Text 2918, 116 rader
Skriven 2006-10-22 03:32:00 av George Pope (1:153/7715.0)
   Kommentar till text 2802 av Tim Richardson (1:123/140)
Ärende: The Foley Matter
========================
Okay, the blog is opportunistic -- are you saying that means Foley WASN'T a
sexual predator?


TR> On 10-03-06, LEE LOFASO said to BOB KLAHN:
TR> 
TR> 
TR> LL>Hello Bob,
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TR> 
TR> {clip}
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TR> 
TR> 
TR> 
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TR> 
TR> The Bogus Blog Behind Foley's Fall
TR> 
TR> 
TR> SPANKED FoleyABCNews.com brought Mark Foley's boy-chasing to national
TR> attention, but it wasn't the first website to flog the story. That
TR> dubious honor belongs to StopSexPredators, a pseudo-vigilante blog filled w
TR> plagiarized, hastily-assembled posts, which no one seems to have heard
TR> of, visited, or linked to before last weekuand whose operator has a
TR> suspiciously savvy grasp of the news cycle.
TR> 
TR> 
TR> In other words, a blog whose sole raison d'etre seems to have been to
TR> get the Foley ball rolling.
TR> 
TR> 
TR> If its time/date stamps are to be trusted (like most free blogware,
TR> Blogger allows its users to backdate posts), the pervert-outing
TR> anony-site was set up on July 28 as a "clearing house for the public to rep
TR> sex predators and as a resource for concerned citizens."
TR> 
TR> 
TR> One early post, headlined The Sickening Six, naming and shaming the
TR> "kinds of sick people who hunt minors for their own sick purposes," is
TR> basically an amalgam of plagiarized entries from Crimelibrary, Wikipedia, a
TR> Answers.com.
TR> 
TR> 
TR> After running just six posts over the summer, the site picked up steam
TR> on September 21 when its author wrote, "the blog has been noticed and some
TR> shocking emails have been received!!!!" and posted four emails
TR> purportedly from "interns" outraged by the heretofore unmentioned Foley and
TR> his penchant for teenage boys.
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TR> 
TR> (Of course, if these emails are legit, it means the "interns" somehow
TR> stumbled upon the blog, despite the fact that it had not yet been linked
TR> to by any other sites, and was virtually indetectible to Google, which
TR> ranks sites according to the number of incoming links.)
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TR> 
TR> One "intern" wrote:
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TR> 
TR> "...I came to Washington because I care about the future of America. I
TR> wanted to be around good and decent men like President George Bush.
TR> Instead, I feel like a piece of meat. The worst part of it for me is
TR> there appear to be plenty of my fellow interns who don't mind Foley's
TR> particular 'path to power.'"
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TR> 
TR> Three days later, the blogger posted the now infamous "Emails from
TR> Congressman Foley to 16 Year Old Page!!!!", claiming they'd been sent in
TR> by a reader (despite the fact that they appeared to be scans of faxed
TR> printouts). Persons unknown then seeded the link to various political
TR> sites including Wonkette, which promptly dismissed them as fakes. ABC,
TR> of course, took them more seriously.
TR> 
TR> 
TR> Whoever promoted the story on DailyKos did so only 12 minutes after the
TR> fateful post went live at 11:06 a.m.:
TR> 
TR> 
TR> Six minutes later, the same person, again writing under the handle
TR> WHinternNOW posted the following:
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TR> 
TR> Back on Sept. 5, however, that very same WHinternNOW posted a
TR> suspiciously more informed-sounding take on the congressman:
TR> 
TR> 
TR> Whoever is behind the blog hasn't responded to emails from Radar or any
TR> other outlets, and seems to have lost interest in the site.
TR> 
TR> 
TR> "I'm thrilled that so many folks are looking at this simple blog...."
TR> the author wrote on October 2, the last day the site was updated. "If you
TR> have any ideas that I should post, please let me know. I'm happy to pass
TR> along information about the current situation, but would much prefer to kee
TR> marching toward the large goal or stopping sex predators. I don't think
TR> we'll see it in the Congress anytime soon, so let's focus our energy
TR> elsewhere."
TR> 
TR> 
TR> What, leaving the party so soon?
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TR> 
TR> ---
TR> *Durango b301 #PE* 
TR>  * Origin: Try Our Web Based QWK: DOCSPLACE.ORG (1:123/140)
TR>                                                                            

... nfx v3.1 I'll have a steak sandwich...a porterhouse btwn 2 ribeyes!      

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