MayerBlog: The Web Log of
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The GOP’s Pedo-Foley-a Problem
Democrats hoping to regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives, and perhaps even the U.S. Senate, have been moving from issue to issue over the past year, desperately trying to find some shit against the Republicans that will stick to the wall. (Democrats are desperate because they’re hungry for power, and they’re relying on negative campaigning because they are intellectually bankrupt. Having nothing positive to offer the American people – having nothing to offer but more of the failed policies of the 20th-century welfare state – the Democrats hope that if they can find the right shit to use against Republicans that the American people will vote for their candidates instead of incumbent Republicans.) “HIGH GAS PRICES!” But it turns out, thanks to normal free-market changes in supply and demand, that gas prices are falling, going down to about $2 a gallon. “CULTURE OF CORRUPTION!” But it turns out that Democrats are no less corrupt than Republicans, for the scandal involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff implicated Democrats as well as Republicans. And the Democrats have their own poster boys for crimes and abuse of power, with members like Congressman William “Dollar Bill” Jefferson (D.-La.), who’s been caught receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes but still retains his key committee memberships, and Congressman Alcee Hastings (D.-Fla.), a former federal judge who was impeached and removed from his judicial office for various crimes, including extortion and perjury, but who’s now a Democrat Congressman with seniority, in line to chair the House intelligence committee, should the Dems retake control of the House. “The QUAGMIRE IN IRAQ, and President Bush’s FAILED LEADERSHIP in the War on Terror!” The killing does go on in Iraq, but the Democrats’ alternative policy – aptly labeled “cut and run” by Republicans – promises nothing more but a return to the failed policies of the past, when the U.S. government appeased Islamic militants by doing nothing in response to terrorist attacks. The recent broadcast of the provocative TV movie, The Path to 9/11, and the far-too-defensive response of Bill “Slick Willy” Clinton and his fellow Clintonistas, reminded thoughtful Americans of how Clinton’s failed leadership made the United States vulnerable to the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks – just as the recent fifth anniversary of 9/11 also reminded thoughtful Americans that President Bush’s policies thus far have thwarted any additional terrorist attacks in the U.S. Now it’s “FOLEY-GATE,” a sex scandal involving Congressman Mark Foley (R.-Fla.), who abruptly resigned from Congress after it was revealed he had sent allegedly sexually provocative Internet messages to teenage male pages. (The Foley scandal has revived an old joke that first made the rounds over 20 years ago, during the last congressional page scandal, involving Democrat Gerry Studds, discussed below. “Why don’t congressmen use book marks? Because they bend over the pages.”) Republicans responded with denunciations of Foley; a typical response came from Congressman Roy Blunt (R.-Mo.), a member of the House leadership, who said he was “disappointed, disgusted, and outraged at Mark Foley’s conduct.” Democrats didn’t hesitate to shamelessly exploit the scandal by criticizing House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other members of the House Republican leadership, for allegedly mishandling the affair. (A top aide to Foley has claimed that he alerted Hastert’s chief of staff to Foley’s “inappropriate behavior” with congressional pages at least two years ago. Hastert’s office responded with a sharp denial, with Hastert insisting he first learned about the e-mail messages that prompted Foley’s resignation only on the day Foley resigned.) Some Democrats (and the conservative newspaper The Washington Times) have called for Hastert’s resignation. Other Democrats are exploiting the scandal in campaign ads. Here in central Ohio, for example, the campaign for Mary Jo Kilroy, the Democrat challenging Congresswoman Deborah Pryce, has tried to tie Pryce to Foley. (Pryce was one of many Republicans who received campaign contributions from Foley, who before his resignation, was considered a shoo-in for re-election. Pryce, who’s also a member of the House GOP