21 Comments

• 1. Casper  |  December 3rd, 2007 at 8:26 pm

  First, if the allegations are true, I hope the guy goes too jail. I don’t have much sympathy for child molesters.

  That said;
  “This apparently happened a few days ago”

  According to the article it happened on Friday. Not really that long. Are you suggesting that someone was sitting on the story? Could it be that the FBI just got around to releasing the information?

  “Had this been an aide to a Republican Senator, do you think the media would have been so quiet about it?”

  Considering the story just broke, what would you expect at this point?

• 2. Diana Powe  |  December 3rd, 2007 at 8:35 pm

  Matt,

  If the case can be made on the guy, then let him do the time. Have at it. However, may I venture the humble opinion that it just makes Republicans look self-pitying when the four hits I found on Google News about this story just now has yet to match up to the interest in stories about sitting Senators who go on television, are quoted in the newspaper and vote in the Senate ‘n stuff. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that “McHaney had worked as the D.C. scheduler for Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell” (source: your linked story).

  Sounds like an important and influential guy. I don’t know. Maybe we should have wall-to-wall coverage complete with snazzy graphics along the lines of the death of Anna Nicole Smith.

• 3. KCJ  |  December 3rd, 2007 at 8:38 pm

  It’ll be interesting to see how the media reports on it now that it’s out there. It is a bit curious why we didn’t hear about this sooner… apparently a story that just came out says he was immediately fired after he was arrested… so some people on the Hill kept it hush-hush.

• 4. Diana Powe  |  December 3rd, 2007 at 8:46 pm

  Maybe it’s confusing the people in the Chyron ™ department at FoxNEWS because it means they’re not supposed to switch the party affiliation, i.e., “FORMER CONGRESSMAN MARK FOLEY (D-FL)” which appeared onscreen multiple times during that scandal.

• 5. Bigfoot  |  December 3rd, 2007 at 9:29 pm

  Matt, your link is to the smokinggun homepage.
  Here’s one to the specific story, which I found at Hotair.com.

• 6. Male Zampolit--Dittohead4Life!!!  |  December 3rd, 2007 at 10:26 pm

  Platitudes from Casspur and Elsie. Media bias bites ‘em in the ass, and they make excuses.

  Casspur, as a teacher, don’cha think you should know the difference between “two,” “too,” and “to?”

• 7. Ricorun  |  December 3rd, 2007 at 10:42 pm

  Male Zampolit–Dittohead4Life!!!

  Okay, I can live with that. Lol!

• 8. Kahn  |  December 3rd, 2007 at 11:26 pm

  Diana - a knee jerk counter-attack on a Fox mistake says more about you than this story. Even in an anonymous forum you can’t admit that a Democrat may be bad and that maybe it won’t get covered?

  Give me a break. Kool-aide at every meal is not good for your health.

• 9. Casper  |  December 3rd, 2007 at 11:35 pm

  Male Zampolit–Dittohead4Life!!! ,
  I do know the difference between “two,” “too,” and “to”. Sometime I stutter when I type. LOL

  So who was I making excuses for? Not the aide. i suggested he go to jail. Oh I got it. The media.

  You are right. That darn biased media didn’t do their job. Why isn’t it being reported?

  Let me check some sites.
  ABC- not reported.
  Those scum
  Washington Post- not reported. Why are they sitting on this?
  Fox News- not reported. Guess they have joined the dark side.
  CBS- not reported. Dan Rather Lives.
  Washington Times- Not reported. Why are they so biased

  AP- Oh they got it. Thank God. Democracy is saved.
  Someone finally reported on the story about how an aide who had been working for Senator Maria Cantwell is in federal custody after being arrested on a charge of attempting to sexually exploit a minor.
  Opps sorry. Former Aide. He was fired today. Damn those Democrats for keeping the guy on the payroll all weekend.

  Are you happy now?

• 10. Ricorun  |  December 3rd, 2007 at 11:42 pm

  For what it’s worth, the story about James McHaney hit Roll Call tonight.

• 11. Casper  |  December 3rd, 2007 at 11:58 pm

  Ah but Ricorun,
  Where is the MSM?
  You would think that for an important story like this the networks would have their anchors (whoever they might be) and a camera crew out there.

• 12. Kahn  |  December 3rd, 2007 at 11:58 pm

  Well, we’ll see how much coverage it gets. I’d loved to be proven wrong.

