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Wednesday, October 4, 2006

Facebook Foley Follies

By Christine Grimaldi | Wednesday, October 4, 2006, 05:34 PM

Mark Foley has achieved a cult following on the Internet social network Facebook.

More than 30 message groups refer to Foley in either titles or descriptions. Groups range from the tongue-in-cheek “I WAS a House Page, and Mark Foley Weirded Me Out!” to “LBAMF” (Little Boys Against Mark Foley), and “Mark Foley is on my Buddy List.”

The 155-member group “Rep Foley: donate your campaign money to help exploited children.” lists five Foley office contact numbers and says, “Tell him that he has a chance to do a good thing and start to repair the wrongs he’s done and his reputation, but just issuing a statement isn’t going to cut it.”

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Banquet Fodder

By Larry Lipman | Wednesday, October 4, 2006, 10:46 AM

The Mark Foley scandal is already joke fodder on the Washington banquet scene.

Last night, at a dinner roasting former CBS anchorman Bob Schieffer to raise money for the Spina Bifida Association, master of ceremonies Mark Shields began the evening with this question: “Do you know how they separate the men from the boys on Capitol Hill? The answer is, they don’t.”

Shields said that until the scandal broke, Foley “had been cruising” for the election.

Former Fed chief Alan Greenspan joked that he was glad to be a roaster “even if I was a last minute replacement for a former congressman from Florida.”

Foley wasn’t the only politician who was targeted for jokes. Don Imus told Schieffer that if he couldn’t find his car keys he could “get a ride with Patrick Kennedy.” When the crowd groaned, Imus quipped that “it could have been worse,” an unspoken reference to Patrick’s father, Ted Kennedy.

Then, turning his attention to George Allen’s troubles, Imus said “Mel Gibson has called Sen. Allen and said he wants his campaign donation back.”

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