Foley Is a Sexual Harasser, Not a Child Molester

It's hard not to relish the spectacle of the Republicans hoisted on Mark Foley's quivering petard. But the pleasure wanes as the sanctimony rises -- a chorus of politicians, pundits and reporters all singing the words "child protection."

The GOP knew for years that the six-term Florida congressman was a "funny" with the pages. They said nothing, except for the occasional sotto voce warning to steer clear of the creep. Their first priority was to protect their own asses -- not, as Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi put it, "to protect the children in their trust."

In response, Foley has played his own childhood-innocence card. He claims a priest molested him, propelling him into a life of homosexual pedophilia. At this writing, the congressman has announced he'd reveal the miscreant's name -- "part of the healing process," his lawyer notes, along with Foley's treatment for alcoholism. Hours later, the priest, one Anthony Merciera, came forward, contending he and the boy went skinny-dipping together as "brothers" -- nothing more. Another former altar boy joined in, revealing that he and Foley used to hang out at the apartment of the priest, who let them drink and smoke. The priest admits he might have been disinhibited by alcohol problems of his own ... and the saga continues.

Let us begin by granting the obvious: Like the party to which he belongs, this particular member from Florida is a slime-bucket of obfuscation and hypocrisy. But does anybody really think the Foley affair is about protecting children? Is "child" the correct term for the subspecies of preternaturally ambitious 16- and 17-year-old humans who claw their way to Washington in order to learn how to become Dennis Hastert or Hillary Clinton? who, according to those formerly in their places, also take advantage of their sojourn in our nation's capital to party? Much blame for zapping the meaning from the words "child" and "protection" must be assigned to the likes of the congressional Missing and Exploited Children's caucuses; former House co-chair Mark Foley was one of their most zealous leaders. Over the years, these folks have built a fortress of "child-protective" crime legislation that has steadily increased the age at which a person is legally considered a child -- from 12 to 18, for instance, in child-pornography law. The caucuses have worked with the National Center on Missing and Exploited Children, an organization known for tossing around statistics on "child abductions" that fail to note that almost all the kids who go missing are actually teenage runaways -- or teenage "throwaways," whose parents have kicked them out.

Such advocates also have a penchant for implying, incorrectly, that crimes against children tend to be sexual. As we know well, sex panics are a great way to sell internet censorship, mandatory minima and other politically profitable law-and-order legislation.

A triumphal moment for these tactics, and for Foley himself, came this summer, just months before the emails hit the fan: the Adam Walsh Child Protection Act of 2006 greatly expands the federal sex-offender registry and compels states to expand theirs. It also encourages civil commitment with new grants, institutes big, vague new areas of internet surveillance, and hardens the penalties for sex crimes against children to include everything short of extraordinary rendition.

An interesting footnote is the law's name, inscribed "in recognition of John and Revé Walsh on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Adam Walsh's abduction and murder." John Walsh owned a hotel management business in Hollywood, Fla., in 1981 when his 6-year-old son was killed. His PR says the father "turned his grief" into a full-time fight for child victims. A less generous way of putting it is that Walsh made a career by spreading the rumor -- most explicitly in his book Tears of Rage -- that his son's murderer was a pedophile. The crusade spurred the creation of the missing-and-exploited children's center and landed Walsh the job of hosting Fox TV's "America's Most Wanted." From that exalted position, he has cultivated friends in high places, including Mark Foley, to push for tougher sex-offender laws.