Topic category:  Other/General

In "Who Knew Congressman Foley Was a Closeted Democrat?, Ann Coulter explained why, despite their problems, Republicans remain generally preferable to Democrats and how Republicans were betrayed by a gay predator from Massachusetts who moved to Florida at age three, chose to become a Democrat and later joined the Republican Party after losing some elections without embracing some fundamental social values shared by the bulk of Republicans. Wikipedia: "At the age of 23 Foley was appointed to the Lake Worth City Council as a Democrat. After some failed bids for higher political offices, he switched parties in the 1980s."

Ann Coulter:

"If Republicans had decided to spy on Foley for sending overly friendly e-mails to pages, Democrats would have been screaming about a Republican witch-hunt against gays. But if they don't, they're enabling a sexual predator.

"Talk to us Monday. Either we'll be furious that Republicans violated the man's civil rights, or we'll be furious that they didn't."

Ann Coulter's point: Democrat strategy is to blame Republicans no matter what. As Ann asserted: "This is the very definition of political opportunism."

Democrats like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are exploiting the Foley scandal and posing as champions of innocent children to direct voter attention away from even more egregious Democrat political opportunism that threatens America's security and prosperity.

Remember when Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid crowed that The Patriot Act had been killed?

Remember who was outraged about the secret terrorist surveillance program (NOT The New York Times sharing the secret with terrorists by disclosing it)?

Ms. Pelosi is a suitable symbol for Democrats. Her concern for innocent children does not extend to unborn children, of course. Even though she claims to be Catholic.

"Despite authoritative Vatican opposition to the receipt of Holy Communion by persons professing to be both Catholics in a state of grace and abortion supporters, ardent pro-abortion 'Catholics' like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi 'fully intend to receive communion, one way or another.' Ms. Pelosi said that receiving Holy Communion is 'very important' to her. That makes good sense politically, since a Catholic who presents herself or himself for Communion thereby represents that she or he is in a state of grace and being in a state of grace (or at least appearing to be) is still a political plus.

Ms. Pelosi is exploiting the Foley scandal and trying to put all the blame on Republicans.

There's no doubt that one former Republican Congressman is at fault: Mark Foley.

There is also no doubt that when the truth became public, he did what former Democrat Congressman Gerry Studds refused to do: resign.

Ann Coulter's comparison of Messrs. Foley and Studds is as revealing as some of Mr. Foley's text messages (which are indisputably clear, unlike his emails to a page, which would have led to a gay witch hunt charge if it turned out that Mr. Foley was merely well-intentioned instead of predatory):

"The object lesson of Foley's inappropriate e-mails to male pages is that when a Republican congressman is caught in a sex scandal, he immediately resigns and crawls off into a hole in abject embarrassment. Democrats get snippy.

"Foley didn't claim he was the victim of a 'witch-hunt.' He didn't whine that he was a put-upon 'gay American.' He didn't stay in Congress and haughtily rebuke his critics. He didn't run for re-election. He certainly didn't claim he was 'saving the Constitution.' (Although his recent discovery that he has a drinking problem has a certain Democratic ring to it.)"

All true, but Mr. Foley, who finally announced that he is gay (through his representative) also announced that he had been abused for a couple of years by a clergyman forty years ago.

If THAT claim is false, it is utterly contemptible.

If THAT claim is true, then why did Mr. Foley wait forty years to come forward and why has he not named the person whom he claimed abused him?

If Mr. Foley kept silent instead of outing a pedophile clergyman, that was even worse than stalking pages.

What kind of Catholic is Mr. Foley?

A pro-abortion "Catholic," like Ms. Pelosi.

Mr Foley is a member of The Republican Majority for Choice."

In other words, like Democrat Ms. Pelosi on "social issues."

The Republican Majority for Choice explains itself this way:

"We endorse the 'big tent' philosophy of inclusion and tolerance on social issues.

"We support the protection of Roe v. Wade and want to ensure that the right to choose is personal and NOT political. The choice issue is symbolic to the majority of electoral voters who know that there is much more that can be lost if we do not actively work to protect that right. At stake are our fundamental constitutional rights that are so tightly woven into our country's social fabric. At stake is the integrity of our courts and ensuring the nomination of judges who practice fair judicial temperament and not those who would impose judicial activism of the worst kind. At stake are legislative measures that would devastate a thirty-year precedent of personal freedom as well as our Republican majority in Congress and the very future of our party.

"We are deeply concerned with direction of our Party if it continues to endorse a social agenda that is both intrusive and alienating. Our Party is naively discounting its mainstream members for those who represent the extreme right and believe it is their way or no way. These obstinate tactics will ensure one thing - the inevitable erosion of the Republican Party to minority status."

Ironically, it is Mr. Foley's no longer private rejection of Catholic (and Republican) values threatens to give Democrats control of the House of Representatives next year.

On October 1, 2006, the opportunistic Ms. Pelosi issued this press release on news reports that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was opening a preliminary investigation of the sexually explicit e-mails Mr. Foley sent an underage former House Page. “The FBI is rightly investigating former Republican Congressman Mark Foley’s reported internet stalking of an underage former House Page. Mr. Foley is outside the reach of the House Ethics Committee, however the required investigation into the cover up of Mr. Foley’s behavior by the Republican Leadership must quickly move forward.

“The children who work as Pages in the Congress are Members’ special trust. Statements by the Republican Leadership indicate that they violated this trust when they were made aware of the internet stalking of an underage Page by Mr. Foley and covered it up for six months to a year.

“Congress must not pass the buck on investigating this cover up. The children, their parents, the public, and our colleagues must be assured that such abhorrent behavior is not tolerated and will never happen again

It's a pity that the Democrats did not solve that problem in 1983, when they controlled the House of Representatives and two Congressmen (Democrat Studds and Republican Congressman Daniel Crane) were censured, but not expelled, for having sexual relations with underage pages),

That said, America needs to know whether Ms. Pelosi was right when she flatly stated that there was a "cover up of Mr. Foley’s behavior by the Republican Leadership."

It is undisputed that the Democrat on the House Page Board was not notified about a possible Foley program. That was wrong.

It is disputed as to who knew what and when, so that needs to be established, in order to determine whether there was a cover up or a bad mistake.

If Speaker Dennis Hastert should have taken reports more seriously, Democrats timing the public disclosure of Mr. Foley's misconduct instead of immediately reporting it to the appropriate authorities (IF that happened, and it too should be determined) does not excuse the Speaker and calls into question his fitness to serve as Speaker.

If the Speaker covered up, he is not fit to serve in public office.

We need to determine the truth.

But Democrat candidates who share the "social values" of Mr. Foley and Ms. Pelosi should be the political beneficiaries of the scandal.

The scandal highlights the need for people with traditional American values to serve in Congress instead of political opportunists and hypocrites like Mr. Foley and Ms. Pelosi.

Ann Coulter related how the Far Left excused Mr. Studds:

"Washington Post columnist Colman McCarthy referred to Studds' affair with a teenage page as 'a brief consenting homosexual relationship' and denounced Studds' detractors for engaging in a 'witch-hunt' against gays: 'New England witch trials belong to the past, or so it is thought. This summer on Cape Cod, the reputation of Rep. Gerry Studds was burned at the stake by a large number of his constituents determined to torch the congressman for his private life.'"

Making Democrat John Conyers Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee would be a catastrophe. (He voted against even censuring Mr. Studds.)

The lesson voters need to take from the Foley scandal is that they need to vote for the candidates who support traditional American values, Republican or Democrat, but usually Republican,and to reject the candidates espousing the "social values" of Mr. Foley and Ms. Pelosi.

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.