A Weepy Mark Foley Thrusts Himself Back Into The National Consciousness

Florida Republican Party hypocrite Mark Foley ensconced himself in a New York City Four Seasons suite and granted AP a first interview since he successfully escaped criminal charges for molesting young boys while he was a prominent and influential Republican congressman. (He can thank Nancy Pelosi for that. She didn't only protect Bush from impeachment; she refused to let investigators go through Foley's computer files, this ending the "investigation" in a white wash-- and the hell with the congressional pages who were raped.)

As for the boys... according to Foley they were almost men so what's a few months, give or take?

These were 17-year-olds, just months from being men, he insists.

"There was never anywhere in those conversations where someone said, 'Stop,' or 'I'm not enjoying this,' or 'This is inappropriate' ... but again, I'm the adult here, I'm the congressman," Foley said. "The fact is I allowed it to happen. That's where my responsibility lies."

Foley had built a national reputation as an advocate for tougher penalties against child sexual predators. As co-chairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, he helped craft a law to protect children on the Internet.

Still, he said, there was no hypocrisy.

"The work I was doing was involving young children ... You know, you hear the term 'pedophile.' That is prepubescent," Foley said, noting a "huge difference" from lurid chats with teens on the brink of adulthood.

There was something really creepy about the interview. As Brian Skoloff, the interviewer, remarked, Foley "remains somewhat unwilling to accept full public scorn." Maybe that's because he's still in denial, still blaming a perverted old Catholic priest he claims molested him. And because he's still convincing himself that years and years of pursuing young men while hiding in the closet and voting against equality for gay families was just what he called "a momentary lapse of judgment." He feels really sorry-- for himself. Certainly the Moonies on the far right aren't forgiving him. If his fellow closet queens in Congress-- David Dreier, Adrian Smith, Patrick McHenry, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, et al-- have forgiven him, they certainly haven't publicly.

Will he run for office again? WPTV interviewed him too-- and you can watch the entire hour long soapy opera here. Bring the popcorn.


KEN ADDS: IN FAIRNESS TO OUR MARK --

The ex-congressman is absolutely correct about the distinction between a pedophile and what he is, and the distinction is important and ought not to be blurred. (Gee, he seems to know a lot about it!) The objects of pedophiles' desires are prepubescent, whereas our Mark's appetites, it seems, run to the biologically mature -- he just likes 'em young. Not necessarily even "younger than legal"; that depends on the particular jurisdiction.

However, the notion that it was okay for him to run wild is another matter. In particular the notion that it's okay for the pages' protector, or any other congressman, to take sexual advantage of young people who have been entrusted to their care is . . . well, every bit as revolting as his behavior has generally been judged to be. And that's quite separate from the breathtaking hypocrisy of setting himself up as some sort of guardian of the innocence of American youth. For cripes' sake!

And no, Mark, it doesn't matter whether the young men enjoyed it. It doesn't even matter that some of them were using you, or at least trying to, even more than you were using them. (Is this what you think you were teaching our budding politicos about the practice of political power?) That's the thing about abusive-power relationships: When you have the power and they don't, pretty much nothing is going to make your use of that power to get sex nonpredatory. And for a congressman? And worse still, a congressman with congressional pages? Uh-uh, no sale, not in this lifetime.

-- Ken

#