The "October Surprise" set to go down in history for Election Year 2006 is a lurid sex scandal, the unseemly and unsavory sort of profligacy that cannot be spin-scrubbed away. It is the dreaded stain of pedophilia, an atrocity many Americans fear and loath as much as (or maybe even a little more than) they do terrorism.
Scandal
The bell that can't be un-rung — at least not in the precious few weeks left before the November 7 vote — began clanging, very loudly, when six-term Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL 16th), 52, resigned Friday, September 29, after the revelation he had exchanged inappropriate emails with a former 16-year old congressional page.
On Sunday, October 1, the FBI announced it is looking into whether Mr. Foley broke federal law by sending the inappropriate emails in question. Meanwhile, the disgraced ex-Congressman announced he has been battling alcoholism and checked himself into a rehabilitation clinic.
Republicans, on Monday, picked Florida State Rep. Joe Negron in the hope of salvaging the abandoned House seat for the GOP. Mr. Foley's name will remain on the ballot in the largely Republican West Palm Beach district, but Mr. Negron will receive any votes cast for Mr. Foley.
The question of what the GOP leadership knew about Mr. Foley's inappropriate emails to former pages, and when they knew it, is firmly fixed in the minds and mouths of the Democratic Party, whose leaders must be simply beside themselves with the indescribable (and unspeakable) emotions associated with the outrageous fortune of unforeseen opportunity.
As the scandal festers and grows, so do the opinions, angles, and deflections, all blending into a cacophony of partisan balderdash that is only just beginning to build into a roaring crescendo of muckraking and mudslinging threatening to drown out any and all efforts at damage control.
Loyalty and Devotion
Some people are going beyond damage control. They are trying their level best to un-ring that bell before its reverberations send shock waves through the ranks of the GOP leaders who are suspected of having engineered a cover up, something which could bring down more than just one Republican politician who grappled with his alcoholism and "other behavioral problems," and lost.
Die-hard GOP loyalists, bright-red red-staters, the faithful, and the righteous, are in an almost out-of-control spin cycle, pumping out conspiracy theories, paranoid hypotheses, and just about every other sort of rhetorical contrivance, in what appear to be vain attempts to fan the stench of what is now being called "Foleygate," away from the Republican Party and onto the Democratic Party.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
Margaret, if the stuff you bring up in the conspiracy section here proves to be true, it reflects far worse on the Democrats than anything which Hastert and the GOP leadership have been accused of.
If anyone in the MSM has the guts to delve into and expose such a conspiracy it will finally expose the extreme left and George Soros for the hypocritical and mercenary bastards they are.
Dave
2 - Nancy
Dave, this is nothing more than the typical and by now standard GOP practice of Swift-Boating anyone who tries to bring GOP violaters of any kind to justice, by attack, slander, lies, denial, obfuscation, and any other tactic they possibly can use to deflect attention from the truth. The GOP at this point wouldn't recognize the truth if it were to bite them all collectively in the balls, they're so far gone with lust for power & desperation to keep it. The rational and honorable, ethical reaction of normal people would be to clean house: you can't be found guilty of harboring dirt if the house is clean, & KEPT that way. To wallow in a house filled with filth, and react to any criticism with denials & attacks on those exposing the filth, is not only insane behavior, but also eradicates credibility while not in the least improving the condition of the house.
It's past time for the GOP to be removed from the house (and senate) they've filled with filth, so it can be cleaned, hopefully. They've already amply demonstrated they have neither the will nor the ability to clean it themselves anymore, and they have more than amply & decisively demonstrated that a congress & administration dominated by the same party is a recipe for disaster.
3 - Margaret Romao Toigo
Dave, it is likely true that the Democrats somehow managed to pull off an "October Surprise” political attack strategy of almost "Rovian" genius.
It is not outside the realm of plausibility that some Democrats got hold of some of those lurid email transcripts and held onto them until a few weeks before an important congressional election in which the Democratic Party is aiming to take over the House and/or the Senate.
This may reflect badly on the Democrats in the eyes of principled Republicans and others, but conspiracies, by their very nature, cannot be summed up in sound bites because they need to be explained in order to be fully appreciated.
