Adam's blogbox: the Mark Foley scandal - he's a screwed-up innocent, but I'd like him to be guilty of bringing down the GOP in November

I could give a shit about Mark Foley. I’m only excited about his stupidity because it could help the Democrats beat the Republicans in November.

But I do I feel sorry for the guy. All he did was write dirty IMs to young men whom it would be perfectly legal for him to fuck, because they were above the age of consent. It’s not that he committed a crime.

But it’s interesting to see how he’s trying to weasel out of his stupidity, besides of course doing the honorable thing and resigning. He checked himself into a facility for alcoholics – in other words, he’s saying he did what he did because he’s an alcoholic, he’s a poor little victim himself. Then he lets it be known that he was molested by a priest when he was a teen, so it’s really all the priest’s fault.

He’s one screwed-up individual, especially because he was always on a crusade to protect kids from sexual predators. It’s called reaction formation, I think, when you project your own sinful desires out on others. He’s like some character from The Crucible -- in a long line of hysterical family values propagators, who are themselves family values traducers, like the Evangelical preachers who get caught with prostitutes et al. Sometimes I wonder if the homophobia of the Evangelicals is a projection of the fact that deep inside, they know they are latent boyfuckers. What drives them to such an extreme form of intolerant, fundamentalist religiosity anyway?

It says something for what our public discourse is all about – we’re much more excited about turning the case of the predator-Senator over in our minds than worrying about the fact that our President has appointed himself as our Torturer-in-Chief and our Fearless Habeas Corpus Killer. If only we could find a sexual component to our President’s defense of torture, then US citizens might get upset about it.

BTW, what is the pro-torture posture of Bush/Cheney a projection of? I think it’s simply a projection of hysterical machismo. If you look at what Bush/Cheney stand for, they’re about having an enemy and kicking ass. A weird pathology. Their tax breaks for the rich, I think, is not about greed – it’s about the poor being their enemy, and this is their way of kicking the asses of the poor. With the Global War On Terror, they’re trying to define the enemy as big as possible, so they can kick ass on a vast scale. The bigger the ass they imagine they’re kicking, the better they feel. It’s the pathology of the schoolyard bully. Maybe they were beaten up by the schoolyard bully when they were teens, so it’s not their fault really either.

1. Page Turner
Six helpful hints for how to manage the Foley scandal.
By Bruce Reed (from Slate.com)

All in the Family: For all its talk of a united base, the Republican Party is an awkward marriage of convenience between two competing camps—economic conservatives and social-issue ones. George Bush promises the moon to both sides, but while business conservatives always get their tax cuts, social conservatives rarely see their wish list (an end to abortion and same-sex marriage) come true.

So, in the battle of conservative degenerates, it's only fair that a social-issue hypocrite like Rep. Mark Foley—rather than a business hypocrite like Jack Abramoff, or a values-for-hire crossbreed like Ralph Reed—would be the one to bring down the Republican House. Voters may have a hard time deciding which is most damning about this scandal—the crime, the cover-up, or the creepiness. But the Foley case proves what social conservatives have been telling economic conservatives all along: There are other sins than greed.

By the time middle America hears the sick-sick-sick details, the Foley scandal promises to be a body blow to Congress' already battered reputation. Only 25 percent approved of the job Congress was doing before the story broke. A do-nothing Congress will seem like the good old days once voters hear that " get a ruler and measure it for me " was Foley's idea of oversight.

The Cunningham, Ney, and Abramoff scandals faded because most voters think everybody in Washington takes bribes and sells votes; a Republican Congress just does it better. Most Americans are not yet to the point that they think everybody in higher office sends sexually explicit IMs to underage male teenagers they met on the public payroll.

What can the Republican leadership do to stop the bleeding? Their opening bid—asking the Justice Department for an FBI investigation—won't do much. The press has already agreed to handle the investigation for them.