• 13. Diana Powe  |  December 4th, 2007 at 12:21 am

  Kahn,

  If you run your eyes just a little further up the page to the second post, written by yours truly, I said, and I quote, “If the case can be made on the guy, then let him do the time. Have at it.” That would also be the very same post in which I pointed out that I had found four (4) hits on a search on Google News (which is not even the only search engine for news). That would seem to make this:
  

  …you can’t admit that a Democrat may be bad and that maybe it won’t get covered?

  seem kind of…um…silly.

  Oh, yes. That silly “Fox mistake”. Those silly, silly people at FoxNEWS in the Chyron ™ department. It’s so easy to mix up the letter “R” and the letter “D” especially seven different times on air. I mean the darn keys are right next to each other on the keyboard and how are they supposed to know if they hit the correct one or not before it gets broadcast over the network. How gosh darn silly of them. It was just an honest mistake…honest. That one, hey, you got me, I can’t produce definitive evidence that FoxNEWS did it on purpose but I’m just a tad bit skeptical, if you’ll forgive me.

  Finally, after all, as I said earlier the guy was immediately fired from his important and influential position as the Senator’s “DC scheduler” so maybe the networks should go with wall-to-wall coverage so you guys won’t feel so picked on.

• 14. Ricorun  |  December 4th, 2007 at 12:47 am

  Casper: Ah but Ricorun, Where is the MSM? You would think that for an important story like this the networks would have their anchors (whoever they might be) and a camera crew out there.

  Search me. You’d think they’d be Johnny-on-the-spot, wouldn’t you? He is, after all, a DC scheduler for crying out loud.

• 15. Ricorun  |  December 4th, 2007 at 1:04 am

  Oops… it seems my parade was rained on, lol! But seriously, how many sets of klieg lights are there in the universe? Okay, maybe with things shut down in Hollyweird there may be an excess. But you can’t expect them to relocate overnight.

  Although now that I mention it, all of those out-of-work camera crews might as well relocate to DC. To paraphrase a beer commercial, if they’ve got the time, DC’s got the McHaneys.

• 16. Male Zampolit--Dittohead4Life!!!  |  December 4th, 2007 at 4:57 am

  I do know the difference between “two,” “too,” and “to”. Sometime I stutter when I type. LOL

  Well, back when I was in school, we were taught to proofread, and the teachers had a little pride in their own writing. I guess that was before public schools became indocrination centers…

• 17. Kahn  |  December 4th, 2007 at 3:05 pm

  Diana - think they had forged documents showing Foley was a Democrat? I can find example also.

  Doesn’t look like this is a BIG MSM story.

• 18. Casper  |  December 4th, 2007 at 8:07 pm

  Kahn,
  Just curious. How much coverage do you think this story should get?
  Would you want the same amount of coverage if it were about a Republican or an Independent?

• 19. Almiranta  |  December 5th, 2007 at 11:01 am

  Casper, when you write “Would you want the same amount of coverage if it were about a Republican or an Independent?” you show that you completely miss the point, as does Diana.

  I don’t think the post is about how the incident DESERVES a lot of media coverage. It is about how it would probably have GOTTEN a lot of media coverage if it had been about a Republican functionary, no matter how insignificant his role may have been.

  The post is not about the man, or his alleged crime, or a complaint that it has not received “enough” attention. It is simply about the perception that a Republican would have been treated differently, a fair perception based on the wildy differing coverages of, as one example, the actual sexual contact between a Representative and a minor of the same gender and mere e-mail chatter between another Repesentative and a legally adult person (of the same gender) in an exchange initiated by that young adult.

• 20. Almiranta  |  December 5th, 2007 at 11:06 am

  Or, to pursue the differences in media attention, dependent on the party affiliation of the person involved, the nearly zero press about a homosexual brothel being run out of the house of a sitting Senator, vs the non-contact, non-verbal, assumption of the possible initiation of possible sexual contact between two adult and assumedly consenting males, based on foot movements.

  Leave homosexuality out of it (though when a Republican is gay it is evidently a matter of great concern and scorn) and just look at the facts. Tap dancing in a restroom stall is not illegal. Prostitution is.

• 21. Casper  |  December 5th, 2007 at 9:57 pm

  Almiranta,
  Can you site a case in which a minor Republican official received undo media attention for breaking the law?