Demonstrations of the applications of game theory will never get nearly the attention as anything in which the word "sex" figures so prominently, and from which the sound bites (and jokes) flow so freely.
You may not like it, I know don't, but that's the way it is until humanity does a few million more years worth of evolving.
FWIW, I think it would be a mistake for Speaker Hastert or any other GOP leaders to resign their leadership posts as it could be perceived as an admission of guilt, or worse, as weakness, for having been intimidated by partisan politicking.
4 - Deano
Dave - you can't be serious??
This "reflects far worse on the Democrats"? For what? For taking advantage of a political scandel? For timing it to maximum advantage?
What color is the sky on your world?
That's politics, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican it makes no difference - you go for the maximum advantage and the best timing. The only thing that shocks me about this is thate Dem's didn't screw up the timing and messaging on this one like they have every other political advantage they've been handed in the last 5 years.
If the situation was reversed and it was the Republicans slamming on the Dem's you'd be gloating and prosing on about the Dem's moral hypocrisy and turpitude.
If the timing on this event was deliberate (and it very probably was), it changes nothing except reveals both parties as the mercenary, power-hungry sons-of-bitches that they are (in short - politicians). The Republicans ignored and covered up the situation, so the Dem's detonated their political IED for maximum effect...so I should feel sorry for the Republicans? Or think the Dems are morally bankrupt because they did what the Republican's would have done for once?
The Republicans supplied the rope, tied the knot, mounted the scaffold and put their heads in the noose...all the Dems did was pull the lever on the trap...
Give me a break...
The only thing remotely good about this entire event is that Foley is now receipted and filed....
5 - Nancy
Hmmm...as the saying goes, if the GOP can't take their own medicine, they shouldn't dish it out.
6 - Rich Frankel
I needed popcorn for this, excellent writing, and the kind of last sentence I go to sleep dreaming about.
7 - Nancy
In this case, Margaret, I'd say it was less fortitude than stupidity, gullibility, and inability or refusal to admit they're wrong, & that their trust & faith in their leaders has been grossly abused & violated. Until they can, they will continue to enable the vile corruption & conditions that currently obtain in congress and the WH.
8 - Kati
Swift boating is exactly right. Did the Democrats send lurid sexual messages to underage pages? NO. Did the Dems make it up? NO. The man confessed, and quit, and has moved on to blaming his priest. I don't see where the origin of some website is remotely relevent. Only in some conservative fever dream can this story be spun to blame the Democrats.
9 - Nancy
The Republicans ARE desperate, Kati. They've become so arrogant by their 8 years of untrammeled power, they've bit by bit strangled themselves with the various scandals they've produced, not to mention the crap being shovelled from the WH courtesy of BushCo. Now they're being hoist with their own petards, and while they love dishing it out, they are proving daily that they sure as hell can't take it. It's like watching rats scurrying about trying to figure out how to leave a sinking ship. "Like a dead mackerel, [they] glitter and stink in the moonlight".
10 - Margaret Romao Toigo
Mr. Frankel, thank you for your kind words, I am very glad you enjoyed reading my article.
Kati, if the Democrats were not taking full political advantage of Mr. Foley's downfall, I think I would be spinning a story blaming the Democrats for their inaction and inertia.
Nancy, cognitive dissonance can be quite painful and I don't see what Earthly good it does to point out to people that they've been had.
It doesn't make them admit that they're wrong. In fact, it usually makes them tighten their grip on whatever unreality they've cultivated to shield themselves from uncomfortable facts and inconvenient truths.
The enabling of corruption and the conditions most conducive to its growth is not some privilege afforded exclusively to the far right. We, the people, are responsible for the complexion of our government that is of us, by us, and for us.
11 - JustOneMan
ABC Busted in lie!!!
A posting of an unredacted instant message sessions between Rep. Mark Foley and a former congressional page has apparently exposed the identity of the now 21 year-old accuser...
ABC RELEASED TRANSCRIPT OF CHAT BETWEEN FOLEY AND A MAN WHO WAS 18 AT THE TIME OF THE INSTANT MESSAGE EXCHANGE.... NETWORK GAVE IMPRESSION MESSAGE WAS TO 'UNDER AGE' TEEN... DEVELOPING...
