Congressman forfeited privacy when he crossed the line of decency
By Howard Goodman | Commentary
Three years ago, when confronted with "revolting and unforgiving" reports that he is gay, Mark Foley angrily held a news conference to say he deserved to keep his private life private.
"Elected officials, even those who run for the United States Senate, must have some level of privacy," the Republican congressman declared.
And most in the media complied.
Just as leaders in the House of Representatives apparently dealt with "overly friendly e-mails" with, at most, a word of warning.
Hey, no sense disturbing the man's privacy.
Now, of course, Foley's life has come unwrapped in about as spectacular a fashion as anyone can imagine.
Not for a secret life as a gay man, which never seemed to bother anybody in his district who knew about it. But for dozens of creepy e-mails and Internet text messages that show him lusting, in the most literal terms, after teenage boys.
In the space of a few days, he's gone from Mark Foley, R-Fort Pierce, shoo-in for a seventh term in Congress, to Mark Foley, ruined man.
The R after his name now stands for Recovery, that ever-expandable society for America's fallen celebrities.
He's gone into hiding -- er, retreat -- er, rehab -- and sent out a surrogate to confess all manner of ugly and awful secrets.
Can the bookings on Oprah and Dr. Phil be far behind?
How soon until we see the repentant autobiography and the bid for public forgiveness?
His attorney-spokesman David Roth tells us Foley takes full responsibility for his actions. But then enumerates all kinds of factors that Foley just has to get off his chest in the name of his recovery. Not that we should mistake any of these for extenuating circumstances, mind you.
Foley's claiming that he's an alcoholic. But since when does getting drunk make you lust over a young boy's rear end?
Or as Maf54, Foley's nom de keyboard, calls it: "cute butt bouncing in the air."
Foley wants us to know that he was molested as a teen by an anonymous clergyman. But since when does everyone who's molested in turn get to take an unhealthy interest in children?
"It's very rare, actually," said Barbara Blaine, president of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), from Chicago.
"The overwhelming majority of abuse victims hurt themselves, not others," added David Clohessy, SNAP national director, from St. Louis, "through self-destructive behavior, criminal behavior, isolation, addictions and so on."
Foley also wants us to know he is gay. But what a disservice that does to the great majority of gay people.
He's given new ammunition for those people who think that sexual predation and homosexuality are synonymous.
Roth promises us that, categorically, Foley never engaged in pedophile activity and never had a teenager in his apartment for sex.
Maybe that's true if you define pedophilia strictly as sex with someone under age 13. But this week's crop of Internet messages, reported by ABC News, make that assertion hard to believe.
One -- from 2003 while Foley took a break from a vote on authorizing money for the Iraq war -- indicate that instant message exchanges reached a sexual climax.
"Ok, i better go vote," writes Foley near the end of that exchange. "Did you know you would have that effect on me."
All these secrets. We're hearing about them after the harm is done.
If it's true that Foley was a closet alcoholic and a childhood victim of clergy sex abuse, wouldn't it have been better to be honest about it? Honest to himself? To us?
Keeping it buried sure didn't make things better.
All the while Foley was keeping his cherished zone of privacy, he was walking a tightrope, living the high profile life of a congressman while behaving in ways that could destroy him.
"The one response to child and sexual abuse that always fails is silence," says Clohessy, himself a childhood victim of a priest's sexual advances.
To quote the singer-philosopher Paul Simon, silence like a cancer grows.
"And cancer, if there's even to be a prayer of recovery, has to be exposed and rooted out. It's painful and risky, but doing nothing is far more painful and more risky," Clohessy said.
On Wednesday, former Foley aide Kirk Fordham, himself resigning in the Foley fallout, said he warned Speaker Dennis Hastert's office more than three years ago about Foley's troublesome behavior. Three years ago!
The Republican leadership that kept quiet reminds me of the Catholic hierarchy that has protected priests for years and years, preferring to keep things under wraps to protect the membership over forthrightly removing and punishing the wrongdoers to protect children.
I don't have any confidence that Democrats would do things differently if they were in charge.
It's all about keeping the lid on long enough to make our side look good and their side look bad.
This isn't just about a man preying on teenagers. This is a man using his position in Congress to view the page program as his own little buffet table.
This is about a man who advances his career by parading as a valiant protector of young people, while mocking the notions of decency he claims to defend.
As recently as July, Foley was scoring political points by backing tougher laws against sex offenders. "For too long our nation has tracked library books better than it has sex offenders," he said as the Senate moved a bill to close enforcement loopholes.
