It will make your head spin to consider that House Republican leaders were shown inappropriate e-mails from former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., to an underage page but failed to take action to ensure the safety of teenage participants in the page program.
The mishandling of this matter starts at the top, with House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Initially, he wasn’t forthcoming about his role in the Foley mess yet, inexplicably, he won a vote of confidence Tuesday from President Bush.
Foley resigned Friday, but only after a sexually charged missive to a second page surfaced. He issued an apologyand checked himself into an alcohol rehab program. Then on Tuesday, with criminal investigations getting underway, his lawyer announced that a clergyman had molested Foley as a teenager.
Contrition, rehab and rationales hardly spell the end of this episode. Hastert, acting with glacial speed, finally wrote to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Sunday asking for an FBI investigation of Foley’s conduct with current and former congressional pages. Also, Florida authorities are investigating to see if Foley broke any state laws.
Much has happened to damage the GOP during Hastert’s watch as speaker, making the president’s pat on the back all the more confounding. House Republicans are still reeling from influence peddling involving Ohio Rep. Bob Ney and Californian Rep. Duke Cunningham, from the indictment of former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and the illegal lobbying activity of DeLay pal Jack Abramoff. It is far from clear whether Ney and Cunningham will be the last members prosecuted in this Congress.
All this while the House Ethics Committee was neutered and the resolute Rep. Joel Hefley of Colorado denied a new term as chairman. The committee hasn’t followed up a single one of these matters.
In the Foley case, efforts to spin the House leaders’ inaction are pathetic. It misses the point to dismiss Foley’s e-mail to a page working for Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., as merely “overfriendly” because it wasn’t as sexually explicit as a series of instant messages to another male page.
Hastert seems to excuse himself on all issues of GOP misconduct. In this case he says, the Louisiana youth’s parents didn’t want the matter pursued, but they surely didn’t expect the House to leave future pages at risk. Hastert wasn’t the only one who didn’t see a smoking gun, but when a congressman asks a teenage boy for his picture, the matter must be followed up.
Hastert’s first concern should have been protecting the pages, not Foley. He is now brushing off calls for his resignation (even the conservative Washington Times demanded he step down as speaker). On Tuesday, the No. 2 House Republican started distancing himself from the speaker. Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Hastert had told him last spring that the page’s complaint about Foley “had been taken care of.” Said Boehner of Hastert: “It’s in his corner.”
President Bush is staying at Hastert’s side. He referred to the speaker as a “father, teacher, coach,” and said, “I know Denny Hastert. I meet with him a lot. I know that he wants all the facts to come out.”
The episode is a hard lesson for a party in which “family values” has been a political mantra. It’s rank hypocrisy that GOP leaders didn’t step in when Foley’s behavior was first brought to their attention.
Imagine this. Hastert learned of Foley’s transgressions in 2005. But if they hadn’t been exposed by others, Foley would still be in office.
