Topic: Newsmax
It was just a few short years ago that NewsMax was touting Rep. Mark Foley -- who represented the Florida congressional district where NewsMax's headquarters are located -- as a candidate for a Senate seat, calling him "a solid Republican with strong conservative credentials" and "an American success story in his own right" and concluding, "Perhaps one day Florida's governor will be telling Senate contenders, 'You can be the next Mark Foley.' " (Of course, that was two days after NewsMax editor and CEO Christopher Ruddy donated $1,000 to Foley's campaign.)
Well, forget all that. After Foley's resignation following the revelation of, er, inappropriate communications with underage male congressional pages, NewsMax is ready to disassociate itself from Foley. An Oct. 2 article touts the reportedly likely successor to Foley's candidacy, Joe Negron:
Negron, a Cuban-American, is a no nonsense conservative Republican. Unlike Foley who took a pro-choice position on abortion, Negron is a social conservative as well.
Wait -- wasn't Foley "a solid Republican with strong conservative credentials"?
Another Oct. 2 NewsMax article appears at first to be defending Foley, but in fact, it's defending Republican leaders by parsing why Foley resigned:
An important point as the Mark Foley scandal widens: Ex-Rep. Foley did not resign over e-mails he sent to a House page that Republican leaders knew about months ago, as has been widely reported.
Rather, he decided to step aside in the wake of much more recent revelations about salacious instant messages he sent to one or more House pages.
Democrats have tried to make political hay of the scandal by charging that in not acting after learning of the e-mails in 2005, Republicans may have been guilty of a cover-up.
In fact, the e-mails that have surfaced so far, while inappropriate, were relatively benign compared to the much more sexually explicit instant messages that came to light just last week.
NewsMax similarly headlined an Associated Press article, "Rep. Hastert: Foley 'Deceived Me,Too.' "
Which sounds exactly like today's Republican talking points, as previously expressed by CNSNews.com.