leadership, has said she’ll return the donations.) According to a USA Today article (“GOP forced off issues it wants to run on,” October 5), the first campaign ad focusing on the Foley episode aired in Minnesota. “It shocks the conscience,” an announcer says as images of Foley headlines fill the screen in an ad for Perry Wetterling, a Democrat running for an open House seat. The ad claims, outrageously, that GOP leaders “have admitted covering up the predatory behavior of a congressman who used the Internet to molest children”! “Molest children”? It’s time for a reality check. There’s no evidence – nor even is there an allegation – that Foley had sexual contact, or any kind of unwanted physical contact, with a congressional page, or anyone else, for that matter. His alleged sexual come-ons consisted entirely of words, sent via either e-mail or text-messaging. Moreover, it’s quite misleading to refer to the congressional pages who received Foley’s communications as “children.” By law, House and Senate pages must be at least 16 years old when they’re nominated for the program; most are 17 or 18 years old. They’re young men and women, not “children.” At 16 years of age, they are above the age of sexual consent under the laws of many jurisdictions, including the District of Columbia (as noted below). Indeed, the page who received the e-mail messages first publicized by ABC News – who was initially reported to be a “16-year-old” – turns out to have been 18 at the time of the communications, as Matt Drudge reported last week. (According to the October 5 Drudge Report, a blogger was able to obtain the name of the former congressional page, who is now 21 years old, because ABCNews.com had posted for several days an unredacted copy of the instant message sessions between Foley and the young man. ABC News stands by its report that the young man was “under the age of 18” because, ABC says, Foley’s messages to him took place both before and after his 18th birthday. But if the young man is now 21 and the messages took place last year, he would have been 19 or 20 at the time.) Although Speaker Hastert has called upon the Justice Department and FBI to investigate “whether any federal laws were broken,” it does not seem apparent that Foley’s acts were criminal. Based on the information currently available about the content of his communications, it’s doubtful whether they can be considered “obscene,” even under the dubious standards of the law, except to the most uptight, sexually-repressed prudes among us. Two sets of communications are at issue. The initial, and principal, allegation concerns emails Foley sent last year to the 18- (or almost-18-, or 19- or 20-) year-old page, who had worked for Foley’s colleague, Rep. Rodney Alexander (R.-La). Foley emailed the young man in August 2005, after he had left his page position and returned home to Louisiana, asking him how he was doing after Hurricane Katrina and what he wanted for his birthday. The congressman also asked the young man to send a photo (presumably a G-rated photo) of himself. The ex-page forwarded the messages to congressional staffers last October, stating “This freaked me out,” and “sick sick sick sick sick” – making it clear he did not wish to be the object of the congressman’s affection. (Foley maintained that the exchanges were merely “friendly”; Republican leaders, including Page Chairman John M. Shimkus, determined they were overly friendly and ordered Foley to cease contact with the young man. The emails apparently ended, and the young man’s parents – who were contacted by Congressman Alexander – didn’t wish to pursue the matter.) Allegedly “sexually explicit” instant messages, with current and former male pages, dating back to 2003 just came to light last week – just five weeks before the midterm elections -- as former pages came forward with their stories. As revealed by ABC, these exchanges include what some people have called “locker-room talk.” One of the boys (whom Foley calls his “favorite stud”) chats amiably about his (hetero)sexual activity and tells the congressman how he masturbates. Then there are these exchanges, also revealed by ABC (“Maf54” = Mark Foley): Maf54: You in your boxers, too? Teen: Nope, just got home. I had a college interview that went late. Maf54: Well, strip down and get relaxed.
Maf54: What ya wearing? Teen: tshirt and shorts Maf54: Love to slip them off of you.
Maf54: Do I make you a little horny? Teen: A little. Maf54: Cool.
