The GOP Is the Problem, Not Foley

By John Nichols, TheNation.com. Posted October 9, 2006.

Unfortunately, it appears those of us who have argued that the current ruckus on Capitol Hill is not a Mark Foley Scandal but a Republican Congressional Leadership Scandal may be losing the debate.

A week after Foley's political career imploded -- after details of his emails and instant messages to teenage congressional pages began to surface -- the fascination with the former congressman seems actually to be on the rise. Thursday's New York Times features a lengthy profile of Foley beginning on its front page today, while talk radio and the blogosphere are abuzz with discussion of every new salacious detail about a politician who until last Thursday was barely known outside the precincts of central Florida and a few blocks of Washington, DC. My most amusing progressive radio show on the dial, Stephanie Miller's morning program, features daily reports on "La Cage Aux Foley."

Everywhere Americans look or listen, the shorthand for the whole affair is "The Foley Scandal."

The focus on Foley is problematic for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, it turns what ought to be a discussion about the win-at-any-cost approach of the Republicans who run Congress into a wildly speculative discourse on one troubled man and what his experience says about everything from pedophilia to workplace ethics to privacy and gays in politics. Everyone is getting into the act, from moralizing conservatives -- like Family Research Council's Tony Perkins claiming that "tolerance and diversity" are to blame for the whole mess -- to Desperate Democrats describing Foley as a "pedophile predator." The tone of the discussion is especially disturbing at a time when right-wing forces have placed anti-gay initiatives on the November 7 ballots in eight states. Prospects for beating those measures in states such as Wisconsin, Colorado and Arizona are not helped by discussions that, whether intentionally or unintentionally, reinforce inaccurate yet persistent stereotypes.

While I have shied away from writing at much length about Foley's personal story -- preferring to focus on the far more serious and significant issues that have been raised about how the Republican leadership places politics above all other concerns -- it seems that some consideration of the congressman's circumstance is in order. I was convinced of this when my wise colleague Katha Pollitt emailed the other day with some smart questions about a line in one of my articles on the scandal. In a piece discussing the pressures on Foley as a closeted Republican, I wrote, "Unlike the vast majority of homosexuals -- who, as a group, are less likely to be attracted to children than heterosexuals -- the congressman began to engage in activities that were inappropriate and potentially illegal. Details that have surfaced in recent day suggest that Foley had made a mess of his life - a mess that exploded on him and his party when it was revealed that the co-chair of the Congressional Caucus for Missing & Exploited Children had sent 'Do I make you a little horny?' e-mails to teenage boys." Katha wanted to know whether I meant to suggest that closeted gay men were more likely to be attracted to teenagers -- a notion about which she was distinctly, and correctly, dubious.

I appreciated the question, and others from friends and colleagues regarding Foley's personal story and whatever conclusions can be drawn from it, because they provide an opening to explore the backstory of a controversy that could yet depose the Speaker of the House.

As regards Katha's specific question, I don't buy the argument that being closeted caused Foley to be attracted to particular groups of men or boys. Sure, the need to cloak a huge part of his identity created pressures on the congressman. But, right or wrong, I'm of the view that our behavioral penchants and tendencies are set early in life. I share the position of Matt Foreman, the executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, who says: "Given similar past sordid situations in the page program perpetrated by male members of Congress against female pages, it's absurd to blame the Foley spectacle on his being gay, closeted or otherwise." In other words, what Foley did is what Foley did. It makes little sense to try and find in his specific actions indicators of broad patterns or universal tendencies among gays or straights, people who are in the closet or people who are out.

So, then, the question becomes: What was up with Foley?

With all the new twists and turns in his story -- including this week's declarations by the former congressman's lawyer that he's an alcoholic and a survivor of childhood sexual abuse -- that's a tough question to answer with precision.

But, as someone who has covered Foley for many years and had an opportunity to spend a good deal of time with the man, let me offer some thoughts:

I first got to know Foley a number of years ago when he was one of the few Republicans who was speaking up on the issue of media consolidation. Always interested in media issues -- especially as they related to the film and music industries -- the congressman had a good eye for the changing character of our communications after the passage of the noxious Telecommunications Act of 1996.

John Nichols is The Nation's Washington correspondent.

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