Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY) again says sex predator Mark Foley emails were simply "overly friendly," blames his coddling of a sex predator on "Democrats"

A rather defensive new interview on NPR with Cong. Tom Reynolds (R-NY), claiming, yet again, that Mark Foley's emails in which he's acting as a sexual predator on young boys is simply "overly friendly." (Mind you, these were emails in which a 52 year old man asked a 16 year old boy about the hot body of his 16 year old friend. Yeah, nothing wrong with that, Mr. Reynolds.) Reynolds then goes on to charge that he did nothing wrong, and that Democrats were the ones behind the entire scandal.

Really?

Then why is it that Mr. Reynolds' staff has just confirmed to the NY Daily News that they were doing damage control for child sex predator Mark Foley BEFORE the scandal became public, and before Reynolds claims he even knew about it?

Two senior aides to National Republican Campaign Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds participated in “damage control” conference calls concerning orrespondence between Congressman Mark Foley and a former congressional page -- two days before the scandal became public, and earlier than previously reported.

NRCC Communications Director Carl Forti and Reynolds then chief-of-staff Kirk Fordham both took part in the first call the evening of Wednesday, September 27, and one call the next day, Forti and other sources familiar with the call confirmed. Forti's involvement and the NRCC's role in the run-up to the Foley scandal add another link between the disgraced former congressman and Reynolds, who has said he knew only indirectly of questionable emails, and that he reported them to his House superiors. They also reflect another moment at which House GOP leadership
was aware of concerns about Foley and pages.

Numerous members of Reynolds' senior staff helped a child sex predator try to get off, and those staff members are still being paid their salaries by you and me because Tom Reynolds won't fire them. Hell, Carl Forti spoke today, again, on behalf of Reynolds. Incredible.

But it's all the Democrats' fault that Tom Reynolds coddles sex predators. What a piece of work. After this long, and he's still not coming clean and accepting fault.

BTW: In that taped interview on NPR, Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep repeatedly asked Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY) if “there needs to be some significant change in the way that the United States approaches Iraq.”

Each time, Reynolds refused to give a straight answer, stating only that “‘the commander in chief is the president,’ and that Congress has a responsibility for ‘oversight.’ Pressed for details of what should be done, he blamed ‘national media people like you’ for focusing on Iraq.”

After Inskeep’s fifth attempt to get Reynolds to comment on President Bush’s stay-the-course policy, Reynolds abruptly ended the conversation, stating, “Is there any more you have? Because I’m about to walk into another meeting.”

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The Iraq war is not an issue that is important to just “national media people” in Washington. In the latest CBS/NYTimes poll, voters identified Iraq as the single-most important issue. It garnered four times as much interest as immigration, the second most important issue.