PageGate: Is there an "AntiRove"? (Update)

(Note: I"ve slightly corrected and enlarged this post.) Is the Foley affair a carefully-crafted "sting" operation? Is there an "AntiRove" lashing out against the Republicans? Don't judge until you've seen all of the evidence.

Mind you, Mark Foley certainly deserved a good stinging. Even so, this affair came to light in a very odd fashion. The post with the most on this topic is this one by autoegocrat on Daily Kos, although I have stumbled across a further mystery concerning the original emails.

A timeline always helps...

July 21: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) receives copies of the original "over-friendly" emails. CREW does not publish, although they do turn the emails over to the FBI.

July 28 (perhaps later): An unknown person who signs himself/herself "Stop Sex Predators" initiates a very simple blog titled -- naturally -- Stop Sex Predators. A little-known blog with only a handful of entries, it will come to play a key role in Foleygate.

Over the next two months, the mysterious blog will post a handful of brief stories on well-known sex crimes or scandals -- Polly Klaas, Chandra Levy -- offering no new information or interesting analysis. The writer offers no personal details, no hint of motivation, no note of individuality. Since the blogger did nothing to publicize the site, readership must have been zilch.

When I first looked at this blog, my first reaction was "The Poway Mafia strikes again!" (That's an in-joke for those who recall the Wilkes affair.) In short and in sum, everything about this blog screams FAKE.

Sept. 4: Daily Kos published a post concerning Foley's closeted homosexuality. The next day, a commenter called WHInternNow offered these prescient words:

The Real Problem With Foley...It's not that he's gay. It's that he constantly hits on underage interns on The Hill. You guys talk about an "open secret" well Foley's eye for the young boys in the White House and around the Capitol is what has the Republican bosses scared to death. It's just wrong that this guy can hit on young boys and still be in the leadership.

This is, to my knowledge, the first exposure of Foley as an abuser of underaged congressional aides.

September 24: "Stop Sex Predators" publishes the emails which initiated the entire controversy. Here is how SSP sums up the matter:

This is absolutely amazing. I just received these emails. They were sent by Congressman Mark Foley to a 16-year-old male page. I have removed his name to protect his identity. But how shocking is this? I can't believe this was emailed to me? There must be even more out there. Email me at stopsexpredators@gmail.com and let me know what we should do!!!! Something must be done!!!!

Why would the page in question send emails to what is almost certainly a fake site, a site with no readers?

Also on September 24: A mere two hours after these emails appear on the Stop Sex Predators blog -- a non-blog with no traffic -- WHInternNow publicizes the SSP "find" on Daily Kos. He (or she) receives a small amount of commentary, including skeptical remarks about the implied claim that the diarist was a White House intern. Sample comment (re: WHInternNow): "First signed on with Kos in September 06 - has not made one comment to anyone;s diary."

I believe the Stop Sex Predators blogger and WHInternNow to be one and the same.

Incidentally, another comment, also dated Septemebr 24, includes this tag: "Hastert, Boehner, Reynolds, Shimkus: Resign from Congress. NOW. Then: SHUT IT DOWN anyway." Prophetic, eh wot?

September 28: ABC News publishes the first story about the "over-friendly" emails which first appeared on the Stop Sex Predators site. ABC News Producer Maddy Sauer later tells Amy Goodman how he received these emails:

They were passed to a colleague of mine from a source, not someone from a Democratic campaign, a source on the Hill. And when we talked to Foley's office about those emails, they seemed to know all about them. “It’s no big deal. He is overly friendly. He’s overly engaging. If he’s guilty of anything, that’s all he’s guilty of. He’s very close with the pages. He has worked with the page program for some time.”

We should refrain from translating "Not someone from a Democratic campaign" as "Not someone from the Democratic party." Still, the source might have been someone in the intelligence community -- or even a House member.

Copies of the same emails are published in PDF form by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)

However -- as we shall see -- these are retyped versions of the Stop Sex Predator emails.

September 29: Brian Ross of ABC News receives the first batch of explicit, damning IM messages. ABC producer Maddy Sauer later tells Amy Goodman that he received these messages from the pages themselves, and that he confirmed their authenticity by speaking to pages via telephone; eventually, ABC confronted Foley himself.

In previous posts, I have questioned whether so many young men would keep these logs on computers which might be accessed by family members. At this time, I have no choice but to take Sauer at his word.

October 02: After an absence of several days, the proprietor of the Stop Sex Predators blog returns, offering uninteresting golly-gee-whiz commentary. Bloggers usually act differently when a no-traffic site suddenly receives a lot of attention. (Trust me. This I know.) He (or she) makes reference to email he has received from readers, but does not quote from any emails, and does not enable comments on his posts.

The mystery emails: JPG images of the initial emails appearing on the SSP site do not match the emails received by ABC News.

Here is the Stop Sex Predators version:


Now here is the CREW version:

The differences should be obvious. Look at the first word in the text: Small G in one version; large G in the other. One message ends with an ellipses, while the other does not. One version has a space after "here," the other does not. Obviously, one version is a retyping of the other. Yet the retypist took pains to emulate the mistakes in the original, such as the commas-for-periods after "Sept 5".

I can't think of a legitimate reason to retype this email. Frankly, I can't even come up with a non-legitimate explanation -- and, as you know, I have a pretty good imagination.

So. Is there a Democratic Rove? Perhaps we should refer to him as "Drove."

Drove, if you're reading these words, all I can say is this: Bloody brilliant. If the Republicans are going to use covert tactics to spread lies about Democrats, we are justified in using covert tactics to spread truth about Republicans. I wish you had put a little more preparatory work into the SSP site, just to make it seem a bit more persuasive. Next time, add some personal touches -- upload pictures of your cat, complain about the weather, that sort of thing.

I confess that I'm curious as to whether you are a partisan or a spook. Of course, you must know that your identity and motives will come out eventually.

But tell me -- why the hell was that email retyped? It's bugging me, dude...

Update: The Freepers think the secret force behind PageGate is Mike Rogers of BlogActive. In that light, this post from last January is of great interest. Apparently, the game may next head into the Senate. Also see Mike Rogers' recent post here, where he seems to take credit for FoleyGate. You'll also want to see this Jazz From Hell post... (Note: When I first wrote this update, I accidentally gave the name "Mike" as "Mark." Thanks to JfH....)