Why mainstream media is terrible at determining moral outrage

Oct03

by Duane on October 3rd, 2006 at 11:29 am

UPDATED: 11:54 AM PST–Scroll to bottom of post.

Below is considered to be “THE” political story of the hour…

(Foxnews.com) WASHINGTON Ã¢â‚¬â€ In a scandal guaranteed to anger parents, a prominent House Republican has resigned after the revelation that he exchanged raunchy electronic messages with a teenage boy, a former congressional page.

Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., who is single, apologized Friday for letting down his family and constituents. Once his resignation letter was read to the House late Friday afternoon, Republicans spent the night trying to explain Ã¢â‚¬â€ six weeks before congressional elections Ã¢â‚¬â€ how this could have happened on their watch. (more…)

Now I think we can all agree here that this guy needs to have the book thrown at him for this type of behavior. Especially since he was the chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus. But I guess there is just this one little story that keeps coming to mind that has me wondering where is all the outrage:

Eric Norman Olsen, 28, has confessed to molesting as many as 200 elementary school students in dozens of classrooms he has taught in over the last three years in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, Ontario police said. (more…)

This incidents all took place within a few miles of my own community. Here is some additional news (BTW, more children are stepping up to confirm that they were in fact molested by this man)

Parents of two girls who have accused a substitute teacher of child molestation say they have been brushed aside by school officials, so they filed claims Friday against three school districts and the county superintendent of schools.

Lawyers representing Jacqueline Hunt of Chino and the Ramirez family of Rancho Cucamonga served the claims to the Central, Chino Valley Unified and San Bernardino City Unified school districts in addition to the county superintendent’s office for negligence in handling the molestation allegations against Eric Norman Olsen.

Representatives of each district and the county confirmed receiving a set of claims, two for students and one for each set of parents, alleging officials mishandled complaints about students sitting on Olsen’s lap.

“To the extent that the tort claims that we did nothing, it is simply wrong,” said Maria Aarvig, a lawyer representing the Rancho Cucamonga-based Central School District.

The district has 20 days to reject the claim for completeness and 45 days to decide whether to accept or reject it, Aarvig explained. District officials will then send a notice to the person who filed the complaint, who then has six months to file a lawsuit, if desired.

Christine McGrew, spokeswoman for the county superintendent of schools, said the claim will be thoroughly reviewed by the office’s risk-management joint-powers authority and legal counsel. (more…)

You would think that something like this would have sparked a series of “special reports” and interviews on national television. As you can see, it has barely created a blip on the moral outrage screen of mainstream media. Once again, teacher unions have been practically given the shovel by mainstream media to bury this story by not using the same investigative aggressiveness as they would if this was a controversy surrounding Bush. This is EXACTLY why I spend very little time discussing Washington D.C. politics on this website. House Republicans are content with their “slap on the wrist” approach to this situation when some of them knew about Foley’s interests a while ago (I wonder if they would have taken a more aggressive approach if this was a Democrat?). House Democrats on the other hand are salivating at the chance to use this little morsel as political fuel for their agenda —forget the youth involved!! It’s the same thing over and over again. Foley is just one of many! As for me, I am more concerned about the “Foleys” that live right in my own backyard.

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And here is some more BULL from mainstream media…

“ABC News now has obtained 52 separate instant message exchanges, which former pages say were sent by Foley, using the screen name Maf54, to two different boys under the age of 18.” (more, if you can take it)

Do you remember all of the opposition via mainstream media commentators, bloggers, etc. over the eavesdropping program? Remember all the concern about “privacy”? Again, I am not defending Foley, but how is mainstream media able to sidestep its own criticisms over privacy rights?

Sphere: Related Content

http://yourdailybowelprep.blogspot.com DMG

Hey Duane, I don’t know man. Maybe I haven’t looked in the same places you have, but I really haven’t seen any Democrats salivating over the prospect of getting some political points with this. But if there are some, I chalk them up as politically sleazy, just the same as if it were a Democratic congressman who got caught with his cyberpants down, and Republicans leading the attack. Frankly, I’m sick of this kind of politics on both sides. Nothing gets done, because both sides are trying to out-dirt each other. Sexual deviance has no political party. We all know there are freaks on both side of the aisle. As far as special reports, and all Foley all the time news, I don’t really want to see it, honestly. I don’t want it thrown into the political soup. I think we’ve gotten off topic too much lately already. This is one incident of a sick man molesting children, there shouldn’t be anything political about it. There should be bipartisan condemnation. Right? Maybe I didn’t read it right, but why are you so upset at the ABC Article? It just shows the transcript of what happened. Did I miss something? It wasn’t dug up by ABC, it was posted originally by blog. Anyway, check out a quick overview at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Foley_Scandal

I’ll read your post again to see if I missed anything. I don’t think this is the same thing as eavesdropping on the American people by it’s government. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that the emails and IMs were leaked to the newsmedia rather than having been picked up by some sort of wiretap.

Bottom line, the dude liked young boys, and that makes him a pedophile, who was on a committee to protect children. He needs to be removed from office. I think the fact that he was an in the closet homosexual and also a Republican is beside the point. The only thing I’m a little irked about is, how long people in Congress knew about this guy, and if so why they swept it under the rug for so long. If it was a political move, they need to be called on it. Not because it would oust a Republican, but because this guy had class after class of 16 year old pages to bother, and should have been stopped as soon as somebody knew about it. Politics be damned, democrat or republican. The same goes for heterosexual men hitting on female pages…cuz you know someone is going to dig up some dirt on that soon, and I don’t want our Congress to get sidetracked on any of this Enquirer bullshit. They have work to do.
http://yourdailybowelprep.blogspot.com DMG

OK, I went over your post again, when I was writing, I mixed up your questioning of the special reports and moral outrage, thought you were talking about the Foley story. Yeah, stories about us normal folks always get less press. No surprise there. I think there is more interest in the Foley case, because Republicans have (unwisely) called themselves the party of “Traditional Family Values”, when they know good and well that politicians no matter the party have long engaged in unethical behavior because they are powerful. This is a case of Schadenfreude (German for pleasure taken from someone else’s misfortune). But the GOP set themselves up for this by claiming a moral high ground in an arena where almost none of the gladiators value ethics. This last few weeks have been an assault on children in my book, and I might have to take a short break from the news.

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