Comments on Matt Drudge on Mark Foley: Teenage Beasts to Blame!

The darker and more repressed the unconscious shadow, the weirder it seems to be.

Jung would have had a field day with this stuff.

Well everybody knows that women who get themselves raped were just asking for it by dressing cheap or coming onto guys.

And blacks that get lynched bring it on themselves by being uppity to white folks.

So it stands to reason that kids that talk provactively to adults are going to get hit on - and if they end up getting more than that, it's not "rape" or "molestation" or even "harrassment". Men can't help acting on their animal nature. Doesn't the Bible say something about that?

If only people would take responsibility for their actions around Republicans, the world would be a much better place.

Um, the whole point is, even if these boys are hott for teechur, Representative Foley, who is NOT 16 or 17 and is NOT a MySpace slut. He's supposed to be a responsible adult. Dan points out that he gets solicited ALL THE TIME by hott teens, but he doesn't act on it, because it's wrong. Foley didn't get that, and neither does Drudge.

Drudge appears to be arguing that hott teen boys are so irresistable that no reasonable person could be expected to fend them off, especially when they're, you know, IMing you. Huh. I assume when we find out Drudge's kink, it'll be more along the lines of beating up hookers in alleyways, but you never know.

Well, yes, it's obviously stupid to blame the kids for being harassed. But, and I can't believe I'm saying this, does Drudge have a point about the kids not being totally innocent? Surely 16-year-olds should know better than to let old guys talk to them like that online. I mean ... shouldn't they? Why did the kids not say, "no thank you sir"? Of course, I was never sexually exploited by a congressman (somewhat to my chagrin) so I really can't put myself in their shoes.

The novel Lolita chronicles straight male obsession with underage females. It's disgusting to even think about. No normal gay man would even think for one second about having sex with a teenage male. Just as no normal straight man would write a book like Lolita.

Sigh. Every day in every way, the Bushies prove they work for Satan.

I agree about Lolita - I know people do apparently think that way, I just don't understand it. I think it was the big deal it was due to a certain director's personal actions and references to certain acts that weren't mentioned in literature very often at that point. The New Yorker said it best.

Huh? Lolita caused a stir long before any "certain directors" got involved.

Blaming the victims is standard right wing M.O. See every rape trial ever conducted, Hurricane Katrina, etc. Right wingers are simply incapable of taking any responsibility for their actions. If something good happens, then it was Jay-sus. If something bad happens, it was Satan. People let them get away with it.

While "not in Foley's direct employ", I would bet that most of the pages look at the elected officials they are working for as their bosses. So while technically not sexual harassment, it is most definitely in the same category and certainly the page would have found himself having the same kind of internal struggles as someone in a true employer/employee relationship.

Add in the fact that these kids ARE STILL KIDS (regardless of the fact that they aren't as innocent as they used to be). Look at how many ADULTS find themselves in the same predicaments with their employers--boundaries are stretched and limits pushed ALL THE TIME. Especially over the course of time, what started out as a seemingly innocent comment can later be seen in a long progression of
inappropriate behavior. Being inside the exchange AND being 16 AND experiencing this kind of thing for the first time can make it extremely difficult if not IMPOSSIBLE to react in a logical, rational, ADULT way.

But of course, the kid was asking for it and got what he deserved; and a fine, upstanding pillar of the community is being unduly raked through the mud.

Hey, what do you expect from the Republicans anyway? Isn't one of their programs called "No child's behind left behind?"

I think in the beginning it was probably a joke to the teens, and then they realized this guy was a freak, and started keeping track.

But even if they were wantonly lusting after his 53 year old bod, it takes two to tango. And, as the Republicans point out ad nauseum, adults need to be repsonsible. Family values, and all that jazz....

Personally, I'm 41, and if a teenager were, for some unfanthonable reason, to come on to me, I would run the other way. Not only because it's a.) wrong, and b.)illegal, but also because it would say to me that the kid is either on the make or that something ain't quite right upstairs.

I'm as susceptible to middle-aged male vanity as the next guy, but I don't kid myself. When I was that age, 25 was ancient.

I don't think it matters if these kids were directly in Foley's employ. I keep reading these articles about the page program, and these kids are absolutely starstruck. These kids are political nerds and many of them will go on to become congressmen. They work their asses off for the opportunity to pass notes for congressmen and get them cups of coffee, and nearly everyone treats them like they don't exist. They talk about how lucky they felt when a congressman noticed them. These kids are incredibly eager to please anyone in congress who will pay attention to them.

