Foley - An Open Secret

The LA Times fails to surprise with this:

The current and former congressional staffers interviewed by The Times, who are from both parties, said it was well known within the Capitol's gay community that Foley was interested in young men.

"Among the gay political community, there was a pretty wide understanding that he had an eye for the interns and the younger staff," said one former congressional staffer.

The staffers said Foley — who was elected to the House in 1994 and is not openly gay — would seek out the young men in bars, restaurants and even around the Capitol.

[Let's get pages in the mix with "interns and younger staff", just to avoid any misunderstanding:

In interviews with the Los Angeles Times, several current and former congressional employees and others said they recalled Foley approaching young male pages, aides and interns at parties and other venues.

"Almost the first day I got there I was warned," said Mark Beck-Heyman, a San Diego native who served as a page in the House of Representatives in the summer of 1995. "It was no secret that Foley had a special interest in male pages," said Beck-Heyman, adding that Foley, who is now 52, on several occasions asked him out for ice cream.

Another former congressional staff member said he too had been the object of Foley's advances. "It was so well known around the House. Pages passed it along from class to class," said the former aide, adding that when he was 18 a few years ago and working as an intern, Foley approached him at a bar near the Capitol and asked for his e-mail address.]

As noted, there are some gay Democrats as well as gay Republicans in Washington.  Yet no one came forward to Protect The Children!  Well, not until five weeks before an election...

Regardless, the logical next step would be for enterprising reporters to round up gay Congressman and staffers and ask the "what did they know and when did they know it" question.  What did those in the know report to Hastert, Pelosi, and the heads of the page program?

Sure, that'll happen.  And after Nancy Pelosi becomes Speaker she will personally lead a crusade to clean up the gay community in Washington and make sure no one ever again cruises the sixteen and seventeen year olds.  Never.

HUH?  This surprises me:

"Almost the first day I got there I was warned," said Mark Beck-Heyman, a San Diego native who served as a page in the House of Representatives in the summer of 1995.

Foley came to the House in the Class of '94, and would have been sworn in in January 1995.  He must have gotten a rep pretty quickly.

Comments

[Rick]

Has uber-genius Glenn Greenwald weighed in on this close-to-home issue? Or, failing that, has Ryan or Ellers pronounced on the tempest?

Cordially...

[Other Tom]

Whether it's fair or not, it appears that this thing is hurting the GOP pretty significantly--maybe a sort of tipping-point effect.

I find myself wondering just what Hastert and others could have done, but if the guy weren't gay, and he had been hitting up on sixteen-year-old female pages, I have a hunch they would have found a way to put a stop to it.

[MayBee]

I find myself wondering just what Hastert and others could have done, but if the guy weren't gay, and he had been hitting up on sixteen-year-old female pages, I have a hunch they would have found a way to put a stop to it.

Really? Because in my imagination- informed only by having once been a 16-year old girl- I imagine the female pages get hit upon and nobody stops the casual hitters.

[Other Tom]

MayBee, when you read some of those IM's, I think we're no longer talking about casual hitters. If anybody sent any of those to a sixteen-year-old girl he'd be gone in a hearbeat, and rightly so.

[boris]

you read some of those IM's

The casual "hitting" here is the "send a pic" email, not the mutual masturbation IMs.

[Anonymous Liberal]

Tom, I'm sure some Dems did know that Foley was a closeted gay man, perhaps even a gay man who was attracted to young men (by young I mean 20s). But there's been no indication so far that any Dems knew that Foley was hitting on underage congressional pages. And it appears that Hastert and company went out of there way not to share that information with the Dems.

Had any Dems known about that, it's hard to believe they wouldn't have gone public with it, if for no other reasons than to make politic hay.

There's a huge difference between knowing that someone hits on young men/women and knowing that they hit on underage interns. For instance, suppose you knew that your middle-aged colleague routinely tried to score with young women at bars. You might think that was pathetic, you might disapprove, but you wouldn't feel compelled to do anything about it. But if you knew that same person was hitting on underage high school interns at your company, you'd probaby feel differently.

You shouldn't conflate those two situations. The Republican leadership was apparently in the second situation, but so far there's no reason to think that any Dems were in anything but the first situation.

[boris]

The Republican leadership was apparently in the second situation

The evidence so far slants the other way.

CREW and ABD is not Republican friendly organizations.

[boris]

CREW and ABC are not Republican friendly organizations.

[Bob]

Tom, I'm sure some Dems did know that Foley was a closeted gay man, perhaps even a gay man who was attracted to young men (by young I mean 20s). But there's been no indication so far that any Dems knew that Foley was hitting on underage congressional pages. And it appears that Hastert and company went out of there way not to share that information with the Dems.

AL... you must be joking right! The LATimes is stating that the word was out on Foley. To suggest that this info wasn't known widely is disingenuous at best!