“Sexually explicit”? Maybe. But I’ve heard more erotic dialogue on a Saturday Night Live skit (remember Adam Sandler’s “Canteen Boy” skit with guest-host Alex Baldwin as the scout master?) Foley’s greatest ”crime” seems to be the non-legally-indictable offense of hypocrisy. First, he’s a Republican politician – and, by all accounts, has identified on some issues with the party’s socially-conservative wing, and thus is an active participant in the party’s homophobic and anti-sex “family values” agenda. Even worse, he’s a leader in pushing that agenda: As chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus, he introduced legislation in July – the “Foley provisions” in H.R. 4472, the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 – supposedly to protect children from sexual exploitation by adults over the Internet. Being a closeted homosexual, by itself, isn’t inconsistent with his politics (apparently, there are a lot of Republican politicians in Washington, D.C., who are closeted homosexuals); but being a closeted homosexual with sexual attraction to teenaged males, and acting on that sexual attraction, certainly is. If Foley did violate a law, it could be the law he himself helped author. As historian Gary Leupp (Professor of History and Comparative Religion at Tufts University) writes in an insightful essay recently posted on the Internet (“All About Hypocrisy: The Foley Follies,” October 3), “The unmarried Foley has not denied that he is homosexual or bisexual; in fact, he’s implied that he is, by pointedly declining to comment on that issue since 2003. He supported the Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2000. His appearance of hypocrisy stems less from the revelation that he likes males than the fact that he likes rather young males, whom he has contacted through the web, having coauthored legislation to protect children from online predators. . . . Foley – if he were to openly acknowledge his sexuality – might declare that he just happens to like (just barely legal if legal-aged) boys, and has engaged them in mutually enjoyable private conversations over the net which are simply nobody else’s business. . . . But most seem convinced already that he’s guilty of the attempted seduction or at least efforts to corrupt `children.’ The Republican leadership in Congress, dismayed at how the Democrats are using this, and frightened by the media spin on the story (`may well threaten Republican control over Congress’) has decided to throw the book at its formerly esteemed colleague.” Leupp adds that they seem, “like the hypocritical French policeman in the film Casablanca, `Shocked shocked!’ by the news.” “But what, specifically, shocks here?” Leupp adds, noting that congressional pages must by current rules be at least 16 years old, the minimum age having been raised from 14 during the last big congressional page-related sex scandal (in 1983). He observes, “pages are typically high achievers, worldly and sophisticated, and high school students these days in general tend to be sexually active by age 16. No doubt some are gay, and high school students who want experience in the halls of Congress are probably attracted to power.” He notes that the sexually-suggestive text message exchange between Foley and the pages “appears quite mutual”: “It is one thing to receive unsolicited emails and to protest, as the Louisiana boy did, another to engage in ongoing repartee online with someone online.” He also points out in many states, 16 is the age of consent for males. These include Alaska, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia. In Hawaii, consent age is 14. In Washington, D.C., it is also 16. In some of these jurisdictions, homosexual sex is illegal, Leupp points out – but he fails to note that such anti-sodomy laws were declared unconstitutional (and justly so) by the Supreme Court in its decision in Lawrence v. Texas in 2005. As Leupp concludes, “Mr. Foley could have consensual sex with 16 year old boys in much of the country, including DC. If that’s the case, you’d think it would also be legal (however `inappropriate’) for Foley to engage in sexual banter over the Internet with such boys.” Foley is under no obligation to announce his sexual orientation. But he really ought not to use “alcohol abuse” or claims of being molested as a child as excuses for his behavior. He ought to be at least as honest as another former politician who was a closeted homosexual, former Democratic governor of New Jersey, Jim McGreevy, who was forced to “come out,” sort of, when he publicly admitted, “I am a gay American.” (The American part of that revelation, I take it, was not a surprise. The fact that he couldn’t directly identify himself as “gay” or “homosexual,” in a way, speaks volumes about how much he was in denial about his own sexual identity – in addition to the fact that at the time when he was governor, he was married to a woman. McGreevy’s wrongdoing, it should be remembered, was not in his sexuality – or even his infidelity to his wife, which of course is indeed a private matter – but in the abuse of the powers of his office, in securing for his male lover a state government job, for which the young man apparently was not qualified. In other words, he left office under the scandal of real political corruption, doing favors for, well, a favorite.) The Foley scandal also exposes Republicans’ hypocrisy. As Professor Leupp writes in his “Foley Follies” essay, “Here is more exposure of the hypocrisy of the Republican Party, publicly pious, privately prone to the same range of prurient behavior as those it targets. Or at least that’s how it looks to many Americans. . . .” The Republican Party has a homophobia problem. It bases its appeal, to many of its socially-conservative “base” members, on its opposition to legal recognition of same-sex marriage as well as other issues, such as FCC censorship of “indecent” TV and radio broadcasts, that reflect, sadly, the unhealthy, sexually-repressed feelings many Americans have, not just about homosexuality but about sexuality in general. (For more on this, see my previous entry, “In Defense of Sex,” May 16, 2005.) Thus, it is politically impossible for mainstream Republican politicians to take a rational stand on the Foley scandal because it hoists them on their own petard. On this issue, however, as on so many other political issues today, Republican hypocrisy pales in comparison to the hypocrisy of the Democrats. Based on all the facts that have come to light thus far, it’s clear that Mark Foley did not act as wrongfully as did Bill Clinton, in covering-up his sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky, or former Congressman Gerry Studds (D.