The Foley Matter

Editorial
New York Times
October 3, 2006

History suggests that once a political party achieves sweeping power, it will only be a matter of time before the power becomes the entire point. Policy, ideology, ethics all gradually fall away, replaced by a political machine that exists to win elections and dispense the goodies that come as a result. The only surprise in Washington now is that the Congressional Republicans managed to reach that point of decayed purpose so thoroughly, so fast.

That House leaders knew Representative Mark Foley had been sending inappropriate e-mail to Capitol pages and did little about it is terrible. It is also the latest in a long, depressing pattern: When there is a choice between the right thing to do and the easiest route to perpetuation of power, top Republicans always pick wrong.

The news about Mr. Foley should have set off alarm bells instantly, even if the messages the leaders saw were of the "inappropriate" variety rather than the flat-out salacious versions that surfaced last week. But there was certainly no sense of urgency in their response, which seemed directed at sweeping the matter under the rug rather than finding out precisely what was going on.

The obvious first step — notifying the bipartisan committee that oversees the page program — was never taken, presumably because that would have meant bringing a Democrat into the discussions. After Mr. Foley assured everyone that he was simply engaged in mentoring, whatever leadership inquiry there was ended with telling him to stop e-mailing the youth who got the inappropriate letter.

It’s astonishing behavior for a party that sold itself as the champion of conservative social values. But then so was the fact that a party that prides itself on fiscal conservatism managed to roll up record-breaking deficits, featuring large amounts of wasteful pork earmarked to the districts of powerful legislators or the profit sheets of generous campaign contributors. So was the speed with which the party that billed itself as the voice of grass-roots exurban and suburban America turned itself into the partner of every special-interest lobbyist with a checkbook.

The good news is that American democracy, so flawed in many ways, is often fairly efficient at punishing parties that become addicted to self-perpetuation. This November may not force Congress to come up with a plan for Iraq, or even immigration. But if it reminds elected officials that there’s a punishment waiting for those who fall in love with their own sense of entitlement, it will have done its job.

Pol Asked Kid to Date, Says a Report  GOP Leaders Call it 'Vile'; Foley Checks Into Rehab

By Michael Mc.Auliff New York Daily News October 3, 2006

Ex-Fla. Rep. Mark Foley said he has entered alcohol rehab. WASHINGTON - The congressman who quit over sordid e-mails to teenage boys tried to meet at least one for dates, according to a report yesterday. Ex-Rep. Mark Foley, a once-influential Republican from Florida, announced yesterday that he had entered rehab. Known as a crusader against Internet sex predators, Foley implied his alleged pursuit of underage male congressional pages through e-mail and instant messages was because of a drinking problem. "I strongly believe that I am an alcoholic and have accepted the need for immediate treatment for alcoholism and related behavioral problems," he said in a statement, announcing that he checked in over the weekend. His attorney David Roth said Foley, who is 52 and single, would remain in the unidentified facility for at least 30 days. "He is emotionally devastated. He feels he let everyone down - his constituents, his family, his loved ones, his party and the people he hurt," Roth said. Roth also told CNN that Foley is "absolutely positively not a .pedophile" and "has never ever had an inappropriate sexual contact with a minor in his life." The FBI said it was looking into whether Foley broke any laws, and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) asked Florida law enforcement agencies to investigate Foley as well. Ironically, Foley himself helped write federal laws that make it a crime in certain circumstances to use the Internet to entice someone younger than 18 to engage in sexual activity. A new report from ABC News, which broke the scandal, may give investigators more to look at. The network says more Internet messages it obtained show the disgraced congressman tried repeatedly to hook up with a boy - and may have succeeded. "I miss you lots since san diego," reads a message alleged to be from Foley, using the name Maf54. The teen replies, "ya I cant wait til dc," and Foley allegedly asks if he has picked a night for dinner. The boy appeared to get worried after he was pressed to agree to more than dinner and hanging out late. "Hmmm I have the feeling that you are fishing here . . . im not sure what I would be comfortable with . . . well see." At another point, Foley allegedly writes: "I would drive a few miles for a hot stud like you." The emerging details forced Republican leaders in Washington into their fourth straight day of damage control, holding a news conference to insist they didn't know until Friday that Foley apparently was interested in teenage boys. "The instant messages . . . are vile and repulsive to me, and to my colleagues," said Hastert in a news conference with Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), who oversees the page program. "No one in the Republican leadership saw those messages until last Friday." He said everyone who knew anything about the cyber-mash notes should be investigated, and set up a hotline for people to call. Meanwhile, a former page who ran an alumni Web site for fellow high schoolers who served in Congress told ABC News that pages had been getting internal warnings about Foley since 2001. Matthew Loraditch said a staffer told him Foley was "a bit odd or flaky." Democrats kept pounding the GOP, saying Hastert, Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and National Republican Congressional Committee head Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.) should explain why they didn't do more when they learned a year ago of a less tawdry e-mail ex.change that made a page uncomfortable. In the exchange, Foley asked a boy to send him a photo. Hastert apparently left it in the hands of Shimkus to settle, which Shimkus did by telling the popular Foley to stay away from the boy. Democrats insisted leaders should have seen that as a red flag and looked to find out what else Foley was up to. "There's information out there that's coming to light because people are asking the questions that the Republican leadership didn't," said Damien LaVera of the Democratic National Committee. Meanwhile, Florida Repub.licans picked state Sen. Joe Negron to run for Foley's seat in November. But he faces one huge obstacle: Foley's name will remain on the ballot because it is too late to change, officials said. With Corky Siemaszko in New York