12 - Jet in Columbus
Speaker Dennis Hastert's political support showed signs of cracking on Wednesday as Republicans fled an election-year scandal spawned by steamy computer messages from disgraced Rep. Mark Foley to teenage male pages.
At the same time, a congressional aide said in an Associated Press interview he first warned Hastert's aides more than three years ago that Foley's behavior toward pages was worrisome. That was long before GOP leaders acknowledged hearing of it.
The aide, Kirk Fordham, said he had "more than one conversation with senior staff at the highest level of the House of Representatives asking them to intervene" at the time.
The claim drew a swift, unequivocal denial from Hastert's chief of staff. "What Kirk Fordham said did not happen," Scott Palmer said through a spokesman.
Half a continent away, Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, third-ranking leader, pointedly told reporters he would have handled the matter differently than Hastert, had he known of it.
"I think I could have given some good advice here, which is, You have to be curious, you have to ask all the questions you can think of," said Blunt, who was acting majority leader at the time Hastert was told of overly friendly e-mails from Foley to one page. "You absolutely can't decide not to look into activities because one individual's parents don't want you to."
Rep. Ron Lewis of Kentucky, in a tougher-than-expected re-election race, abruptly canceled an invitation for Hastert to join him at a fundraiser next week.
"I'm taking the speaker's words at face value," Lewis told the AP. "I have no reason to doubt him. But until this is cleared up, I want to know the facts. If anyone in our leadership has done anything wrong, then I will be the first in line to condemn it."
Ron Bonjean, Hastert's spokesman, said the entire issue had been referred to the House ethics committee. "We fully expect that the bipartisan panel will do what it needs to do to investigate this mater and protect the integrity of the House," he added.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi went one step further, issuing a statement saying that Hastert and the rest of the GOP leadership should be "immediately questioned under oath...."
"The children, their parents, the public, and our colleagues deserve answers and those who covered up Mark Foley's behavior must be held accountable," she said.
Foley, 52, a Florida Republican, resigned last Friday after he was confronted with sexually explicit electronic messages he had sent teenage male pages. He has since entered an alcohol rehabilitation facility at an undisclosed location. Through his lawyer, he has said he is gay but denied having had any sexual contact with minors.
His abrupt departure left behind a sex scandal that has shaken Republican confidence - and poll numbers - little more than a month before elections at which their control of the House will be tested.
It also plunged Hastert and others into an intensive effort to grapple with conflicting claims about what senior lawmakers knew, when they learned and what they did about it.
State and federal investigators swung into action.
The Justice Department ordered House officials to "preserve all records" related to Foley's electronic correspondence with teenagers, and one law enforcement official said FBI agents have begun interviewing participants in the House page program. It was not clear whether those questioned were current or former pages, or both.
The request for record preservation is often followed by search warrants and subpoenas, and signal that investigators are moving closer to a criminal investigation.
The request was aimed at averting a conflict with the House similar to a standoff in May when FBI agents raided Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson's office seeking information in a bribery investigation.
Separately, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has begun a preliminary inquiry.
Hastert was at home in Illinois during the day as he struggled with the first major cracks in his political support from fellow Republicans.
His office heatedly denied any suggestion that he intended to resign as speaker.
"When Republicans keep the majority this November, the speaker will run again and serve his full term should his colleagues choose to elect him," Bonjean said.
But the comments by Fordham, who resigned during the day, coupled with the remarks by Blunt and Lewis' action, suggested Hastert's plans might face a challenge. The speaker is elected by the full House, but he essentially serves at the please of the members of the rank and file of the majority party.
In this case, that's the Republicans, who already had been struggling to retain their majority in adverse political circumstances and now must contend with the questions about Hastert's actions.
Even a Republican from Hastert's home state of Illinois expressed reservations about asking the speaker for campaign help.
"We still take the position that we want all the facts," said Ryan McLaughlin, a sopkesman for state Sen. Peter Roskam, who is running for an open seat now in Republican hands.
Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor, Lara Jakes Jordan and Laurie Kellman in Washington; Marus Kabel in Springfield, Mo., and Michelle Smith in Providence, R.I., contributed to this report.
