Hypocrisy has no party label By Linda Chavez Wednesday, October 4, 2006 When it comes to Washington sex scandals, hypocrisy is nothing new. The latest scandal to rock the capital involves Mark Foley, a six-term Republican congressman who resigned on Friday when he learned that ABC News was ready to air a story about sexually explicit electronic messages he sent to male pages who worked for the House of Representatives. While the Republican leadership initially expressed shock that one of their own could be involved in such disgusting behavior, it turns out that some leaders had been warned months ago that Foley was a problem. House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y., have admitted that they learned in 2005 that a 16-year-old page had received inappropriate e-mails from Foley. But no one did anything to launch an investigation. Instead, Foley received a private warning not to get too friendly with the pages from the chairman of the committee that oversees the program. There are now calls on Speaker Dennis Hastert to resign. The Republican leadership should be ashamed of itself. But pardon me if I don't get quite as exercised as some in the media have over the Republicans' inaction. This is hardly the first time a politician has used his power and access to prey on a vulnerable young person entrusted to his care. No, I'm not referring to President Bill Clinton and White House intern Monica Lewinsky (she was, after all, 21) but to the last big page scandal, which occurred more than 20 years ago. In 1983, when Democrats controlled Congress, two congressmen, a Republican and a Democrat, admitted to having sexual relations with pages. Daniel Crane, a conservative Illinois Republican, admitted he had sex with a 17-year-old female page in 1980. Gerry Studds, a liberal Massachusetts Democrat, described his activity with a male page a decade earlier as "a mutually voluntary private relationship between adults," despite evidence that he plied the 17-year-old boy with alcohol before initiating sex. The House Ethics Committee also charged that Studds unsuccessfully solicited sex from two other male pages. The House of Representatives voted to censure both members but chose not to expel either one, with some members saying it was up to the voters to decide whether the men deserved to keep their seats. Crane was defeated the following year, but Studds went on to be re-elected six times. If there is any lesson in this scandal, it is that Republican voters are less tolerant of such misbehavior than Democrats. Studds not only kept his job, but received standing ovations from Democratic crowds following the censure votes. The Washington Post reported one such occasion in 1984: "Studds marched in the parade of the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament, the event of the year for New Bedford, an old whaling port whose population is 60 percent Portuguese American. All along the four-mile route the crowd broke into applause as he approached. Women waved from the balconies of double-decker row houses. Men toasted him with beer cans and cheered." This after Studds admitted to liquoring up and seducing a teenager whose parents had entrusted the boy to Congress' care. Unlike his predatory predecessors, Foley now faces a criminal probe into his behavior. If the Republican leaders were slow to react to the initial allegations against Foley -- and they were -- it is clear they're serious now about punishing the offender, which is more than can be said of the Democratic leaders who were in charge of Congress a generation ago. One difference, of course, is that thanks to Foley and others in Congress, it is now a crime to use the Internet to solicit sex from minors. But it would be some irony if sending vile instant messages to underage boys resulted in jail time for a Republican, while getting a teenager drunk and statutorily raping him resulted in nothing more than a slap on the wrist and 12 more years in Congress for a Democrat. Hypocrisy, it seems, is a bipartisan offense.
This is a disaster for the Republican Party. The fact that he was such a hypocrite will keep this issue alive for months. If Foley wasn't such a hypocrite it would already be over for sure. The e-mails Foley sent were disgusting in the extreme. Are the Republicans really pro-family or are they just fooling around? I telephoned the US Embassy here in Australia and their media liaison person also was certain that Foley was a Democrat! Wierd...
Read this article from Harper's: http://www.harpers.org/sb-republicans-1160492797.html Ken Silverstein discusses the fact that Harper's did not run the story that he wrote about the e-mails when he received them back in May: The final draft of my storyâwhich did not name the ex-page who received Foley's emailsâwas set to run on June 2. âFoley's private life should, under most circumstances, be his own business, but in this case there is a clear question about his behavior with a minor and a congressional employee,â went the storyâs conclusion. âThe possibility that he might have used his personal power or political position in inappropriate ways, as the emails suggest, should be brought to public attention.â We decided against publishing the story because we didn't have absolute proof that Foley was, as one editor put it, âanything but creepy.â At the time I was disappointed that the story was killedâbut I must confess that I was also a bit relieved because there had been the possibility, however unlikely, that I would wrongly accuse Foley of improper conduct. Harper's which is a liberal media outlet also withheld the story because they felt there was not enough proof at the time. My point in posting this is two-fold. One, conservative leaning media was not the only group withholding the story. Two, this is the point I was making about the Associated Press attempting to smear conservative media by alluding that they are the only ones who withheld the story. I hope ktmex takes a look at this and asks why. Why list Fox News, and not Harper's in the article. Harper's is a major magazine. Why did they get a pass and Fox News did not. Could it be an agenda on the part of the AP? I think so.
