THE TRAGEDY OF MARK FOLEY

• First, the leadership of Congress must be held accountable on this matter.  This cannot be made into a partisan battle between Republicans and Democrats.  We are talking here about teenagers sent to Washington to serve as pages to congressional leaders.  In any given year, there are hundreds of these teenagers that come to the Capitol to serve.  Their parents entrust their children to the congressional leaders.  Their parents expect that they will be safe and protected from things like this.  Here is what we do know:  House Speaker, J. Dennis Hastert (R- Ill.) was notified early in 2006 of inappropriate emails from Foley to a 16-year old page.  According to news reports, Hastert ordered Foley to cease such emails.  GOP leaders then referred the matter to Rep. John M. Shimkus (R-Ill,), who heads the three-lawmaker panel that oversees the House page program.  Shimkus questioned Foley but did nothing publicly or took no decisive action, other than verbally reprimanding him.  Naturally, the Democratic Party leadership is charging the Republican leaders with a cover-up.  The substance of the charge is that the leadership was more interested in protecting Foley than in protecting the teenage pages.  The Republican leadership is now characterizing Foley’s actions as “unacceptable and abhorrent,” and that his resignation now “must now be followed by the full weight of the criminal justice system.”  The reality politically is that in all probability, the Republican Party will lose this once thought secure seat in Florida. 

• Second, this is not a political issue but an ethical one.  (1)  Mark Foley is a leader in Congress and leaders are always called to a higher standard.  Emails to teenage pages that are sexually suggestive, that cite body parts and suggest intimate activities, are absolutely wrong.  The leaders in Congress to whom Foley was responsible should have taken decisive action, far more than a verbal reprimand.  Foley was known in Congress as a man that was overly friendly to congressional pages.  Any reasonable leader should have seen this and acted decisively.  I believe that the Republican Party leadership will pay a dear price for this come the November elections.  Voters will hold them accountable for allowing Foley to continue without decisive, clear reprimands that mattered.  This is not a political issue; it is an ethical one—and we must frame the issue in that manner.  (2)  There is every indication that Mark Foley is gay.  Thankfully, there is no evidence that he ever forced himself upon a congressional male page, but the threat there is real.  His language in his explicit emails reflects the reality of that threat.  The parents of the affected pages are unwilling to press charges or take action for fear of what the publicity would do to their teens.  But the issue is not that Mark Foley is a Republican, but that he has destroyed the trust the public places in its leaders.  If this is framed around the fact that Foley is a Republican, the Democratic Party had better be careful, for we must remember that Bill Clinton had many sexual liaisons with a Washington intern named Monica Lewinsky.  Both Mark Foley and Bill Clinton represent the failure of moral and ethical leaders in our culture.  Both men represent the tragedy and bankruptcy of a culture that has lost its ethical moorings and foundation.  Mark Foley must be held accountable for his actions, and the Congressional leadership must be held accountable for their lack of decisive action in dealing with Foley.  But let’s be careful not to make this an issue of political partisanship, for the memory of Bill Clinton’s ethical failure is still very much alive.

See the news reports in the Washington Post on the Foley matter by Jonathan Weisman and Charles Babington (1 October and 2 October 2006).