[Dave]

"The casual "hitting" here is the "send a pic" email"

I'm confused. I thought the email was "innocuous." Is casual hitting now "innocuous?"

I'm just trying to keep up.

[Gabriel Sutherland]

AL: I might agree with you if today was Sunday. Unfortunately I have since learned that Democrats did know about this story prior to ABC's publication. That is, if you believe the word of Mike Rogers of Blogactive, bottomfeeder extraordinaire. Rogers claims he was in contact with a high level staffer of the DCCC. The staffer even sent communications back to Rogers about it.

I can't excuse the Republicans for their actions. That's why I think there are two stories here. One is about the failure of the Republicans to take this matter seriously and bring in the proper members of the House, the Page Committee members, to inform them that they might have a larger problem they need to explore. The issue should have been the safety and protection of the pages. Were there others, etc? The second issue is the politics of the timing of the release. That story should be clear by now and only gets conflated more with each day.

I do think that Foley's alleged homosexual tendencies may have something to do with the burying of this story. However, since minors, high school students, are involved, I think it clearly transcends those sympathies.

[boris]

I'm just trying to keep up.

Try harder.

[boris]

Because in my imagination- informed only by having once been a 16-year old girl- I imagine the female pages get hit upon and nobody stops the casual hitters.

Never having been a 16 yr old girl, my assumptin is that one would consider a request from an older adult male to be "casual hitting".

Could be wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. Probably not the last. Mark it on the calendar though.

[boris]

would consider an email request for a pic from an older adult male to be "casual hitting".

[PeterUK]

"Among the gay political community, there was a pretty wide understanding that he had an eye for the interns and the younger staff," said one former congressional staffer."

This says "Gay Political Community",not Republican GPC or Democrat GPC.Of course everyone in the GPC knew, as probably did the MSM,nobody reveals these things,on the basis of "There but for the Grace of God go I", unless it is politically expedient.
Most adult communities are like this,otherwise a can of worms is well and truly opened,adultery,drink,drugs,lying,cheating,all the human foibles are up for grabs,so mostly nobody wants to cast the first stone.

[Tom Maguire]

But there's been no indication so far that any Dems knew that Foley was hitting on underage congressional pages.

versus:

Among the gay political community, there was a pretty wide understanding that he had an eye for the interns and the younger staff," said one former congressional staffer.

I suppose one might argue that "interns and younger staff" does not specifically include pages.

Of course, elsewhere in the LA Times story is this:

In interviews with the Los Angeles Times, several current and former congressional employees and others said they recalled Foley approaching young male pages, aides and interns at parties and other venues.

..."Almost the first day I got there I was warned," said Mark Beck-Heyman, a San Diego native who served as a page in the House of Representatives in the summer of 1995. "It was no secret that Foley had a special interest in male pages," said Beck-Heyman, adding that Foley, who is now 52, on several occasions asked him out for ice cream.

...Another former congressional staff member said he too had been the object of Foley's advances. "It was so well known around the House. Pages passed it along from class to class," said the former aide, adding that when he was 18 a few years ago and working as an intern, Foley approached him at a bar near the Capitol and asked for his e-mail address.

I think we can fault Anon Lib for failing to follow the link (although there can be a registration roadblock at the LA Times), and me for not providing the juicy excerpts.

[sbw]

I find the political hay being made as distasteful as overtures to innocents. That said, there is a journalistic issue here as well. Major press outlets might be well-served by examining in advance the political affiliations of those who, like Mark Beck-Heyman, comment on politically-charged stories on the off-chance they might have a second or different reason for making such statements.

[Geek, Esq.]

People tend to blame, you know, the people in charge.

With power comes responsibility. Capitol Hill's gay community wasn't responsible for administering the page program. Dennis Hastert was.

[Sparky]

Ah yes, the children. We have to protect the innocent, delicate children. Look around people, there are plenty of sixteen year olds who are mothers and fathers, and not through adoption. Lots of very worldly, completely sexualized teens in this mass-media driven culture of ours.

Pages are in congress because of a deep personal interest in the second oldest profession, politics, which of course is as pure as the driven snow, and very protective of their delicate innocence.

Look, making gay or straight advances to anyone significantly younger, adult or late teen, is tacky and maybe creepy. Foley had a problem, and lots of people coulda shoulda blown the whistle or put a stop to him.

Like, for instance, all the younger guys who could have told him to buzz off, loudly and publicly, if it really offended them. Like all the interested and disinterested parties who observed, but said nothing. And if you read some of those IM exchanges, a couple of the delicate children were not exactly offended.

This is turning into yet another disgusting episode of the favorite Washington sport of Gotcha. Hey, who else can we make look bad today?

[Gabriel Sutherland]

The Washington Post quotes an FBI official in confidence that was familiar with the July 21st referral of the emails by CREW.

the field office concluded that the e-mails "did not rise to the level of criminal activity."