To keep this scandal from sweeping them out of office, Republican leaders will have to respond in sweeping fashion. Here's a list of suggestions to help get them started:

1. Convince Dennis Hastert to step down as speaker. His office already had to backpedal from saying he had "no knowledge of" the emails to saying that, if he did, he forgot all about them. Even if that's the truth, it's not much of an excuse, and not one his colleagues or the press will likely let him get away with. His caucus probably would have elected a new speaker earlier this year if Hastert hadn't pledged to retire after the next term. Now, it's a race to see who makes him walk the plank first—his colleagues or the voters. By stepping aside, Hastert could exit the way DeLay did—sacrificing himself to try to save his caucus.

2. Build a fence around the congressional pages. Hey, it worked with immigration!

3. Call members back for a special session of self-flagellation and atonement. The House underreacted to the Abramoff scandals: Congress wouldn't have the lowest approval ratings in decades if they'd passed sweeping reforms to stop lobbying abuses and budget earmarks, instead of fake ones. This might be a good time for Republicans to try overreacting. Pass the political reform measures. Put a long-term freeze on congressional pay. Raise the minimum wage, and make sure congressional pages are covered. Special bonus: The less time members spend back home campaigning, the less they have to answer voters' questions about their friend Mark Foley.

4. Tell FBI agents that they can use the same interrogation techniques allowed under the new detainee bill to uncover the full truth in the Foley investigation. That's a twofer: Voters will either be reassured that the bill must not gut the Geneva Conventions—or be persuaded that Congress must mean business in cleaning up the scandal.

5. Ban instant messaging with minors. Perhaps the creepiest moment in the Foley IMs is when the teenage boy he's harassing has to say "brb" so he can go talk to his mother, then signs off because he has to do his homework. That exchange is every parent's worst nightmare of what goes on in their children's secret online world. Most parents consider IM as the world's biggest waste of time and a high-speed road to ruin. If parents could have their way, Congress would pass a constitutional amendment to ban IMing altogether. But we'd settle for one that just makes it a crime for any grown-up to IM our children.

6. Fire Rumsfeld. Republicans have spent months trying to keep Iraq off the front pages. They finally got their wish. Now the GOP has a month to figure out how to get congressional pages off the front pages. ...


2. The Foley Case: Cause and Effect vs. Judgment -- by Bill C. Davis

Mark Foley - gay Republican. He may still be a Republican but he certainly must have done his best not to be the thing that his chosen Party works so hard to repress and destroy. It can be argued that placing himself squarely in that vice of a dilemma caused him to behave in a way that he knew would destroy him. He invited his own destruction because he built his life and career on a cornerstone of internalized hostility.

To be a gay Republican is an attack on yourself - a daily attack - like smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. It disorganizes your cell structure. If your tribe says it's disgusting - then do as they say - be disgusting - make it gross. The "monster" was conceived when he decided to be a Republican. The Republican agenda is hostile to gay men. So for a gay man to join that club has a special twist to it that puts everyone in jeopardy.

The cause and effect in this tragedy is more important to acknowledge and study than the lather of judgment in which the righteous feel honor bound to indulge.

For example, showing complete contempt for the principle of cause and effect, commentator Paul Bagalia felt free to comment that if Foley did this to one of his kids he'd be hearing from his attorneys - "Smith and Wesson." Mr. Bagalia had his macho, irresponsible moment of saying on cable television that he would kill this guy with no thought of what this might trigger to an unknown listener somewhere in the country. That's a special kind of morality on a day when a man looking to avenge an injury from 20 years ago shot ten Amish girls.

Talk show figure Lucianne Goldberg told her interviewer that if Foley did this to her son she would hire a hit-man. Another bold macho stroke of motherhood spoken publicly from a person who is comfortably oblivious to the science of cause and effect.

The NIE made it clear the Iraq war is part of an equation of cause and effect. The report precisely referred to the Iraq War as a "cause celebre" for jihadists - and resulting violence will be the effect of this criminal war.

The angry blundering of looking for vengeance and judgment as an official policy abandons the responsibility of understanding cause and effect. The message is that it is legitimate and good even to show the corpses of people we kill - we will torture, humiliate, bomb. We will get our vengeance - that is the current national edict - security through revenge. A mad cycle of unstudied cause and effect will be the endless "war on terror."

Morality is the study of cause and effect - judgment is the self indulgent ignorance of it. Judgment is easy - morality is challenging. If we bring morality to our political discourse, we might have a chance. Otherwise we will continue our adrenaline rush to the precipice.

