Ooo, Ooo, That Mel (Reynolds)…

ABC Ignored Teen-Sex Scandal of Democrat Mel Reynolds Until 1995 Conviction

That's the headline for a NewsBusters/Media Research Center item comparing coverage of the Mark Foley story to Mel Reynolds' debacle from an kinder, gentle America (coff, coff). Notes author Tim Graham:

Congressman Mel Reynolds, the Democrat convicted of 12 charges, including sex with 16-year-old Beverly Heard and asking her to take pornographic photographs of a 15-year old, was indicted on August 21, 1994. ABC, the current scourge of congressional teen-sex scandals, reported nothing—until Reynolds was convicted a year later, on August 23, 1995. In fact, on May 13, 1994, ABC featured Reynolds in a "Person of the Week" speaking out in favor of two Chicago ladies fighting child molesters.

In a story on Reynolds, ABC did quote then-Speaker Newt Gingrich, who had this to say: "He hasn't even been– he hasn't even been sentenced yet. So I think we have to wait and see." Which leads Graham to conclude:

Do you sense that the political atmosphere surrounding Reynolds (including the puzzling wait-and-see Gingrich) was a little different back then? ABC had no mention of Mel Reynolds when Bill Clinton pardoned him in 2001.

More here.

Well, what about Gingrich, who by all accounts is mulling a return to power if and when the GOP craps its pants in November? Most recently, he had this to say about Foley's Folly:

"What we don't have to do is allow our friends on the left to lecture us on morality," Gingrich said at a party fundraiser in Greenville, SC, Wednesday. "There's a certain stench of hypocrisy."

Surprisingly, the nastiest rejoinder to Gingrich's proclamation comes not from the left but from the right, specifically the site Capitol Hill Blue, which rose to some prominence during the Clinton years. The site has published a piece by former Gingrich associate Doug Thompson which reads in part:

Gingrich should know something about the stench of hypocrisy. He stinks to high heaven from it.

This hypocrite is the man who served his first wife with divorce papers while she lay in a hospital bed. He divorced his second wife after his screwing of a House staffer became public while he was Speaker of the House and leading the GOP charge against Clinton.

This is the same Newt Gingrich who used to take campaign volunteers back to his car and so they could give him blow jobs….

Gingrich is not the only tail chaser in the Republican Party. When he stepped down amid scandal, his first replacement, Rep. Bob Livingston of Louisiana, had to back out after admitting he cheated on his wife. Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana fathered a child out of wedlock and put his mistress on the House payroll. Even grandfatherly Henry J. Hyde, whom some suggest should replace current House Speaker Dennis J. Hastert if he is forced out because of the Mark Foley Congressional page scandal, admitted to a long affair in his younger days.

Democrats have their whore hounds as well and neither party can claim any moral high ground when it comes to sexual hijinks, but it is the Republican Party that claims to be holier-than-thou and preaches "family values." For Gingrich to now claim Republicans are somehow better than others when it comes to sex scandals is a bald-faced lie and the height of hypocrisy, even for Washington.

And somebody in Greenville probably gave him a blow job before he left town.

More, much more, here.