Fox News‘ Britt Hume compares Rep. Mark Foley and Congressional pages to Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, according to Think Progress:
This morning on Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume compared Mark Foley’s predatory behavior towards underage pages to President Clinton’s relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Hume said that while Foley is now “in total disgrace in his party,� Clinton’s “inappropriate behavior toward a subordinate [didn’t] even cost Bill Clinton his standing in his party.
This is the ultimate “But Clinton did it first” argument. Except, in this case it is total apples and oranges. That doesn’t excuse Bill Clinton. The last time I read about that scandal (1) Monica Lewinsky was not underage and (2) Monica Lewinsky was not a male intern. The two elements in the Foley case are what is giving the story “legs,” plus the scandal within a scandal now emerging about why GOP leaders seemingly kept this under wraps for a year.
This ranks as the most fatuous statement made by a professional journalist in years.
It is suggests that someone is playing defense lawyer here.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.