Copyright 2006 Associated Press
13 - Margaret Romao Toigo
Have you got a link, JustOneMan? I sure would appreciate it because, as of now, this "ABC Busted in lie!!!" story has yet to hit the news wires.
prostituta de edad avanzada, this is an issue of propriety. Mr. Foley's sexual orientation is irrelevant; his behavior would have been just as inappropriate if had he written all those sexually suggestive messages to young girls.
Thanks for the update, Jet.
14 - Jet in Columbus
prostituta de edad avanzada what planet are you hiding on? The ones being bashed are the ones who perpetrated the cover up for three years so the Republicans wouldn't lose a seat in the house, the ones being bashed are the jerks who are trying to legislate morality, forcing Foley into the closet in the first place. I believe the point is that had Foley been alowed to serve his district as free from being "found out" as Barney Frank has, this never would've happened.
It's equal to the USSR when it used to claim there were no homosexuals in their country. Now the republicans are trying to do the same thing.
You're obviously another one who only sees with his right eye.
15 - Jet in Columbus
You're welcome Margaret, however the point is that those pages ANSWERED him, not once, but repeatedly.
If I made advances at someone and they said, not interested I'd stop. If I made advances and they kept answering I'd be encouraged. 16 is of legal age in DC you know.
It may not be proper, but it is legal.
16 - Christopher Rose
JET: "prostituta de edad avanzada" was Just One Man, presumably trying an oblique swipe at Marthe Raymond, and the comments he made using that name have been stricken.
17 - Nancy
Normal mature adults and those who are honest are able to admit when they're wrong. Nobody (except in his own mind, Bush) is perpetually right. Anybody who can't or won't admit they're wrong from time to time is seriously deficient both morally & personally, and shouldn't be exercising the rights of or claiming to be a functioning adult citizen.
18 - Dave Nalle
Nancy, I believe Bush has admitted he's wrong several times. In fact he's done it repeatedly recently about the WMD issue.
Dave
19 - Nancy
Only in the last few months, and only because it was politically expedient for him to do so & he was cornered. He's a typical emotionally undeveloped, immature psycho case, incapable of feeling either guilt or empathy. All he's capable of are crocodile tears, IMO. That he spent a week after Katrina fiddling while people drowned confirmed that for me.
20 - Margaret Romao Toigo
Jet has a point about the page who actually held a conversation with Mr. Foley. I read the transcript and it seemed to me like a mutually enjoyable, intimate exchange.
The parents of the page whose chat logs with Mr. Foley were made public did not want the matter pursued any further after they found out last year.
Perhaps the page is gay, and his parents didn't want their son to be outed that way -- or at all.
21 - Jet in Columbus
Thanks Chris... I should've known
22 - Nancy
Jet, you should know by now that party has nothing to say; its comments are vacuous, mean-spirited, and without any merit input-wise, and it can only speak in puerile potty-mouth terms.
23 - Clavos
Margaret,
Excellent, well-written and researched article.
It's mind boggling trying to keep up with the output of the Washington spin factories. I'm afraid we're going to be hearing about this right up to election day.
It's been quoted so often it's practically a cliche in its own right, but I haven't seen a more appropriate situation for Sir Walter Scott's famous quote in a long time:
'Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive'
Again, congratulations. Well done.
24 - Nancy
Much as you might not like him as a Dem or gay, you'd think that Barney Frank's example of being truthful would have taught a few lessons, and that the myriad examples of those who have tried to lie & weasel, and ended up disgraced or worse being charged with obstruction, would deter anyone with half a brain on The Hill from trying to continue a practice which obviously DOESN'T WORK. Hastert must think everyone is as stupid or venal as he is, to think anyone would believe that he didn't know or wasn't told. THAT'S what's gonna do him in almost as much as caring more about retaining power than protecting the kids: the lies.
25 - Margaret Romao Toigo
Thank you, Clavos. Indeed, my mind was pretty boggled by the sheer volume of the output, which was enough to fill a fairly thick book, even with all the copy and paste redundancy.
The cover ups almost always seem to eventually overshadow the overt acts of "-gate" scandals.