From Foley, Naked Display of Weirdness Katherine Thomson New York Daily News October 3, 2006

Rep. Mark Foley's campaign against nudist camps for children in 2003 casts a creepy sidelight on accounts of his E-mails with House pages. Like many a public figure caught doing bad things (such as E-mailing sexual come-ons to teenage male House pages), ex-Palm Beach, Fla., Rep. Mark Foley has copped to alcoholism and entered rehab. But even in Washington, jaws are dropping at the yawning gap between the six-term Republican's creepy private behavior and his righteous public crusade - as chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children - against sexual predators (like he's accused of being). Lowdown has unearthed some of Foley's weirder whoppers, from his relentless June 2003 campaign against child-oriented nudist camps in Florida - which reaped a television bonanza:  Foley on CNN, June 20: "You put 11- and 18-year-olds together in a camp where they're nude, I think it is a recipe for disaster. It is like putting a match next to a gasoline can."    On MSNBC, June 23: "I do have to question why people, if this is such a natural endeavor, have to be put in a hot tub with 18 others, if you will, enjoying this kind of activity. ... These kids are young. I think that they should maybe be learning something other than being nude together and being thrown in a hot tub.  On CBS' "The Early Show," June 24: "In fact, in the very camp we're talking about in Florida, there have been people ejected because of their trying to enter the camp because they're peering through sauna windows."  On "Good Morning America," June 24: "In fact, they've coined an expression for people that visit these parts, they call them COGS, Creepy Old Guys. ... It's in [the children's] most formative years. I think they'd be better off at Girl Scout camp, Boy Scout camp or sports camp than a nudist camp."  On "The O'Reilly Factor," June 29: "The parents said, 'Oh, they're supervised, they have camp counselors, they have custodial people there to watch out for them.' Well, again, several cases have come to my attention where the camp managers themselves have been arrested, charged with pornography." Let's hope Foley is getting the rehab he deserves.

He's Got Mail - and Some Serious Issues

Dr. Judy Kuriansky
New York Daily News
October 2, 2006

"Shocking." "Sick." "Disgusting." These are words used to describe the e-mails allegedly sent by Florida Republican Rep. Mark Foley to a then-16-year old congressional page. After the release of the e-mails by ABC last week, Foley resigned.

