Searching for a ray of light in the Foley gloom, Ramesh Ponnuru points us to a voice of calm:
Hugh Hewitt [Ramesh Ponnuru]
The House Republican Conference is sending around his take on Hastert’s role in Foley-gate.
Kathryn Lopez responds:
re: Hugh Hewitt [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
I often assume our friend actually works for the House Republican Conference, or RNC!
You know, when K-Lo thinks you’re kind of a hack…weelllll.
But what do Hewitt’s readers ‘think?’:
Thank you Hugh!
I first read the editorial by Dean Barnett and became “alot” annoyed! I did post my opinion of it on that comment section. So, I was so happy when I read your opinion because , well, it’s shared by me! The truth and facts about the Dim.s sickening dirty tricks are with us and we now have the FBI looking for hopefully truth/facts.
Indeed.
{ 11 comments }
ogged 10.04.06 at 8:56 am
That K-Lo comment is priceless. But setting aside the fall of the republic and our collective moral abasement, wouldn’t it be a lot of fun to be a hack? Every bit of news would be part of a big spin puzzle, and you could get to work knowing that the more tendentious your solution, the more it would outrage people you’ve decided to hate. I imagine Hugh Hewitt happy.
Kyle 10.04.06 at 9:29 am
The hack solution to Frist’s Taliban remark: We must use the political tool kit to splinter the Taliban and cripple it as a military factor.
BigMacAttack 10.04.06 at 9:55 am
Actually, Hugh has a point. Kind of.
Every time I hear investigation my eyes roll around a bit. I see e-mails being searched and CSI and the FBI running around. And I don’t know if that was called for or necessary or legal or right.
In the real world, something like this probably would have happened, all the pages, starting with those who had the most contact with Foley, would have been called into a room one by one, they would have gotten a little blurb about harassment, and how they didn’t have to tolerate it in any way shape or form, and how it was serious business, and if they had any knowledge of harassment of any kind (being made to feel uncomfortable in anyway), not only could they expect to have their complaints taken seriously, but they had a duty to speak up.
And that would have been that because some folks would have spoken up.
Of course in the real world accepting an invitation to a sporting event worth thousands of dollars from a vendor would be considered a major ethical violation and you don’t get subsidized hair cuts.
But that is the real world.
Barry 10.04.06 at 10:25 am
bigmacattack, and all of the pages would know that that talk was 100% CYA BS, because the abusers were still around, in positions of power. Now, what would happen in many companies is that Foley would have been fired for sexual harrassment, and that would be that for him.
In my orientation at Ford, the HR guy mentioned that a plant manager had been fired for harrassment, and said, ‘if we’ll fire somebody like that, we’ll definitely fire you’.
That hit home.
nick s 10.04.06 at 10:34 am
Hewitt thought Harriet Miers was set to be the Best! Justice! Evah! He’s a hack without mitigation, and the only competition he has comes from Powerline’s Assrocket.
Belle Waring 10.04.06 at 10:38 am
I know, it’s neck and neck with him and hindrocket. I think the loyal Harriet Miers stuff might put him over the top. Those old posts would be worth a look, for the laffs.
BigMacAttack 10.04.06 at 11:31 am
Barry,
Nah. The letter cannot be ambigious or a warning needs to have been given.
You get one lets go to lunch.
You get a warning.
The next let’s go to lunch you send, security shows up with a brown box, and tells you to put your stuff in it, and walks you to the car.
In this case sense it seems the letter was fairly ambigious, you take the rough approach outlined above.
And your right the talk should make it clear no matter who it is they mean business.
But maybe that isn’t possible when a congressman is invloved. The institution itself makes any such talk nonsense. That would be sad and is probably true.
Ok, so I am wrong.
But what do you do? Going through e-mails also seems wrong and would it be legal?
Interview former pages?
Anyway it is our fault. We give them the liscence.
blah 10.04.06 at 12:26 pm
Actually, in the real world, it varies from company to company. Some companies take anti-harassment policies very seriously indeed and you will get shit-canned. Other companies, not so much. If you read the cases, lots of companies turn a blind eye, ignore warnings, blame the victims, etc.
There really is no way to generalize what would have happened in the so-called real world.
Henry 10.04.06 at 12:54 pm
Comment of the month, that is.
Ginger Yellow 10.04.06 at 3:11 pm
Except that Hastert was the first one to call for an FBI investigation (according to the cynics, so that the Repubs could just claim “sub judice” and refuse to comment), which makes it rather hard to paint this as a Democratic conspiracy. Given that the sources for the original ABC story were Republicans, I’m still not sure what it is the Democrats are supposed to have done.
A short lived British political comedy show, called something like “I I ruled the world”, had a segment called “I couldn’t disagree more”, in which panelists had to play hacks spinning against some self-evident truth like, I don’t know, “torture is bad”. It was by far the best segment of a not very good show.
Buffalo Gal 10.06.06 at 6:17 pm
I first read the editorial by Dean Barnett and became “alot†annoyed!
I try not to be the grammar troll, but this is just to much for an old English major to take. Can folks PLEASE become conversant with grammar, spelling, usage, and syntax before they post?
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