-Mass.), in his own congressional page scandal 23 years ago. In both cases, Democrats rallied to the support of their own “sexual predators,” not only defending both Clinton and Studds but also, remarkably, trying to make them into heroes, martyrs to prudish Republican witch-hunters. “It’s just about sex – it’s a private matter,” not the government’s business: that’s what so many Democrats said then – many of them the same persons who are today claiming “outrage” over Foley’s affair. Let’s review some recent history. Bill Clinton, while he was president of the United States, had a sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky – involving actual, physical sexual acts committed in the Oval Office or in a small room adjacent to the Oval Office. “That woman,” Ms. Lewinsky, was an adult, over the age of 21, and apparently engaged in these sexual acts with Clinton of her own free will. But she was a White House intern (and thus an employee); Clinton was her boss and thus, according to sexual harassment experts, he exploited his “power” relationship over her, for his own sexual gratification. More ominously, he exploited his office as president of the United States, for his own cheap, shoddy sexual gratification. (According to Monica’s accounts, it wasn’t even good sex!) Moreover – and these are the real crimes for which he was justifiably impeached and for which he should have been convicted by the Senate and removed from office – he committed perjury, in his testimony before a federal grand jury, and he committed obstruction of justice, by trying to induce his secretary and other agents of the government to commit perjury and assist him in the cover-up. Why did he commit these crimes? (Unlike Nixon, who was nearly impeached for obstructing justice because of the acts of his subordinates, Clinton committed the crimes personally.) Because he wanted to avoid civil liability to Paula Jones, in her sexual harassment suit. Unlike Nixon, who sought to cover-up his subordinates’ political “dirty tricks” in the Watergate affair, Clinton sought to cover his own sorry ass. That’s the man that Democrats today regard as a great statesman and politician, which only shows how pathetically low their standards have fallen. Gerry Studds served as a Democratic Congressman for Massachusetts from 1977 until 1996. He was the first openly homosexual member of Congress and is also regarded as the first openly gay national politician in the United States. Now retired (and, under Massachusetts law, married – by all accounts, happily so – to his longtime partner, Dean Hara, with whom he’s been in a romantic relationship since 1991), Studds is remembered chiefly for his role in the 1983 congressional page sex scandal. He was censured by the House of Representatives for having had a sexual relationship in 1973 – ten years previously, and by all accounts a consensual relationship – with a then-17-year-old male page. (Also in 1983 another Congressman, Daniel B. Crane (R.-Ill.), was censured by the House for also having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old female page.) During the course of the House Ethics Committee’s investigation, Studds publicly acknowledged his homosexuality, a disclosure that, according to a Washington Post article, “apparently was not news to many of his constituents.” As the House read their censure of him, Studds turned his back and ignored them. Later, at a press conference with the former page standing beside him, a defiant Studds stated that what had happened between them was nobody’s business but their own. Studds was re-elected five more times after the censure. According to one summary of his service in Congress, “he fought for many issues, including environmental and maritime issues, gay marriage, AIDS funding, and civil rights, particularly for homosexuals.” Since retiring from Congress in 1997, Studds has been a lobbyist for the fishing industry. (Add your own punch line here. The preceding information was derived from the “Gerry Studds” entry in Wikipedia, the free Internet encyclopedia. I haven’t independently confirmed this information, but it accords with what I’ve heard in the news media.) Studds did nothing wrong, in my opinion. Neither did Mark Foley. (If any of Foley’s chats were “obscene” by legal definition, and any of the young men legally “minors,” then – as Professor Leupp notes – Foley could be “hung by his own rope,” for among the “Foley provisions” in the Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 is section 1470, criminalizing “transfer of obscene materials to minors.” If so, then the law is wrong – making criminal acts that truly are not harmful to anyone, at least when the “minors” at issue are over the age of 16 – and the law ought to be changed to something more compatible with a free society and a limited-government constitutional republic.) Both Democrats and Republicans today should follow the advice recommended by Studds’ supporters in 1983. Just let it go. It’s a private matter – nobody’s business but his own. If, because of this “Foley scandal” nonsense, Republicans lose their majority and Democrats gain control in either or both houses of Congress, then the American people would have gotten the Congress they deserve. And the Republicans would be in the minority status they richly deserve. Not because of their hypocrisy on this matter. Rather, it’s because of their failure to distinguish themselves, on important matters of policy and principles (such as controlling federal government spending, permanently reducing taxes, or meaningfully reforming Social Security and Medicare), from the damn Democrats.
| Link to this Entry | Posted Monday, October 9, 2006 | Copyright © David N. Mayer |
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