I'd agree with that assessment assuming the emails released by CREW are identical to the ones they received and sent to the FBI.

[Forbes]

All right, this is slightly O/T, but why does Congress still have a program employing teenagers as Pages? This practice is a relic from the 19th century, where completing high school prior to entering the workforce was optional.

Obviously I'm not making this observation as some lame excuse or explanation for anyone's lecherous (or worse) behavior--but the use of teenager labor strikes me as that of a long ago, bygone era. (And don't tell me about the invaluable experience of such a position.)

And a second observation--in the wake of Bill Clinton's intern problem, who would want to get out far ahead of a similar story--one that produces no heros and many goats?

[Anonymous Liberal]

I think we can fault Anon Lib for failing to follow the link (although there can be a registration roadblock at the LA Times), and me for not providing the juicy excerpts.

I actually did read the LA Times piece, though perhaps not as carefully as I should have. It does seem a little ambiguous to me though. It states that Foley's predelictions were a bit of an open secret among the pages themselves, but it's not as clear that the same was true of the non-intern crowd. As you point out, "interns and younger staff" doesn't necessarily mean "pages." There are a ton of +18 interns on the Hill.

Moreover, there's a difference between hearing rumors that someone is hitting on pages and having emails in your possession substantiating such conduct. It's problematic to act on rumors, but much less so when you have actual evidence presented to you.

There's been no evidence presented so far that any Dems were presented with evidence and ignored it. Moreover, it's hard to see why they would have.

[verner]

Geek:With power comes responsibility. Capitol Hill's gay community wasn't responsible for administering the page program. Dennis Hastert was.

Oh BS. If they knew, they were responsible to pass it along. If not, they are accessories.

As for Hasert, what is he suppose to do? Put a GPS chip and a wiretap on every single member of congress? Something kind of tells me that Hasert doesn't hang out in gay bars, so how would he know what Foley was up to?

[boris]

actual evidence presented to you

Should such "evidence = send me a pic" be evaluated on the basis of sexual orientation? Can see where it might be more suspicious for hetrosexual older male with 16 yr old girl and homosexual older male with 16 yr old boy and less for hetrosexual older female with 16 yr old girl and hetrosexual older male with 16 yr old boy . At what point does suspicion of gayness become part of the equation? If part of the page program is establishing contacts and networks then making all contact "suspicious" would seem to remove some of the purpose.

[anon]

There are some rather conflicting accounts floating around, aren't there? A little further down the page here, pages are describing Foley as a nice and caring man, and Loraditch is rejecting the idea that he was warned about him.

It seems likely that within the "gay culture" in DC Foley was widely known, but not so much outside it.

[Rick Ballard]

Forbes,

If I recall correctly, abolishment of the page program was suggested when Studds diddling of a page came to light. There was a bit of discussion and then it faded away. The page appointments are nice little plums to offer in return for 'help'. The kids involved know it as evidenced in some of the email/IM exchanges. It makes a nice line on their CV and lets college admission boards know that they're connected.

If the Dems are concerned about deviants they need to propose a set of norms so that we can get beyond 'I know it when I see it.'
Surely they have the skill to do so and I can't wait to see their proposal.

[clarice feldman]

Rick, I've stolen from TM--and am now proposing the Dems' new new campaign message:"We'd make better sex cops"..Have your girl call mine to arrange for new posters, t-shirts, etc.

We've got a winner this time, I think.

[anon]

Anon Lib

Which actual evidence are you taking about? Based on the emails there is not much that could be done.

In fact, even based on the IM's its not clear what can be done. Having an affair with a teenage page is not a crime, or Studdes (sp?) would be in jail instead of living with his boyfriend.

[Rick Ballard]

"Democrat Poofter Patrol" has a better alliterative ring and avoids the nasty word "cop".

[Neo]

Why didn't CREW make a referral to the supervisors of (Republican and Democratic) pages directly or indirectly to make sure that the pages were protected when they came into the IMs and e-mails 3 year ago ?

Sounds pretty unethical for an ethics organization.

[anonymous]

Something kind of tells me that Hasert doesn't hang out in gay bars, ...

Posted by: verner | October 03, 2006 at 10:48 AM

What makes you so sure?

[Bob]

Over on Drudge

New Foley Instant Messages; Had Internet Sex While Awaiting House Vote

[Bob]

"We'd make better sex cops"

That's perfect clarice... it even fits on a bumper sticker! It's almost as good as "truth to power"

[boris]

Something kind of tells me ...

What makes you so sure?

Perhaps English isn't your first language.

[harmonygold]

Studds was in office until 1996, and his actions were well-known. Has anybody interviewed Democratic members of Congress who worked with him all those years about their opinions of him, and why they tolerated this person in their midst all those years?

