Blackburn: Suspension of Disbelief?

It is becoming harder and harder to believe that Marsha Blackburn didn’t know anything about Mark Foley’s proclivities. Now it is possible she didn’t know anything. These are the Congressmen who knew about Foley’s emailing underage pages; Denny Hastert, John Boehner, Rodney Alexander, John Shimkus, and Tom Reynolds. Let’s take a closer look at Shimkus/Blackburn link. Shimkus and Blackburn are on the Energy and Commerce Committee. In September 2005, Blackburn and Shimkus worked together on broadcast flag legislation. (http://p2pnet.net/story/6465 ). This was in September 2005. Shimkus definitely knew about Foley in Fall of 2005. Blackburn and Shimkus also worked together with Congressman Fred Upton to on the Video Game Decency Act (http://www.house.gov/upton/press/press-09-22-06.html ) in the summer of 2005. So these two Congressman and their staffs are fairly close.

Next on deck is Rodney Alexander. He is the Congressman who sponsored the page that received the Foley emails and IM’s. Alexander knew about the emails since September 2005. In January and early February 2006, Alexander was in the Roy Blunt camp for majority leader with Blackburn, along with Foley. So Alexander, Foley, and Blackburn were in the same faction within the Republican party.
http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2006/01/day_two_blunt_a.html

On to Tom Reynolds. He and Blackburn are co-chairs of the National Republican Congressional Campaign. So they definitely work close together, real close. Guess who is Tom Foley’s chief of staff is? Kirk Fordham. Who is Kirk Fordham? Well, he was the chief of staff of Mark Foley and used to escort Foley around to keep him out trouble when Foley was near the congressional pages. Fordham also tried to cut a deal with Brian Ross to keep the Foley story under wraps. It’s a small, Republican, Capital Hill world after all. But wait, it gets better. This is from Josh Marshall’s TPM blog. “Finally, one detail here isn't getting enough attention. Rep. Alexander (R-LA), the first member of Congress to be alerted to the problem, says he contacted the NRCC. That's the House Republicans' election committee, a political organization entirely separate from the House bureaucracy and the Congress. (The head of the NRCC this cycle is Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY).) That is, to put it mildly, not in the disciplinary and administrative chain of command of the House of Representatives.” Oh snap! UPDATE-OH SNAP 2: From the NY Post "In another stunning development, Robert Novak today reveals in his column - published in PostOpinion on Page 31 - that even after House GOP leaders knew that Foley had written an inappropriate e-mail to a 16-year-old former male page, they were still urging him to seek re-election." UPDATE-OH SNAP 3:From the AP "A senior congressional aide said Wednesday that he alerted the House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office in 2004 about worrisome conduct by former Rep. Mark Foley with teenage pages -- the earliest known alert to the GOP leadership.
Kirk Fordham told The Associated Press that when he was told about Foley's inappropriate behavior toward pages, he had "more than one conversation with senior staff at the highest level of the House of Representatives asking them to intervene."
The conversations took place long before the e-mail scandal broke, Fordham said, and at least a year earlier than members of the House GOP leadership have acknowledged."


I’ll also mention again that Marsha Blackburn is the assistant majority whip. She’s #4 in the House leadership, so she has to coordinate and report to Denny Hastert and John Boehner, dare I say, everyday. What is the likelihood that with all these people Blackburn works with and knows would not mention to her that a congressman (from her own faction within the party) sent “overly friendly” emails to underage pages? Blackburn needs to have a press conference and clarify what and when she knew of Foley.