(Bill C. Davis is a playwright. www.billcdavis.com)


3. "Predator stamped all over it ..." – by Tom Scharbach (from Purplescarf)

""I know one thing: that e-mail they call an 'overly friendly e-mail' -- that had predator stamped all over it." -- Bay Buchanan, The Situation Room, October 2

It is not often that I agree with anything coming out of Bay Buchanan's mouth. But Bay is dead right on the Mark Foley e-mail -- the 'overly friendly e-mail' e-mail had predator written all over it.

Almost everyone who understands how efebophiles "work" their victims saw that immediately. The e-mail had the marks on it, and the e-mail should have triggered immediate and careful digging into Mark Foley's relationship with the page program, particularly in light of the fact that his "overly friendly" attitude to pages appears to have been an open secret on the Hill.

As the Foley story developed over the last few days, I've watched the Republican leadership fall all over themselves trying to distance themselves from that simple fact. I've watched Dennis Hastert stumble around trying to distinguish between the e-mails and the IM's, on the basis that the former were not "sexually explicit" and the latter were, and lamely indicate that he had discussed so many things with Republicans who brought the e-mails to his attention that he doesn't remember discussing the e-mails. I've watched House leadership play the game of "I didn't know ..." I've watched Tony Snow first dismiss the e-mail and IM exchanges as "naughty" and then turn 180 degrees and distance the White House while still diminishing the impact: " "The House has to clean up the mess, to the extent there is a mess. " And I've watched Fox News, the Republican network, trying to downplay the story by running commentaries comparing the pages to Monica Lewinsky, stories of past sexual misbehavior in Congress, and so on. I've watched the Christian Right turn itself inside out distinquishing between legal and illegal behavior on technicalities.

As I've watched the story develop, I've been reminded on the scandal that rocked the Catholic Church in recent years, the scandal of efebophile priests hitting on teenage parishoners. The Republican leadership, in a word, is acting like the Bishops acted -- denying, diminishing, dismissing.

None of it has damped voter anger, and it won't.

The reason? The raw fact of the matter is that Bay Buchanan is right: " "I know one thing: that e-mail they call an 'overly friendly e-mail' -- that had predator stamped all over it. " And the raw fact of the matter is that the Republican leadership acted like the Bishops, and failed, utterly failed, to protect the pages when the parents of the pages trusted them to do so. Denying, diminishing, dismissing won't help; it makes matters worse, not better.

The pages were sent to the Hill by parents who trusted the leadership to keep them safe, and the parents, like the pages, were betrayed. If the predator had been anyone other than Mark Foley, a member of the Republican leadership and the man who made it his crusade to "protect the children" -- if the predator had been anyone else -- the story might not have the legs it has developed.

But Mark Foley , the leadership-designated protector of teens, was the predator, the fox in the hen house. When the "overly-friendly" e-mail came to light, the Republican leadership played the "old boy network" game, circling the wagons and protecting their own. Anyone who doesn't see the similarities between the Foley story and the scandal in the Catholic Church isn't Catholic. Catholics have been there and done that, and now it is the Christian right's turn.

The story is cut of the the same cloth as the scandal that rocked the Catholic Church, and worse, like the Bishops, Republican leadership doesn't get it. By the time they do, it will be too late. Nobody will trust them.

I wasn't going to comment on the Foley story -- I'm a survivor of sexual abuse, and not unbiased -- but Matt Drudge put me over the edge.

Drudge, yesterday, had this to say:

"And if anything, these kids are less innocent -- these 16 and 17 year-old beasts...and I've seen what they're doing on YouTube and I've seen what they're doing all over the internet -- oh yeah -- you just have to tune into any part of their pop culture. You're not going to tell me these are innocent babies. Have you read the transcripts that ABC posted going into the weekend of these instant messages, back and forth? The kids are egging the Congressman on! The kids are trying to get this out of him. We haven't got the whole story on this. "

And later: " You could say "well Drudge, it's abuse of power, a congressman abusing these impressionable, young 17 year-old beasts, talking about their sex lives with a grown man, on the internet." Because you have to remember, those of us who have seen some of the transcripts of these nasty instant messages. This was two ways, ladies and gentlemen. These kids were playing Foley for everything he was worth. Oh yeah. Oh, I haven't...they were talking about how many times they'd masturbated, how many times they'd done it with their girlfriends this weekend...all these things and these "innocent children." And this poor congressman sitting there typing, "oh am I going to get any," you know? "

I've heard that before, too. And I'm disgusted beyond disgust.

