This Mark Foley madness is now permeating the news media, and, like nearly ever other issue involving Washington politics, it's becoming an absolute mess.
For those not following the story, it was revealed that Republican Representative Mark Foley had been engaging in inappropriately sexual instant messages with underage male Congressional pages. There were also some less-inocuous emails, as well.
There are several reasons that this scandal has become such a mess. First is that many Democrats are taking great pleasure in Foley's fall, as they always seem to do whenever they can point at a Republican and shout "hypocrite!". Rush even played a quote this morning from a Democrat saying that people who don't take pleasure in seeing a hypocrite taken down have something wrong with them. Personally, I take no pleasure in this at all, because the acts occurred. Am I glad that Foley is out of power? Yes. But to take pleasure in this kind of a scandal - when children have been exploited? That is taking it too far.
Another reason that this is such a mess is that each side is accusing the other of knowing about the messages for some time, but doing nothing about it - the Republicans to cover it up, and the Democrats to wait until the most politically advantageous moment. Now, Republicans apparently reprimanded Foley when they heard about the emails and told him to stop, but they did not take the matter any further because they did not know about the instant messages, which were much more graphic. Still, Democrats are pushing for Dennis Hastert's resignation for not doing more. This does not, however, mean that the Democrats are clean: a George Soros-funded blog was the first to publish the story, and there are questions as to how long they had the incriminating instant messages before publishing them. The timing of the release makes it extremely suspect...and thankfully, there will be a throrough investigation into who knew what, and when.
The truth, however, is that as much as Mark Foley, a supporter of President Clinton's impeachment, comes across as a hypocrite through this scandal, the truth of the matter is that the Democrats have no less egg on their own faces. Gerry Studds (D-Mass.) was exposed as having had a sexual relationship with an underage Congressional page in 1983 - he continued to serve in the House until his retirement in 1997. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was reprimanded in 1990 when it was revealed that a male prostitute that Frank had hired was running a prostitution ring out of Frank's apartment - Frank still serves in the House. Mel Reynolds (D-Ill.) ran for a seat in the House in 1993. In 1994, he was indicted for having sex with an underage campaign volunteer. On August 22, 1995, he was convicted on 12 counts of sexual assault, obstruction of justice and solicitation of child pornography. He resigned his seat on October 1, 1995, after his conviction. In 1997 (while still in prison for the other charges), he was convicted of bank fraud and lying to SEC investigators. He received a presidential pardon from Bill Clinton - whose philandering was publicly defended as a "personal matter" by Democrats.
The disgusting thing about this debate is that the Democrats are reveling in the fact that a Republican Congressman was caught betraying his moral principles...yet these selfsame Democrats try their very hardest to avoid having moral principles (or, at least, naming them publicly), so that they won't get caught betraying those principles.
That Republicans and conservatives come out for moral values does not mean that we ourselves are perfect. It does, however, mean that we believe that our leaders shoud be held to a higher standard. Mark Foley is no longer serving in the House because his behavior was inappropriate and reprehensible. Tom Delay stepped down from his leadership position because he had been indicted - despite the fact that the indictment was obviously groundless and politically motivated. Newt Gengrich stepped down and resigned amid allegations that he was having an affair with a House aide.
Republicans have standards, and when those standards are violated, the violators are punished. Democrats seem to think that they can get away with avoiding consequences by imposing no standards of behavior except those arbitrarily imposed in order to embarrass Republicans, but eventually, enough of the American people will get wise to this charade that few Democrats will be electible.
Foley is now in rehab for alcoholism. Personally, I think this is a dodge - he should jailed for exploiting minors, and apparently offering alcohol to minors. I don't know what the charges would be, exactly, but he should definitely be charged. Alcoholism does not and should not explain away this kind of reprehensible behavior, and it should not be accepted as an excuse by Foley.
No comments:
Post a Comment