Sparky: Maybe the Guru and I had it all wrong from when we were underaged horny goofballs - We should have been one of those happy go lucky congressional pages ... those crazy kids really party hearty!

This Washington Post article as reported by Amy Goldstein and Elizabeth Williamson and made harder to ignore by the Huffington Post is rather grim — Former Pages Spill Foley's Tactics: He Said "You could always stay at my place. I'm always here, I'm always lonely, and I'm always up for oral sex"...

“... They met on the House floor. He was a 16-year-old political junkie, dressed in the drab navy blazer and gray slacks of a congressional page, rushing phone messages to the members he served. Rep. Mark Foley was tanned and charismatic, a successful politician in his mid-40s willing to joke with him between votes.

They talked perhaps a dozen times. Then at his page graduation ceremony that June, in 2002, he was excited when Foley appeared, uninvited, and dictated his personal e-mail address for the boy to jot in his memory book. "I started contacting him right away," the young man recalled. "I knew a congressman that I . . . talked to online. That was pretty cool." ...”

“... Most of all, his interest in the boys coincided with the ambitions of many of the teenagers, who craved contact with members in hopes of fostering political careers of their own.

"I didn't want to piss off a member of an institution that I really revered," said a former Republican page from 2002, who said that, shortly after he finished the program, he exchanged a handful of messages with Foley over two months and that they gradually became sexual. He played along, then slowed his responses until Foley took the hint and stopped. He never considered reporting Foley to authorities. "I figured maybe someday I will want to be involved in Congress," he said. "I didn't want to make an enemy." ...”

“... Since the 1983 page scandal, the program has put an emphasis on discouraging interaction between female pages and male lawmakers and staff, without similar sensitivities about male lawmakers and male pages.
One female page remembers that she was chastised several years ago -- and a Republican House leadership aide was threatened with firing -- after she met with the aide after work one day in his office, with the door open, to talk about the Bible.

It struck her as unfair. She was one of many girls who watched enviously as Foley surrounded himself with male pages on the House floor. ...”

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Yahoo has this to say about being a page:
Since 1839, the United States Congress has employed young people as pages who serve as messengers and perform administrative tasks. Currently, the House of Representatives has 72 pages, while the Senate has 30. These pages are high-school juniors from around the country, and competition to become a congressional page is fierce.

The most important requirement for becoming a page is a nomination from the candidate's member of Congress in either the Senate or the House. The congressperson's ranking can determine whether or not he or she can even make a nomination. Senior members have priority if they wish to nominate a page. In addition, the majority party in Congress seems to assign more pages than the minority party.

Page applicants must be in their junior year of high school for the year they wish to serve and must be at least 16 years old at that time. Pages must be U.S. citizens with a minimum 3.0 grade point average. Applicants usually need to write an application essay, submit a list of extra-curricular activities, along with letters of recommendation. Before new pages start work, they must present a certification of immunization and a general health assessment from their doctor, and they must be covered by health insurance.

Details about the application process, salary, living arrangements, and dress code for Senate pages are in this PDF file from the Senate Office of the Sergeant at Arms. An outline of the application process for House of Representative pages is available from the Congressional Page Association, which is run by former pages as part of the House Page Alumni Association.
Congressional pages rotate through a variety of assignments on Capitol Hill. They can answer phone calls and take messages for members of Congress. They deliver a variety of documents and packages for congresspeople and their offices. The documentarian pages are often seen on C-SPAN because they sit near the front of the House of Representatives. Several assignments call for pages to interact frequently with members of Congress. Some pages have even gone on to become congresspeople themselves.

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Thankfully the 1983 Congressional page sex scandal has been trumped by the still emerging Mark Foley scandal ...

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Time for Joe to go! Everyone pray that Ned Lamont can get Joe Lieberman out of office. Joe can't wrap his head around that the GOP are lying traitorous bastards who want more American deaths so they can enrich themselves.

Best to Never Forget the Bush kiss

President Bush leans close to Lieberman
at the 2005 State of the Union.

Following his 2005 State of the Union address, President Bush, while shaking lawmakers’ hands, abruptly grasped Lieberman’s head in both hands and leaned in close to his cheek. The incident became known as "the kiss." At first, Lieberman staff humorously referred to the embrace as "some kind of Yale thing."^[90] However, political backlash arose among Lamont supporters and other critics of Lieberman. Lamont backers used the incident in a campaign button: "The Kiss: Too Close for Comfort"^[91] and a large papier-mache sculpture which stalked Lieberman on the campaign trail.^[92] Lieberman has since denied the kiss took place. "I don't think he kissed me, he leaned over and gave me a hug and said 'thank you for being a patriotic American,'" Lieberman told Time Magazine.^[93] After Lieberman's defeat in the Democratic primary, an editorial claimed Bush's sign of affinity cost him the election, and referred to the smack as "the kiss of death."^[94]

- Sparky