Foley Remains The Media Darling; All Leftist Scandals Out In Left Field

State legislative races don't normally make national news ... unless of course they give the media the opportunity to beat the Foley drum a bit more.

Seeing the GOP on an upsurge in the final days of the campaign -- thanks to newspapers chock full 'o Kerry stories -- leads to desperate times and call for desperate measures. So we are learning of a lowly South Dakota State Senator with a fondness for boy page-groping.

The fact that Dan Sutton is a Dem doesn't deter the hounds of the media:

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) - While the U.S. House investigates ex-Rep. Mark Foley's sexually explicit instant messages to former Capitol Hill staffers, South Dakota is dealing with its own page scandal.

The Senate is scheduled to convene in a special session Nov. 27 to look into allegations that Sen. Dan Sutton, a Democrat from the eastern town of Flandreau, "sexually groped" an 18-year-old page in this year's legislative session.

blah, blah, blah ... oh, what's this?

In the nation's better-known page scandal, Foley, a Republican from Florida, resigned from the U.S. House on Sept. 29 after being confronted with sexually explicit messages to former male pages. The House ethics committee is investigating when House leaders first learned of the misconduct and how they responded.

By the way, Mark Foley still maxes out the ol' Nexis search engine, with 1000 media mentions in the last 24 hours. Some of the more interesting stories:

• A network for mini-electronic games has launched a "Foley's Follies" game that incorporates actual Foley emails to pages. Play it here.
• The Daily News reports that a straight-to-DVD action flick "Strike Force" just rolled out featuring Foley in the role of ... gasp ... a politician.
• And this, from the NYT: "State Rep. Joe Negron, Foley's Republican replacement, is getting some powerful help as the clock runs down, and now appears to be running almost neck-and-neck with Tim Mahoney, the Democrat."

Astonishingly, "John Kerry" only generated 389 Nexis hits. Utterly amazing; I fully expected it to be topped out at 1,000 like Foley. Never underestimate the liberal tenancity of the mainstream media.

Kerry/Foley Media Bias Index: Left 3

And just for old time's sake:

Reid/Foley Index: Left Infinity

No stories whatsoever on Harry Reid's dual scandals and 1,000+ on Foley.

Reid/Weldon Index: Left Infinity

No stories on Reid, 21 stories on "Curt Weldon AND daughter."

Hanauer/Foley Index: Left Infinity

No stories on the alleged Dem slimeball who allegedly leaked the NIE estimate out of the office of Dem. Rep. Jan Harmon (Sr. Dem, House Intelligence Committee), placing the country and its troops at risk in the name of Dem election politics. 1,000+ hits on a hack GOP Congressman who resigned when news broke that he had the hots for pages.

* How the Index works: Perfect MSM balance yields an index of 0; in the Reid/Foley index for example, stories of Senate Minory Leader Harry Reid's financial scandals would balance stories of Mark Foley's homosexual lust scandals. Less coverage of Reid/more coverage of Foley yields a "left" score, indicating leftist bias, with the number preceding "left" indicating the number of times greater Foley's coverage is. Greater Reid/lesser Foley coverage yields a "right" score with a similar multiplier. It's the same with the other indices. The findings are from a qualified each Nexis search, i.e., "Harry Reid AND real estate OR gift," when necessary.

Related Tags: Politics, Media bias, MSM, Foley, Kerry, Reid, Hanauer, Weldon