Mark Foley
Posted by Moonage on 02 Oct 2006 | Tagged as: Idiot of the day
Representative Mark Foley resigned from Congress last week amid allegations he was exchanging "inappropriate" communications with young boys. I finally got around to reading some of the evidence. To say the very least, it was WAY inappropriate. What makes his actions perplexing to me was he was a very active member of the Missing and Exploited Childrens Caucus. Get that? He was a member of the group within Congress assigned to protect kids from himself. What the hell was he thinking? Not only was he perving out with the kids he was supposed to be protecting, he was doing it with kids who work with his own peers. It’s like he was begging to be outed. I have never understood why some people just seem to want to destroy themselves. In most cases, people rely on their instincts to tell them what they were doing was wrong. In his case, he WROTE about it being wrong. He made laws to incriminate himself. And carried on anyway. This goes beyond idiotic, this is suicidal. His career is over. And, being a Roman Catholic, given all the bad rep the church has received over molesting boys, I doubt he’ll be well received even at his church ( if he bothers trying to go ). He’s got some money, so it’s not like he’ll be destitute. But, I’m sure it will get real lonely in prison for a while. I’m totally stumped with people like Mark Foley. This isn’t the first time it’s happened in Congress, and probably isn’t the last. Why people that visible who rely on the whims of the voter for their future can’t see that doing something this wrong is bad is beyond me. I really am totally stumped.
The Democrats were quick to jump on the anti-Foley bandwagon, accusing anyone that’s ever known him of being in on it somehow. However, as has been the record so far, the Republicans have been hard on Foley, asking for a criminal investigation. The Democrats are stil ignoring William Jefferson. This is a personal disaster, I really think it would make the Dems look a lot better if they just stood out of the way and let this train wreck finish its course.
7 Comments »
on 02 Oct 2006 at 4:44 pm 1.StormWarning
said …
1) I believe that Foley is single.
2) Members have a “sacred trust” to protect pages, yes?
3) There is a difference between Clinton (”no” sex with an adult) and Foley (virtual sex, we think, with a minor).
And yes, the Republican Party jettisoned Foley faster than a “monkey on a cupcake.” The real issue IMO though, is not going to be Clinton’s zipper, or Barney Frank’s/Greg Stubb’s indiscretions, or maybe even not Foley himself, but the cover-up if there was one.
on 02 Oct 2006 at 6:15 pm 2.Marshall said …
The boy wasn’t underage according to the laws of the District of Columbia (age of consent is 16), and the page didn’t work for him, so he’s not guilty of sexual harassment either. He’s just guilty of being a dumbass.
on 02 Oct 2006 at 7:15 pm 3.Moonage
said …
I seriously think there wasn’t a cover-up. The only evidence until a few days ago was the emails, which I saw. They weren’t right, but they weren’t criminal. I think the tendency wasn’t so much to cover it up as to look the other way. There have been lots of inappropriate behaviors by people in DC regarding subordinates, I think they saw this as lame compared to most. Then, the IM messages were made public. That changed the ballgame. That doesn’t make looking the other way any more right, but there’s no criminal element there, which is what the Democrats are suggesting. In the case of Clinton, pretty much all of DC knew about it and looked the other way. If push came to shove, I’m sure some people would crawl out of the woodworks to testify. I was hanging out in DC when Clinton was getting started, it was pretty much common knowledge at that time he had a problem with his zipper. The problem then was that was a criminal issue as well, everyone, including almost all media, chose to ignore that as well. The case of Stubbs was criminal as well, the Democrats not only didn’t go after him, they made sure he got re-elected until he chose to retire. So, there’s plenty of mud to go around on this issue.
I prefer to look at things as they are right now. William Jefferson abused the trust of the people and got a free pass from the Democrats other than some lip service ( he’s still on his caucuses and committees ), Foley resigns as soon as it’s made public and the very exact same Democrats are calling it a conspiracy.
Just seems a little hypocritical to me.
As far as Foley’s marital status, I thought I saw where he had a wife and son. Could be wrong there. Given the circumstances, I certainly wouldn’t rule it out.
on 02 Oct 2006 at 7:19 pm 4.Moonage
said …
Pages don’t work for any one person. They’re a pool of workers who move around. Given that environment, it can suggested that they could think that all Representaives are their bosses and be somewhat accurate in that assumption. That’s all it takes for sexual harassment in the workplace.
on 03 Oct 2006 at 2:32 am 5.American Phoenix
said …
1) Foley is single, according to Wikipedia.
2) The protection of pages shouldn’t be limited to Members of Congress. It is the duty of every human being. Those children are there to have some fun, to work and to learn about government. They shouldn’t wind up with the impression that government is full of perverts or be permanently scarred for life. If someone knew about this and said nothing, I don’t care whether they are a member of Congress or not - they should not have remained silent. God help them if they did remain silent.
3) Foley says he’s a Roman Catholic, but doesn’t adhere to many teachings of the church, such as on abortion, and obviously not on the dignity of the human person. He’s as good a Roman Catholic as is John Kerry or Ted Kennedy. Which obviously isn’t saying much.
4) No, it’s not about Clinton, but there are some parallels. The worst parallel, in my view, is Clinton’s pardon of Mel Reynolds - not that Clinton sexually harrassed/got a blow job from a teenage intern. Mel Reynolds, lest we forget, was convicted of 12 counts of sexual assault, obstruction of justice, solicitation of child pornography, 15 counts of bank fraud, and lying to the SEC. What’s he doing now? Working for Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition as a youth group leader. I kid you not.
5) Laws setting the age of consent have been lowered all over the nation. In CA, for example, the age of consent is now 14 years old. Frankly, I think this is not just misguided, but horribly wrong. Setting the bar this low allows children to be taken advantage of by predators, while allowing the predators to get off scott free. It’s sick.
on 03 Oct 2006 at 8:33 am 6.Moonage
said …
I wasn’t aware that age of consent laws were being lowered all over the country. That’s a story in itself. It would seem to me the Committee for Missing and Exploited Children need to look into that.
Given the obvious trend of kids being immature and impressionable to much older ages, I would think the age of consent laws need to be raised instead of dropped. Although kids are made aware of things a lot earlier because of tv and the internet, it seems to me they are much less capable of dealing with said stuff until later than when I was a kid. I think I’ve got a new issue to deal with.
on 04 Oct 2006 at 12:41 pm 7.American Phoenix
said …
Cowardice
Mark Foley, the disgraced Florida Congressman who resigned after sexually explicit instant messages came to light, is now saying that he was molested by a clergyman between the ages of 13-15.Attorney David Roth said Foley had never had sexual contact