Does Harper's magazing parade itself around as the representative of the "Family Values Party" You still don't get it do you? Your republiklan party and its mouthpiece, Fox News, self elevates itself to some moral highground, and then when they are called to task for their violation of that covenant, you try and shift equal blame to the dems... Pathetic, completely pathetic...
UUUHHhhhhhmmmmmmmm ,,,,,I have never read the St. Petes times but you know that the Miami Herald is considered a liberal paper right???? can anyone comment on the St. pete paper?
If we were under sharia law they would stone to death people like Foley, Would that suit you, that would stop all these terrible crimes you are so upset about - especially the ultimate evil of sending an erotic email to a person over the age of consent? p.s. I never hear you criticizing Mohammed who had a 9 year old wife.
The klannish are spinning like muthers, with full on strawman fallacy, now going as low as bringing out the Muslim Card. Too freaking funny. Just watch them try to spin, spin, spin... You are missing the point, again. The republiklans seem to want to do that, rather than just suck up and take the punishment for their failures. This is not really about Foley. This is about a party who continually preaches moral superiority over the democrats, yet when push came to shove, rather than taking the risks to protect children, Hasert and company was afraid to do anything about it...out of fear of what? Democrats complaining about it? So what? Their fear of complaints is greater than their desire to follow through on their claims of moral superiority, that they protect children better than dems, yada, yada, yada... The republiklan party has been exposed...again. Flat out, republiklan leadership did not do the right thing, as they continually spew that they are the party of "doing the right thing."
Ok I appreciate that FOLEY was a hypocrite. But with all the clamor about it isn't there a danger of the political parties missing this main point and adding even more laws to an already prudish society.
This story reveals several issues. I have addressed the problem the republican party has...that is by preaching so much moral superiority, they look damn fooling when they are caught being anything less than perfect. Personally, I think there is equal corruption on both sides of the aisle, so I would be thrilled to just stop with the moral superiority crap from both sides. Now, how did this happen, i.e. Foley's abuse of power over the pages, and what can be done about it. I think we will always have folks like Foley. He is garden variety, isn't he? The problem is the fact that congress acts like some fraternity in their protection of their own, that it becomes partisan over what is really right and wrong. This event only sickens voters over our leadership...right, left, and center...leaving parents to wonder, "How could this be allowed to go on when someone knew about it?" Congress votes themselves raises, Duke Cunningham and other are corrupt as hell, and they show little if any sense of personal responsibility (Kennedy drunken driving etc.) and are treated like royalty, abusing their power every single chance they get. Vote them all out, and put in new people and hold their damn feet to the fire. This is what bothers many people, dems and republicans both, about the current administration. They act with impunity, no real oversight, thinking that they are not only above the law...but that they are the law. It is up to the people to demand more of leadership, and let them know that we are mad as hell about the abuse of power and corruption in D.C., and we are not going to take it any more. This really isn't a partisan position, but with the repubs in total power right now, they deserve the blame more than dems. Yall had you chance to skewer Clinton and his corruption, now it is time to hold a hot poker to folks like Bush and Cheney and help them see the real light of God that could make them come clean. This is about power, power, power, and the people who feel powerless to check their power... The people are not really powerless though, the framers have given us a system to control and stop the abuse...but will the people really reclaim their power? I have my doubts...
You are the one who does not get the point that I am making. I don't expect you to understand anyways. I have never defended this guy, and he has resigned. If you want to demonize the entire party for one guy's actions, then fine. Maybe we should start rounding up every Muslim and put them in special camps, because we know that there are some that like to blow up buildings. They are supposed to be the religion of peace, but they keep killing people. They are all accountable for the actions of these Muslims who kill in the name of Islam. According to your type of logic anyways.