JIM KOLBE FIGURES INTO THE FOLEY SCANDAL AND COVER-UP TOO... BUT WHAT'S THE REAL STORY?

David Dreier (CA) is a gay closeted Republican congressman who is not into young boys. Nor does he use his congressional power to prey on young men looking to advance in the Republican Party. There are several other gay Republican congressmen, all but one closeted. The "out" one is Arizona's Jim Kolbe who used to be closeted but was so anti-gay in his voting habits that the Advocate threatened to spill the beans in the magazine. He called a press conference and spilled the beans. Interestingly, he's been somewhat less homophobic in his voting record ever since-- and far more comfortable in his skin. Isn't that nice? Unfortunately. Kolbe is known in the Tucson gay community for his predilection for teenage Latino boys. How does that figure into the page scandal?

Until today, no one had made the connection. Jonathan Weisman reports Kolbe's version of the story in the WAPO. Like his pal Foley, Kolbe, an ex-page himself, claims to have been a champion of the pages and a pal. Um... although Wesiman doesn't bring this up, for an old man who is sexually attracted to teenagers, this is a problem. He seems eager to get the story out that he let some of them stay at his home. Alarm bells should be ringing.

The WAPO piece is about how one of Kolbe's buddy-pages showed him sexually explicit mash notes from Foley six years ago and that Kolbe "personally confronted Foley." I'm not sure what that means, although it certainly doesn't seem to have prevent Foley from sending hundreds of e-mails and IMs to underage male pages, nor does it seem to have stopped Foley from having sex with them (although so far the only former pages who admit to have had sex with Foley all say he waited until they turned 18).


This article reads to me as though Kolbe was looking to get the information out before it landed on his head. I've heard from gay men in Tucson that he was quite the predator when it came to young men (although no one has told me "underage young men.") The Post has been interviewing pages and ex-pages since the Foley scandal and cover-up broke and Weisman reports that "multiple pages identified Kolbe as a close friend and personal confidante who was one of the only members of Congress to take any interest in them" and he satyed in touch with some after they left the program. brringgggg, brrringggggggg, brrringgggggg

What is it with these Republicans and young boys?