While Foley's resignation did not mention the e-mails, their contents left people wondering. How could this happen to a politician who has long been presenting himself as a protecter of children. As chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, he had recently introduced legislation to protect children from exploitation by adults over the Internet. He had also sponsored other legislation to protect minors from abuse and neglect. And in 2003, he reportedly spoke out against a summer nudist camp for children.

Yet, in one of the e-mails to the teen, he supposedly asked, "What are you wearing?" and asked if he would disrobe for him.

Foley's actions, therefore, seem hypocritical. How can a person working for children's rights abuse them?

But psychologically, it's not such a mystery.

People often try to hide unacceptable behavior from themselves or others by engaging in behaviors or causes that speak to the opposite intentions. So a man who has an unacceptable erotic attraction to kids would dedicate energy to a cause that prevents or prosecutes such behavior. This is the psychological defense mechanism of reaction formation: doing the opposite action to that which would result from an unacceptable impulse, in an effort to control that impulse.

But often the defense mechanism fails – as it might have in Foley's case, where the urge is too strong and the ability to control it too weak; so the person indulges in some form - however mild – of the unacceptable behavior anyway.

Reportedly, Foley was warned a year ago to desist from communicating with young house pages. He may not have listened; the urge was too uncontrollable.

It is also understandable that a man who would be attracted unacceptably to youngsters would choose a cause like preventing child abuse, not only to try to curb his own behavior, but because it keeps him in touch with the issue or constituency (age group, illness, problem) that he most cares about or is attracted to.

Child-abusers market themselves in positions where they can be in contact with youngsters. The congressman can't at all be comparable to the following extreme example. But consider that John Wayne Gacy, one of the most heinous molesters of little boys in our history, who worked as a clown and was often hired at parties for little boys.

In this regard, any issue that someone becomes active about usually has some roots in a personal problem or source in their personal or family life.

This does not always have to reveal an antisocial motive, however. A personal connection can lead to highly socially appropriate and valuable behavior. For example, a person who works to prevent suicide may care about that because a family member committed suicide.

Another explanation for Foley's alleged behavior is that people who are in positions of power often have a hidden side of themselves where they feel actually the opposite: powerless. For example, some politicians have been known to frequent a dominatrix for sex where they can be in the submissive role to a dominate female; this provides a release from their intense public life where they have to be constantly in control and dominant.

I have written in this column before about my theory about the underlying dynamics of superstar Michael Jackson. While vindicated from child molestation charges, if in fact they were true, Jackson's behavior would reflect not aggression toward kids, but arrested development, such that he was no older than the youngsters he "played" with.

In my opinion, the 52-year-old Foley may also have been regressing to the age of adolescence. My analysis of the e-mails he reportedly exchanged with the young page, using teenage syntax and words like "cool," indicate not just an older man seducing a youngster, but an older man appealing to a youngster and talking like a youngster himself. I would bet that he is longing for some youth and "coolness" he never had.

Foley noted about another page, "He’s such a nice guy ... acts much older than his age." That sounds like a projection, with Foley having to act much older than he feels his real age is.

His purported e-mails sound unsophisticated, unbecoming a mature politician, and adolescent, and cannot be excused by being just shortcut Internet chat. Reportedly he wrote, "I am back in Florida ... It’s nice here ... it sounds like you will have some fun over the next few weeks ... how old are you now?"

His alleged comments to the boy about another page's body is also inappropriate and suspicious of ulterior sexual motives, saying, "He's in really great shape." An advertisement was once pulled off the air for being too sexually suggestive and predatory that had an older man asking a younger male to take off his shirt, and commenting on his body.

Apparently the congressman also posted a MySpace profile. Of course, these are becoming very popular, but they are especially popular among young people – adding to my theory of his not only looking to appeal to youngsters, but to be one.

Supporters are claiming that his e-mails were just intended to be from a mentor. However, the boy himself called the e-mails and request for a photo "sick" and reported them, saying he was "freaked out." Obviously, the kid was being made to feel uncomfortable.

