced
Foley to resign has recently gone unchallenged in several media
venues, despite the contradictions in Hastert's own account. For
example, on the October 6 edition of NBC's Nightly News with
Brian Williams, NBC News correspondent Chip Reid
uncritically reported Rep. Adam Putnam's (R-FL) claim
that the House leadership "acted aggressively and within
hours -- within hours of the explicit emails coming to light,
they demanded Foley's resignation." Putnam was presumably
referring to the sexually explicit instant messages Foley
allegedly sent to an underage former page, because Hastert's
office reportedly knew of the emails by at least February 2006.
From the October 8 edition of NBC's Nightly News Weekend
Edition:
REID: But Republican Adam Putnam says there's only
one culprit: Foley himself.
PUTNAM [clip from ABC News' This Week]: The
speaker's office acted proactively. They acted aggressively and
within hours -- within hours of the explicit emails coming to
light, they demanded Foley's resignation.
REID: Putnam appeared on the show because of the
Foley scandal, sitting in for Congressman Tom Reynolds, head of
the Republican campaign committee. He's in upstate New York
struggling to hold on to his job.
Gay men are more likely than heterosexual
men to sexually abuse children
As Media Matters has documented,
during an appearance on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews,
Family Research Council president Tony Perkins used the Foley
scandal to promote a falsehood about gay men -- that they are
more likely than straight men to sexually abuse children, based
on the claim that gay men are overrepresented in child sex-abuse
cases. In fact, a 1995 study
released by the American Psychological Association found that
"gay men are no more likely than heterosexual men to
perpetrate child sexual abuse." The argument that gay men
are overrepresented in such cases is based on what John Hopkins
University psychiatrist Frederick Berlin has described
as the "flawed assumption" that men who abuse young
boys are also attracted to grown men.
Kirk Fordham's claim that Hastert's
office was told about Foley before 2005 is uncorroborated
Recently, former Foley chief of staff Kirk Fordham asserted
that he told Hastert of Foley's alleged behavior long before
2005, an accusation denied by Hastert chief of staff Scott
Palmer. Some media reports have presented Fordham's accusation
and Palmer's denial in a "he said, she said" manner,
such as an October 16 article
in Time magazine, ignoring the evidence that it is
Fordham who is telling the truth. But as Media Matters
noted,
an unnamed current Republican congressional staffer recently
came forth to corroborate Fordham's account, according to
October 7 reports by various news outlets, including The
Washington Post and The
New York Times. An October 8 Times article
further reported that Fordham's attorney stated Fordham is
prepared to testify under oath before the House ethics committee
that Fordham arranged a meeting with Palmer "as early as
2003" ("2003 or earlier," according to the
October 7 Post article) to discuss Foley's alleged
contacts with underage congressional pages.
Speaker Hastert "took
responsibility" for the Foley scandal
Numerous media outlets have reported that, at his October 5
press conference, Hastert "took responsibility" for
the Foley scandal even though, as Media Matters has
noted,
Hastert also stated at the same press conference that "I
haven't done anything wrong, obviously."
For example, separate October 7 New York Times
articles
by reporters Adam
Nagourney and Carl
Hulse uncritically reported Hastert's claim, as did ABC News
chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos, who stated
the following during an appearance on the October
5 edition of ABC's World News with Charles Gibson:
CHARLES GIBSON (anchor): And we're gonna bring in
now our chief Washington correspondent, George Stephanopoulos.
George, I used the phrase that the speaker was working at damage
control. So, there's been a lot of damage this week. Did he
control it?
STEPHANOPOULOS: I think he was pretty effective
today, Charlie, and I guess President Bush must have thought so,
too, because he called him for the first time. By
apologizing, accepting responsibility, getting statements of
support from his fellow leaders and promising to fix the
problem, he lays the groundwork for a political defense, and
that ethics committee investigation gives all other Republicans
a reason to say Hastert can stay for now, they can wait until
the investigation is done.
Conservative evangelical voters are
particularly outraged by Foley scandal
Many media reports have suggested that conservative
Christians are likely to be particularly outraged by the Foley
scandal. But as Media Matters noted,
this suggestion is based on a dubious assumption: that
conservative Christian voters -- so-called "family values"
voters -- are more concerned than others with protecting
children, and therefore will condemn more harshly than others
allegations of a cover-up of alleged predatory behavior toward
children. Even veteran Republican pollster Matthew Dowd has
stated that "[i]t's not just the voters who care about
'family values' who might be driven away" by the Foley
scandal.
