Oct. 5, 2006
 
EDITORIAL: GOP Leaders Should Have Confronted Foley
 
Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
 
Now that their secret is out, House Republican leaders are falling all over themselves to condemn the shameful behavior of former colleague Mark Foley, even though some of them had known for months about Foley's sexually heated electronic correspondence with teenage congressional pages.
 
"I hereby request the Justice Department to conduct an investigation," huffed House Speaker Dennis Hastert, joined by a chorus urging that the "full weight of the criminal justice system" fall upon Foley.
 
Hastert's scorn comes a little late. A Washington citizens' group had asked the FBI to investigate Foley last July. Reps. John Boehner, the majority leader; Tom Reynolds, the campaign chairman; and John Shimkus, chair of the House Page Board, had known for months about Foley's e-mail messages to a 16-year-old boy, but kept it secret from the page board's Democratic member.
 
When ABC News broke the story last week, Foley promptly resigned.
 
Although he checked into an alcohol treatment program this week, colleagues don't believe drinking was his main vice. "What ya wearing?" the 52-year-old congressman messaged one teenager. "T shirt and shorts," was the reply.
 
"Love to slip them off of you," Foley responded. ABC News reported that Foley tried to set up late-night meetings with his prey. "I would drive a few miles for a hot stud like you," the network said he told one boy.
 
Another message suggested Foley had met one boy in San Diego.
 
All of this from a politician who painted himself as a children's champion against sexual predators and led, with Hastert's blessing, the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. Irony hangs thick for the "party of family values" to have harbored a man of Foley's habits.
 
Hastert says he was "duped" by Foley. But, as with the pedophile scandals in the Catholic Church, it's likely that House Republican leaders avoided tough questions about him for fear of what they might find. Suspicions could wait until after November. Then, perhaps, they could ride out the accusations of hypocrisy they knew they would face when the Foley story broke.
 
As Hastert suggests, Foley's behavior was reprehensible. In the culture of Capitol Hill, teenage pages are especially vulnerable. They are bright and ambitious, but often ignored or rudely treated, and, therefore, open to a congressman like Foley who seemed to show a special interest in them. Pages deserve far better protection than Hastert and his leadership team have provided. The departures of Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham and (imminently) Bob Ney have left the House Republican caucus room a cleaner place, but obviously not clean enough.
 
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.