With that amount of power and influence, every congressman is an authority figure over every one of these pages. What Foley did was undoubtedly an abuse of that power. He needs to go to jail.

Only a child who has reached the Age of Consent can have (legal) sex with an adult... gay or straight sex. A person over the age and a person under the age can not have sex, hell heavy flirting with no physical contact can be BAD BAD BAD. How Drudge, in 2006, can say that a child can in anyway act sexy and imply that somehow that exempts the adult from completing stopping the conversation is bizarre.

I think Drudge might feel that the whole, they are both "immoral" homos, so that his statement can be viewed as a march-in-line with the repub anti-gay agenda would put him in the "right". The bozo, it doesn't.

I'm going to forward this to every mother f-er who has ever mentioned Drudge.

Does that c-sucker even listen to himself?!?!

I don't remember Drudge talking this way about the sex participant who started his career, Ms. Monica Lewinsky.

Temptation is everywhere.

Remember Iraq with all that coy 'maybe I have a bomb, maybe I don't' stuff. 'Ohh I just looooong for some big strong superpower to come liberate me...'

They get younger every day, too. Iran -- with a population 85% under 15 years old -- talks more provocatively every day, using words they didn't learn from Jimmy Carter. They got all that nuclear trash talk off the Internet, and from hanging around dropout nations like North Korea.

Drudge would agree with you Elenchos:

You could say "well Drudge, it's abuse of power, a congressman abusing these impressionable, young 17 year-old beasts, talking about their sex lives with a grown man, on the internet." Because you have to remember, those of us who have seen some of the transcripts of these nasty instant messages. This was two ways, ladies and gentlemen. These kids were playing Foley for everything he was worth. Oh yeah. Oh, I haven't…they were talking about how many times they'd masturbated, how many times they'd done it with their girlfriends this weekend…all these things and these "innocent children." And this "poor" congressman sitting there typing, "oh am I going to get any," you know?

Is it too soon for the humor? Apparently not.
http://foleytrickortreat.cf.huffingtonpost.com/

Wow...

How could one "protest" this in the typical Stranger way?

Hmmmm...... Maybe Dan could offer pot cookies to Maria Cantwell with a Teenage boy concealed in his pants.

"I think in the beginning it was probably a joke to the teens, and then they realized this guy was a freak, and started keeping track."
Catalina, that sounds right to me.

I've read the post by "Will in Seattle" several times and only have a glimmer of what it's supposed to mean.

But Drudge is totally wrong. The kids are decidedly NOT egging the Congressman on. Has he actually read the transcript? One actually gets the sense that the kids are creeped out, and just trying to humor the old perv.

Here it is, for those who may not have seen it:

http://abcnews.go.com/images/WNT/02-02-03b.pdf

just backing up catalina with a personal experiance..
i was 15 and a summer school math teacher called me at home ( he was 30 perhaps ), my mother was watching tv at the time and couldn't hear the conversation which quickly turned from algebra to sex play. i was definetly interested until he asked me to come and spend the night at his house. to which i replied 'nope.. my mom won't let me' and he asked me what would you do if your mom did?' what would you wear?.. and then what would you do ?'. and he jacked off ..and at first i thought 'wow i made just a grown man jack off cool'
i also never told anybody because i knew it was wrong. i didn't know it was illegal though. and it never occured to me that i was irresposible, getting an adult man all hot and bothered. and then i saw him the next day in class. and i was creeped out beyond comprehension. creeped completely the fuck out. i dropped the class and thought he might just call me at home again or worse still just drop by. he never did.
all in all i was far from innocent. but he was an adult. he knew a lot more than i did. but he wasn't a goddamned congerssman. he was a summer school math teacher.. and i was... just 15..

Just in case you missed it, Drudge was insinuating that sixteen year old high-school students were responsible for coercing a 52 year old member of congress into sexual conversations. A 52 year old man who those teenagers served underneath. Teenagers who wanted a career in politics. A career apiration that may have been harmed by having a current member of congress as their enemy. That fear of retribution is exactly what makes this coercion, the very textbook definition of it. To claim that the teenagers (Drudge refers to the sixteen year olds as 'beasts'. (These are young people who are actively participating in the democracy of the US. Smart kids who aspire to make this country greater. He calls them 'beasts'. It makes me want to cry. I take that back. It is making me cry.)) To claim that the teenagers coerced the congressmen is blaming the victim, and it is one of the most sinister weapons used against those that have been sexually assaulted. It is a tool pedophiles, rapists, and molesters use, and Matt Drudge should have more respect for his position, for his influence, for himself, for Foley, for the pages, and for the common human decency than to use it.