Nonetheless, Media Matters documented
many media reports suggesting that Christian conservatives will
be particularly upset by the Foley scandal, including:
Newsweek columnist
Howard Fineman stated that the "Foley story is aimed right
at" those "evangelical Bible-believing Christians"
who have strongly supported Republicans in the past. (MSNBC's
Countdown, 10/3/06)
CNN anchor Carol Lin reported that the "scandal is
infuriating religious conservatives. But will they express that
anger with their vote 30 days from now?" (CNN Newsroom,
10/8/06)
Upon learning of emails, House
Republican leadership or Rep. Shimkus told Foley to end all
contact with pages
Media reports have also falsely claimed that House
Republicans privately told Foley in the spring of 2006 to stop
all contact with congressional pages. For example, Wall
Street Journal OpinionJournal.com assistant editor Brendan
Miniter falsely
asserted in his October 3 column
that upon "look[ing] at the few emails" Foley had
allegedly written to one former page, Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL),
chairman of the House Page Board, decided "to confront Mr.
Foley and tell him to cut off all direct contact with underage
pages." As Media Matters noted,
Shimkus limited his warning to Foley only to the specific page
in question, telling Foley "to cease all contact with this
former House Page," according to a statement published on
Shimkus's website.
In his statement, Shimkus also asserted that he and "the
then Clerk of the House, who manages the Page Program," had
advised Foley "to be especially mindful of his conduct with
respect to current and former House Pages," but nowhere in
his statement did he say that he or anyone else told Foley to
"cut off all direct contact with underage pages."
An October 2 Washington Post article
headlined "FBI to Examine Foley's E-mails" also
falsely
reported that Foley was told to "leave pages alone."
CREW withheld emails and other
information from FBI, congressional leaders
Several conservatives have recently accused Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonpartisan,
nonprofit organization, of withholding information from the FBI
in order to preserve the scandal until closer to the midterm
elections. As Media Matters noted,
the accusation arose from reports that CREW sent to the FBI in
July copies
of the emails Foley allegedly sent to an underage former
congressional page. Anonymous Justice Department sources claimed
that the copies of the emails CREW sent to the FBI were
incomplete and heavily redacted; that CREW refused to comply
with requests for further information; and that the FBI did
investigate the emails, but determined that there was not enough
to evidence suggest a criminal act.
However, as Media Matters noted,
the FBI has contradicted itself on these allegations. For
example, the FBI claimed that it did not pursue the Foley case
after receiving the emails because CREW refused to provide
enough information. However, the FBI also claimed that it did
investigate the emails and found that they did not indicate that
a crime had been committed.
Despite this, media outlets have uncritically reported the
anonymous sources' accusations against CREW, without challenge.
As Media Matters documented,
CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena's October 4 report --
which first aired on The Situation Room, and re-aired
several more times on October 4 and 5 -- failed to note the
FBI's disputed claims that CREW redacted the Foley emails and
refused the FBI's request for more information, instead
reporting: "Now, the FBI is refusing comment. But
government officials insist that the FBI did investigate. In
fact, they say that three squads looked at the emails. A public
corruption squad, a criminal squad, and then finally a cyber
squad. Now, we're told that agents determined at the time there
wasn't enough evidence to suggest any criminal activity."
As Media Matters has noted,
although CREW brought the emails to the FBI's attention, Fox
News host Sean Hannity baselessly accused CREW on the October 5
edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes of
"prioritiz[ing] partisan politics over the safety and
security of children." During the same program, U.S.
News & World Report senior writer Michael Barone stated
that CREW "would also have been wise to turn [the emails]
over to ... the House Page Committee," even though the
House leadership reportedly learned of the emails long before
CREW did.
A "velvet mafia" on Capitol
Hill knew of Foley's alleged behavior and protected him from
public exposure
Media accounts have also suggested that a cadre of gay
congressional staffers protected Foley from exposure. For
example, writing in the October 16 issue of Time
magazine, national political correspondent Karen Tumulty
uncritically reported
that according to "a whisper campaign [that] has been
launched in Washington," former Foley chief of staff Kirk
Fordham may have been one of the "gay staff members"
belonging to "a 'velvet mafia' at the upper levels of
G.O.P. leadership" that sought to protect Foley.
But as Media Matters noted,
Fordham has claimed that he sought to alert Hastert's office to
Foley's alleged behavior at least three years ago, and an
unnamed current Republican congressional staffer recently came
forth to corroborate Fordham's account.
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