Mahoney Mess: Divorce Filings and Media Incuriosity

Why is the media continuing to essentially conduct a blackout on news about Democrat Tim Mahoney and his affairs (the extramarital affair with a campaign staffer and then the affair with a FEMA worker)? Well, this is a self-answering question: the answer is already in the question. Mahoney is a Democrat.

Just two years ago, the media circled around Rep. Mark Foley (R), and seized on GOP leadership's knowledge and actions on the scandal to play up the fact that the GOP were corrupt or somehow damaged. It helped play a role in costing Democrats the election.

Here? You're getting crickets, despite the fact that Mahoney was Democrat leader Rahm Emanuel's pick for replacing Foley. How and why Emanuel chose Mahoney is a mystery to local Democrats, who were pretty much ignored in the process because Mahoney was quite wealthy. Money talked, and Emanuel pushed Mahoney.

It's also apparent from various sources that Emanuel and other Democrat leaders knew about at least one of the affairs and did nothing.

Now, sometimes the ethics panel starts investigations after an official complaint is filed by a member, and occasionally it launches a probe on its own. What it doesn't normally do is this -- announce that it is "reviewing" a topic without actually forming an investigative subcommittee. The statement also sparks more questions: Who exactly is the committee going to interview? Will it seek testimony from Democratic leaders?

This last issue is important, because Reps. Chris Van Hollen (Md.) and Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), the current and former chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, have both acknowledged talking to Mahoney about the allegations before the story broke.

Democrats demanded hearings in which GOP leaders had to testify as to their knowledge of Foley's mess in 2006. Where is Speaker Pelosi and Emanuel to testify here on Mahoney?

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has issued a statement saying, "In 2006, House Republican leaders voluntarily testified under oath in the matter of disgraced former Congressman Mark Foley. Will House Democratic leaders, including Speaker Pelosi, Congressman Emanuel, and Congressman Van Hollen, agree to do the same? The American people deserve to know what House Democratic leaders knew about Congressman Mahoney's reprehensible actions, what they did with the information."

So much for the most ethical Congress mantra that Pelosi has chattered about for two years without so much as taking a single step to deal with any number of Congressional Democrats who have engaged in unethical or illegal actions, including William "Cold Cash" Jefferson and Charlie "I am the tax man" Rangel.

Emanuel and the leadership had been trying to keep the story buried until after the election, but ABC News managed to break the news. It's been an incurious media since then that hasn't forced the Democrats to answer for their actions in the same manner in which Republicans were raked over the coals in 2006. That cannot be attributed to anything other than bias in the media. After all, we're talking about the same kinds of salacious issues that newspapers usually love to cover: sex, power, politics, and corruption.

Meanwhile,
Mahoney's wife is finally taking action - she's filing for divorce. I hope she takes him to the cleaners.

Don Surber has more.

UPDATE:
Jammie reports that Mark Foley has been sighted, and now supports Sen. Barack Obama for President. Obama can have him. Foley also expressed some pleasure at watching Mahoney's meltdown and all signs point to the Republicans picking up the seat.

UPDATE:
Drudge is now carrying the following from Mark Foley:

FOLEY: 'An online article posted today on Variety's website innaccurately reported that I was supporting Barack Obama. The story on Variety's website, based on a second or third-hand account of my private conversation, is incorrect. I have already voted by absentee ballot in Florida. Although I didn't vote for Senator Obama, I intend to keep my choice private.'

Great reporting by the drive-by media in claiming that Foley was voting for Obama.