Now I can't help wondering: What was Maf54 writing that day?
"Elected officials, even those who run for the United States Senate, must have some level of privacy," the Republican congressman declared.
And most in the media complied.
Just as leaders in the House of Representatives apparently dealt with "overly friendly e-mails" with, at most, a word of warning.
Hey, no sense disturbing the man's privacy.
Now, of course, Foley's life has come unwrapped in about as spectacular a fashion as anyone can imagine.
Not for a secret life as a gay man, which never seemed to bother anybody in his district who knew about it. But for dozens of creepy e-mails and Internet text messages that show him lusting, in the most literal terms, after teenage boys.
In the space of a few days, he's gone from Mark Foley, R-Fort Pierce, shoo-in for a seventh term in Congress, to Mark Foley, ruined man.
The R after his name now stands for Recovery, that ever-expandable society for America's fallen celebrities.
He's gone into hiding -- er, retreat -- er, rehab -- and sent out a surrogate to confess all manner of ugly and awful secrets.
Can the bookings on Oprah and Dr. Phil be far behind?
How soon until we see the repentant autobiography and the bid for public forgiveness?
His attorney-spokesman David Roth tells us Foley takes full responsibility for his actions. But then enumerates all kinds of factors that Foley just has to get off his chest in the name of his recovery. Not that we should mistake any of these for extenuating circumstances, mind you.
Foley's claiming that he's an alcoholic. But since when does getting drunk make you lust over a young boy's rear end?
Or as Maf54, Foley's nom de keyboard, calls it: "cute butt bouncing in the air."
Foley wants us to know that he was molested as a teen by an anonymous clergyman. But since when does everyone who's molested in turn get to take an unhealthy interest in children?
"It's very rare, actually," said Barbara Blaine, president of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), from Chicago.
"The overwhelming majority of abuse victims hurt themselves, not others," added David Clohessy, SNAP national director, from St. Louis, "through self-destructive behavior, criminal behavior, isolation, addictions and so on."
Foley also wants us to know he is gay. But what a disservice that does to the great majority of gay people.
He's given new ammunition for those people who think that sexual predation and homosexuality are synonymous.
Roth promises us that, categorically, Foley never engaged in pedophile activity and never had a teenager in his apartment for sex.
Maybe that's true if you define pedophilia strictly as sex with someone under age 13. But this week's crop of Internet messages, reported by ABC News, make that assertion hard to believe.
One -- from 2003 while Foley took a break from a vote on authorizing money for the Iraq war -- indicate that instant message exchanges reached a sexual climax.
"Ok, i better go vote," writes Foley near the end of that exchange. "Did you know you would have that effect on me."
All these secrets. We're hearing about them after the harm is done.
If it's true that Foley was a closet alcoholic and a childhood victim of clergy sex abuse, wouldn't it have been better to be honest about it? Honest to himself? To us?
Keeping it buried sure didn't make things better.
All the while Foley was keeping his cherished zone of privacy, he was walking a tightrope, living the high profile life of a congressman while behaving in ways that could destroy him.
"The one response to child and sexual abuse that always fails is silence," says Clohessy, himself a childhood victim of a priest's sexual advances.
To quote the singer-philosopher Paul Simon, silence like a cancer grows.
"And cancer, if there's even to be a prayer of recovery, has to be exposed and rooted out. It's painful and risky, but doing nothing is far more painful and more risky," Clohessy said.
On Wednesday, former Foley aide Kirk Fordham, himself resigning in the Foley fallout, said he warned Speaker Dennis Hastert's office more than three years ago about Foley's troublesome behavior. Three years ago!
The Republican leadership that kept quiet reminds me of the Catholic hierarchy that has protected priests for years and years, preferring to keep things under wraps to protect the membership over forthrightly removing and punishing the wrongdoers to protect children.
I don't have any confidence that Democrats would do things differently if they were in charge.
It's all about keeping the lid on long enough to make our side look good and their side look bad.
This isn't just about a man preying on teenagers. This is a man using his position in Congress to view the page program as his own little buffet table.
This is about a man who advances his career by parading as a valiant protector of young people, while mocking the notions of decency he claims to defend.
As recently as July, Foley was scoring political points by backing tougher laws against sex offenders. "For too long our nation has tracked library books better than it has sex offenders," he said as the Senate moved a bill to close enforcement loopholes.
Now I can't help wondering: What was Maf54 writing that day?
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