The content of the e-mails is unabashedly typical of sex talk on the phone or Internet. The most typical question to ask to begin phone sex is, "What are you wearing?" ABC News reported that Foley e-mailed a page that very question.

Other common phone sex content includes, "Why don't you get into something more comfortable?" Foley was reported e-mailing a teen, "You in boxers, too? ... Well strip down and get relaxed."

In another message, Foley supposedly wrote, "Do I make you a little horny?" It's an understatement to say this is hardly the question a mentor would ask.

Under the embarrassment and shame of his resignation over such inappropriate behavior, Foley has probably ruined his political career. Fortunately, he is single, so he doesn't have a partner's reaction to worry about. But he will undoubtedly have some intense discussions with family members about his private life and behavior.

Perv E-mails Sink Pol Fla. Rep Flirted with Teen Pages By Helen Kennedy New York Daily News September 30, 2006

Republican representative Mark Foley of Florida resigned yesterday after allegedly sending inappropriate e-mail messages to teenage boys. A Republican congressman from Florida who crusaded against Internet sexual predators resigned yesterday amid allegations he sent raunchy online messages to boys who work as congressional pages. "I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida," Rep. Mark Foley said in a statement. The statement unfortunately included his official congressional logo, which prominently displays a snapshot of Foley surrounded by a crowd of boys. The dramatic resignation 39 days before the midterm elections could help Democrats pick up a safe Republican congressional seat and fuels their hopes of retaking control of the House in November. Foley, 52, dropped out of his 2004 bid for Senate after being "outed" by gay publications. He has variously told his conservative constituents in Palm Beach that "I like women" and that questions about his private life are "revolting." Foley's problems began this week when a teenager who worked as a page for a different congressman complained about e-mails Foley sent him last year, when he was 16, asking for his picture and wondering what he wanted for his birthday. Foley insisted there was nothing inappropriate about the messages and blamed a smear campaign by his Democratic opponent, who is 13 points down in the polls. But when ABC News obtained explicit instant messages that Foley allegedly sent to other teenagers who worked on Capitol Hill, the congressman abruptly quit in a letter to House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). The instant messages, posted on ABC News' Web site, show the congressman talking dirty to a former page who tells him "have fun campaigning" and interrupts his questions about sex with "my mom is yelling." The co-founder of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, Foley made his reputation warning of Internet predators and trying to strengthen laws against them. In 2002, after stories in the Daily News about parents who sell provocative pictures of their children to pedophiles on "child modeling" Web sites, Foley introduced the Child Modeling Exploitation Prevention Act to ban the practice. It was signed into law this year. Hastert told reporters there would be an investigation into how congressional pages - teenagers who run errands for lawmakers - are protected from predatory congressmen. "We want to make sure that all our pages are safe and the page system is safe," Hastert said. Florida Republicans held emergency meetings to pick a candidate to run for the seat. Florida's ballots have already been printed with Foley's name and cannot be changed, but votes for Foley will count toward the party's choice. Republican Rep. Mark Foley of Florida 52 years old   Single   First elected: 1994   District: Palm Beach County   Party Leadership: Deputy Majority Whip   Prominent Committees: Ways and Means, Founder and co-Chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus The icky excerpts Following are excerpts of Internet exchanges allegedly sent between Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) — Maf54 — and teenage boys. Copies of the messages were obtained by ABC News. Some of the instant messages were too graphic to reprint. The teens' screen names are being withheld. XXXX: ugh tomorrow i have the first day of lacrosse practice Maf54: love to watch that Maf54: those great legs running XXXX: my last gf [girlfriend] and i broke up a few weeks ago Maf54: good so your getting horny XXXX: brb [be right back] ...my mom is yelling Maf54: ok XXXX: back Maf54: cool hope she didnt see anything XXXX: ya slow things down a little im still young...like under 18 dont want to do anything illegal...im not 18 till feb 23 Maf54: i know.. Maf54: nothing will happen Maf54: just dreaming

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