Just in case you haven't read them, the following are transcripts of IM exchanges:

Maf54: how my favorite young stud doing
Teen: tired and sore
Teen: i didnt no waltzing could make you sore
Maf54: from what
Teen: what do you mean from what
Teen: from waltzing ... im sore from waltzing
Maf54: tahts good
...
Teen: ugh tomorrow i have the first day of lacrosse practice
Maf54: love to watch that
Maf54: those great legs running
Teen: haha...they arent great
...
Maf54: well dont ruin my mental picture
Teen: oh lol...sorry
Maf54: nice
Maf54: youll be way hot then
Teen: haha...hopefully
Maf54: better be
...
Maf54: did any girl give you a haand job this weekend
Teen: lol no
Teen: im single right now
Teen: my last gf and i broke up a few weeks agi
Maf54: are you
Maf54: good so your getting horny
Teen: lol...a bit
Maf54: did you spank it this weekend yourself
Teen: no
Teen: been too tired and too busy
Maf54: wow...
Maf54: i am never to busy haha
Teen: haha
Maf54: or tired..helps me sleep
Teen: thats true
...
Teen: i dont do it very often normally though
Maf54: why not
Maf54: at your age seems like it would be daily
Teen: not me
Teen: im not a horn dog
Teen: maybe 2 or 3 times a week
Maf54: thats a good number
Maf54: in the shower
Teen: actually usually i dont do it in the shower
Teen: just cause i shower in the morning
Teen: and quickly
Maf54: in the bed
Teen: i get up at 530 and am outta the house by 610
Teen: eh ya
Maf54: on your back
Teen: no face down
Maf54: love details
Teen: lol
Teen: i see that
Teen: lol
Maf54: really
Maf54: do you really do it face down
Teen: ya
Maf54: kneeling
Teen: well i dont use my hand...i use the bed itself
Maf54: where do you unload it
Teen: towel
Maf54: really
Maf54: completely naked?
Teen: well ya
Maf54: very nice
Teen: lol
...
Maf54: i always use lotion and the hand
Maf54: but who knows
Teen: i dont use lotion...takes too much time to clean up
Teen: with a towel you can just wipe off....and go
Maf54: lol
Maf54: where do you throw the towel
Teen: but you cant work it too hard....or its not good
Teen: in the laundry
Maf54: just kinda slow rubbing
Teen: ya....
Teen: or youll rub yourslef raw
Maf54: well I have aa totally stiff wood now
Teen: cause the towell isnt very soft
Maf54: i bet..taht would hurt
Teen: but you cn find something softer than a towell i guess
Maf54: but it must feel great spirting on the towel
Teen: ya
Maf54: wow
Maf54: is your little guy limp...or growing
Teen: eh growing
Maf54: hmm
Maf54: so you got a stiff one now
Teen: not that fast
Teen: hey
...
Teen: ya but now im hard
Maf54: me 2
...
Maf54: what you wearing
Teen: normal clothes
Teen: tshirt and shorts
Maf54: um so a big buldge
Teen: ya
Maf54: um
Maf54: love to slip them off of you
Teen: haha
Maf54: and gram the one eyed snake
Maf54: grab
Teen: not tonight...dont get to excited
Maf54: well your hard
Teen: that is true
Maf54: and a little horny
Teen: and also tru
Maf54: get a ruler and measure it for me
Teen: ive already told you that
Maf54: tell me again
Teen: 7 and 1/2
Maf54: ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Maf54: beautiful
Teen: lol
Maf54: thats a great size
Teen: thank you
Maf54: still stiff
Teen: ya
Maf54: take it out
...
Maf54: I miss you lots since san diego.
Teen: ya I cant wait til dc
Maf54: :)
Teen: did you pick a night for dinner
Maf54: not yet…but likely Friday
Teen: ok…ill plan for Friday then
Maf54: that will be fun
...
Maf54: I want to see you
Teen: Like I said not til feb … then we will go to dinner
Maf54: and then what happens
Teen: we eat…we drink … who knows … hang out … late into the night
Maf54: and
Teen: I dunno
Maf54: dunno what
Teen: hmmm I have the feeling that you are fishing here … im not sure what I would be comfortable with … well see

Foley is clearly leading the exchanges, and the teenager is practically squirming in that last exchange.

