Mark Foley Madness IV: The Beat Goes On Until Our Polls Improve!

[elfs]

"It might not hurt to remember that one man is a true victim and has been hugely damaged, Rep. Mark Foley. I know he's suffering. He has honor and shame."

*Snort.* *Guffaw* *Snort* Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

In case you've missed it, the latest meme to get floated from the Republican Damage Control Center is that Foley was neither gay nor alcoholic nor attracted to handsome young congressional pageboys: he was the victim of a prank. The page who broke the story was actually having a little bit of fun, trying to goad a congressman into posting naughty bits. Foley was just "going along" with the embarassing joke. It is the pages who did the IM'ing with Foley who are guilty of sexually harassing this poor, innocent congressman. Years of exposure to lobbyists have evidently left him vulnerable to any come-on that sounds plausible.

There's also a lot of blame-the-victim going on. Apparently Foley found a page who was queer and began playing on his youth and attraction, and therefore the pageboy is responsible for this disaster because he's gay. Which, by the way, is the other meme floating around Congress, and one that's sure to get the rabidly anti-homosexual crowd frothing at the mouth: that the scandal would never have broken if it weren't for the Homosexual Cabal of Congressional Aides and Pages who conspired to take a small pecadillo and extract as much damage from it as possible, leaking the IMs and emails to the press in dribbles and drabs in the hopes of hurting the holier-than-thou homo-haters in congress.

This is getting just more and more bizarre.

Comments

[rhonan.livejournal.com]

Years of exposure to lobbyists have evidently left him vulnerable to any come-on that sounds plausible.

There may be something to this. Actually, I have a bit of pity for Mr. Foley. Of the Republicans involved in this issue he's the only one who's admitted his guilt and resigned. The rest are doing everything in their power to avoid any responsibility at all.

The part I laugh the most about is that had they actually dealt with Mr. Foley's behavior when they first learned about it, or had taken the Catholic approach and let him resign, this would all be behind them and forgotten. As it is, this may be the issue that tips scales enough to give the Democrats both houses.

[omahas.livejournal.com]

There may be something to this. Actually, I have a bit of pity for Mr. Foley.

I'm not sure if you mean pity, or respect. I don't pity Foley. What he did was wrong, period. Some have mentioned that the teens that he did these IMs with were close to being adults anyway. The issue here is that they were *not* adults, and their parents still held the rights of decision-making over them. Foley, at any time, could threaten a page with telling his parents something if the page didn't cooperate with what Foley wanted, and many pages probably did just believing that this might be the case, without a single threat in the first place. The possibility is all that was necessary.

Respect for at least accepting that resignation was necessary, perhaps...even if he then tried to blame the Catholic church (funny how his past never came up until now...one would think he'd have wanted to be part of the lawsuit against the church and been on the forefront of HELPING ALL OF HIS OTHER FELLOW VICTIMS!) But no pity from me.

As it is, this may be the issue that tips scales enough to give the Democrats both houses.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like that will be the case. NPR has been doing a series all week on the Foley case and it's possible impact on the November election. And for the heartland of the GOP voting caucaus, i.e. the midwest and deep south, the message is clear. The majority seem to care more about the war in Iraq (which is good) than in what Foley did and what the GOP isn't doing in response, and will vote accordingly.

And though I have a hard time respecting people who harp on their "moral stance" on issues, then say "I don't care" regarding Hastert and Co.'s willingness to pass this off and do very little, it really is a drop in the bucket compared to the thousands of people, including our own servicemen/women, dying in Iraq for a war that shouldn't have happened (and now there is rumours that Bush really is gearing for war with Iran...how stupid can he be?).

[rhonan.livejournal.com]

As I said, I feel a touch of pity for him, not compassion. Pity includes an element of judgment that compassion lacks. I do not see him as any sort of victim in this, nor do I feel sorry for him in this situation. I do, however, recognize that there is a pathological element in his behavior that stems from his own inability to deal with issues of his own sexuality. In the end, he did rise above his peers. He recognized that he disgraced himself, his family, and his office by his conduct and did the modern version of falling on his sword. His peers, on the other hand, are still sitting in their offices, drawing their fat salaries, and dismissing as partisanship the fact that people are outraged by the fact that the Republican leadership knew and did absolutely nothing.

[duskwuff.livejournal.com]

I dunno about honor, but he'd better have shame by now.

Seriously, though, if you haven't seen bradhicks's posts on the matter yet, you should take a look. He makes the interesting point that, had Foley actually had sex with the page, he would - in fact - have been completely in the clear, as the age of consent in Washington DC is 15 (!) years, and the minimum age for Congressional pages is 16.

[slfisher.livejournal.com]

What I'd seen was that the age of consent was 16, and then only for male female sex.

[omahas.livejournal.com]

The age of consent in Washington D.C. is 16, sodomy or no. It has been that way since 1901.

See Washington D.C. Code ST § 46-403

[zanfur.livejournal.com]

Makes you wonder what they're trying to distract people from. Perhaps the Iraq reports that came out last week?

[gromm.livejournal.com]

Sooooo... he's *not* gay. Despite the fact that he said he wouldn't be gay if only he hadn't been molested as a kid.

Uh huh.

[woggie.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting they're willing to equate homosexuality with bestiality, but they have this problem figuring out pedophilia. Maybe it's all that rarified air (err?) in D.C. as a result of those special laws about consent that wouldn't have flown anywhere else in the country?