[Neo]

Team Democrat -- Sex Police

[bgates]

The age of consent in DC is 16, so I have trouble understanding why we're not being urged to Move On.

How is this worse than what Clinton did, other than that Foley is a Republican?

[Other Tom]

I don't go along with the cries of "you have to question the timing." That's been the reaction of the left so often that it's almost a caricature. I don't question the timing at all: I assume it was timed for political benefit. So what? That's the way the world works. I'm not concerned with the timing, I'm concerned with the behavior and (perhaps) the leadership's reaction to it, about which I don't know quite enough to make a judgment.

[anonymous]

It was a serious question, boris. I was hoping you had an answer.

[clarice feldman]

Why? So you could rewrite it with lots of ellipses to make it say the opposite of what was posted? LOL

[anonymous]

My apologies," boris." The question was to "verner."
(I don't know what would have made me think you had an answer for anything.)

[ed]

Hmmm.

1. Does this hysteria by the Democrats undermine their arguments in favor of gay Boy Scout leaders in charge of minors on remote camping trips?

2. Considering that there have been several scandals associated with Congressional pages why the hell do we still have them? What purpose do they serve exactly? What? Nobody in Congress owns a damn blackberry? A cellphone? Has a couple aides?

3. The moral outrage is rather amusing from the liberal-lefty set. I seriously doubt Foley is the only gay representative that's done this sort of thing, particularly since Democrat Barney Frank is still in office, so the opportunity is now with the Republicans to really go through and hammer the House right to it's knees.

Open a House investigation on any and all allegations of wrong-doing by any member of the House against underage pages. Even if there are couple more Republicans caught there will certainly be a bunch of Democrats. This will spread the agony somewhat and give an opportunity to have the Democrats hang themselves with their own paid-for rope.

And besides. I'm sure there's plenty of people who absolutely deserve being kicked out.

[boris]

(perhaps) the leadership's reaction to it

This is the real debate. That's why the timing is relevant. The leadership investigation petered out for lack of "evidence" which may have been withheld to construct a hit.

Apparantly whoever had this "evidence" could have had Foley's resignation at any time. You are welcome to your POV, but that's what the rest of us are discussing.

[clarice feldman]

Ah, Bob..Ross proves the point I made last night..this stuff will be dripped one a drop at a time thru the election to make it sound worse . The IM was from 2003. It adds nothing to what we alreay know of the story except to tabloidize it even more.

[anonymous]

Something kind of tells me that Hasert doesn't hang out in gay bars, ...

Posted by: verner | October 03, 2006 at 10:48 AM

The question is: What is the "something" and how did it "tell" him?

[Gabriel Sutherland]

Off topic, but Republicans using Clinton as par is pathetic. Give me a break. Republicans should strive to achieve much higher than Clinton standards. It's one of these election winning assets that Republicans need to push.

Neo: CREW claims they only came into contact with the emails on July 21, 2006. They don't claim to have received the instant messages. The emails they did receive were from Foley to a New Orleans page.

CREW thinks the emails were enough, by themselves, to be brought to the attention of the FBI. Therefore, CREW thinks the email to a New Orleans page were criminal. If CREW thought the emails were relative to ethics, then they should have brought them to the attention of the House Ethics Committee, the House Page Committe, or to the Clerk of the House.

I think CREW knows more about the path of travel the emails have taken than they are making public.

[Gabriel Sutherland]

FYI: Melanie Sloan, Executive Director of CREW, was scheduled to appear on "Washington Journal" this morning. Her appearance would have been for 45 minutes taking phone calls.

I need to watch this.

[maryrose]

The only person at fault here is Foleyand he has resigned. If the page's identity is revealed that is a travesty. Some things in life like privacy of an individual trump politics. This page and his parents did everything they could to avoid publicity and detection. To try and score political points off of this via Rogers and CREW is deplorable. Dems should concentrate on policy or they will still be a minority party on Nov.8th.

[anonymous]

Open a House investigation on any and all allegations of wrong-doing by any member of the House against underage pages.

If only there was something like a 'House Ethics Committee;'
that might do the trick.

[Tom Maguire]

There's been no evidence presented so far that any Dems were presented with evidence and ignored it. Moreover, it's hard to see why they would have.

Well, Hastert was not presented with any evidence, either - just a report that the parents wanted the whole thing to go away.

I don't go along with the cries of "you have to question the timing." That's been the reaction of the left so often that it's almost a caricature. I don't question the timing at all: I assume it was timed for political benefit. So what? That's the way the world works.

If the Dems pulled a dirty trick in late Sept, good for them. of course, it makes the notion that their priority was protecting pages from a predator on the prowl implausible, but still.

But (I heard on the radio), Brian Ross, the ABC reporter who broke this, know about it in August but was distracted by other things. *His* timeing I can question.