Drudge has no limits to his indecency. But blaming the victims isn't going to work. All it will do is dig the hole deeper.

Druge, like the Republican leadership, just doesn't get it.

Bay Buchanan, bless her heart, does. And, as the story develops, I'll bet that Bay won't be alone.

The Washington Times called for Haster's resignation this morning:

"House Speaker Dennis Hastert must do the only right thing, and resign his speakership at once. Either he was grossly negligent for not taking the red flags fully into account and ordering a swift investigation, for not even remembering the order of events leading up to last week's revelations -- or he deliberately looked the other way in hopes that a brewing scandal would simply blow away. He gave phony answers Friday to the old and ever-relevant questions of what did he know and when did he know it? Mr. Hastert has forfeited the confidence of the public and his party, and he cannot preside over the necessary coming investigation, an investigation that must examine his own inept performance. "

The Times, like Bay Buchanan, got it right.


4. Woulda. Coulda. Shoulda? (NY Times editorial)

The more the House Republican leaders try to defend themselves on the Congressional page scandal, the worse it looks. They still do not seem to appreciate how serious this is, especially for a party that poses as the arbiter of morality. And they appear to be trying harder to deflect blame from themselves than to get to the bottom of what actually happened. The F.B.I. has begun investigating, but that will be a prolonged process, and the voters have to render a verdict in five weeks. There is evidence emerging that they should consider.

Dennis Hastert, the House speaker, is responsible for the page program, and for seeing that the recent improprieties are properly investigated. His performance has been disturbing. As late as Monday, he was still minimizing the scandal. He said he understood that the improper contacts between pages and Mark Foley, the Florida Republican who resigned last week, occurred after the pages left the program. “This was after the fact,” Mr. Hastert said, “and you know — would have, could have, should have.”

First, it’s not at all clear that events transpired after the pages left the program. And, in any case, why is that relevant? Surely preying on ordinary young Americans is just as vile as preying on pages.

Mr. Hastert hardly sounds like an effective leader who intends to investigate the allegations thoroughly, particularly now that the focus is shifting from Mr. Foley’s conduct to whether House leaders covered it up. His remarks struck the same dismissive tone as the White House spokesman Tony Snow’s references to “naughty e-mails.”

It is disturbingly difficult to straighten out the basics of who said and did what when. John Boehner, the majority leader, was saying late last week that he did not recall informing Mr. Hastert that there was a problem with Mr. Foley. Now he is insisting he did and trying to dump the mess in the speaker’s lap. Thomas Reynolds, the New York Republican who heads the National Republican Congressional Committee, insists he told Mr. Hastert this spring of his concerns about Mr. Foley. But Mr. Hastert says he does not recall being told.

There are more unanswered questions. When John Shimkus, the Illinois Republican who is chairman of the House Page Board, learned of the Foley problem, he informed the House clerk, but not the Democrat on the committee, or anyone in the Democratic leadership. It is unclear why he withheld the information. The pages’ well-being should have been his primary concern, not partisan politics.

Mr. Reynolds, who was one of the few members of Congress to know about the Foley problem early on, insists he did all he had to when he “took it to my supervisor,” Mr. Hastert. But Mr. Reynolds is a key member of the House leadership, and his constituents need to know whether he knew enough to have done more than he did. We’d also like to know why, in the months when Mr. Reynolds was one of the few people to know of Mr. Foley’s misconduct, Mr. Foley contributed $100,000 to Mr. Reynolds’s Congressional campaign committee.

Every one of these political leaders is up for re-election next month. Voters should go into the booth with full information about how they all handled this challenge to their leadership.