The only mildly interesting thing about Foley buggering congressional pages is the timing of the revelation. One can't help wondering whether the Democrats have known about this for a while and found a way to spring it just now. Apparently the story originally broke on a very fishy-looking blog, written in a naif style that somehow doesn't ring quite true. Sheer speculation on my part, of course, and very unfair to the Democrats, no doubt: surely if they had known something like was going on, they'd've been shocked, shocked! and moved immediately to do something about it.
What's amazing is that Congress still has these ridiculous pages running around. A gaggle of 16-year old kids at the beck and call of a conclave of older men, whose professional qualifications include a lack of scruple and pleasure in exercising power over others -- that's a recipe for institutionalized pedophilia.
Does anybody remember the page scandals of twenty years ago?
... Rep. Dan Crane (R-Ill.) and Rep. Gerry Studds (D-Mass.) had engaged in sexual relationships with ... 17-year-old congressional pages. In Crane's case, it was a 1980 relationship with a female page and in Studds's case, it was a 1973 relationship with a male page.Oh, and they kept the pages around.... Crane, who tearfully apologized for his transgression, lost his bid for reelection in 1984. Studds, however, refused to apologize... and he continued to be reelected until his retirement in 1996.
When I was a kid, one of my classmates, in the little town where I grew up, went off to be a page -- I can't recall whether it was the Senate or the House. He was a nice-looking, clean-cut, jocky kid, not the sharpest tack in the box, but likable enough -- a modest, unpretentious, aw-shucks kind of guy.
He came back from his time in Washington utterly changed. His modest, ingenuous demeanor had been replaced by an over-confident, over-familiar, glad-handing, bicep-kneading, look-you-in-the-eye man-of-the-world schtick. There was something very false and smug about it. He's wasn't crafty enough, at bottom, to conceal his precocious sense of initiation into an elite, esoteric craft of influencing people -- if not necessarily winning friends.
The last I heard of him, he weighed three hundred pounds and ran a liquor store in a strip mall.
Comments (8)
There is a dust-up on Mount Olympus. There is too much inefficiency is this slaughter and too few results. The Establishment elites of America’s ruling financial oligarchy are not happy or maybe scared.
1) GE peels off with Kieth Obermann and then Chris Matthews, 2) National Intellegience Estimate leak, 3) Bob Woodward's "State of Denial, 4) Foley... There is a lot more trash that can be served up and five weeks to go.
I wonder what they want, just Rumsfeld or more?
Posted by Jesus Reyes | October 2, 2006 3:16 PM
Posted on October 2, 2006 15:16
JR, how about the whole administration? Somehow, I've always had this split personality, and one of them is able to think exactly like Robert Rubin and James Baker. Four years ago, my Baker side said to me "what the hell is Georgie-boy doing? We gotta reign that kid in before he does some real harm!"
I've been very disappointed that the Baker level (your Olympus) has not really shown its hand, but maybe you're right. Maybe this is it!
Posted by bobw | October 2, 2006 4:13 PM
Posted on October 2, 2006 16:13
three hundred pound bar keep indeed....
father smiff why try to cover up for this fellow
come out with it
admit he did a stint as arch bishop of
south bend indiana
and was within a whisker of appointment
to the college of cardinals
when .....
god you papist priests are all alike
Posted by js paine | October 2, 2006 7:50 PM
Posted on October 2, 2006 19:50
Alas, JSP, I hate to disappoint, but the lad was a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian.
Posted by MJS | October 2, 2006 8:33 PM
Posted on October 2, 2006 20:33
One can't help wondering whether the Democrats have known about this for a while and found a way to spring it just now.
Risky game, isn't it? These things are always answered, and no telling whom the Republicans can expose.
The more the merrier, of course.
Posted by Reechard | October 2, 2006 10:16 PM
Posted on October 2, 2006 22:16
Oh, if only we could get Zeese, Chretien, and the rest of the Greens running for office over to MySpace for some sleazy chat with strategically placed cute young things. Finally the GP could get some attention in Blogville. :/
Posted by ms_xeno | October 3, 2006 12:52 AM
Posted on October 3, 2006 00:52
So, this kid from your town, what you're saying is that he turned out allright in the end.
Right?
Posted by Paul Curtin | October 3, 2006 9:23 AM
Posted on October 3, 2006 09:23
Paul -- He turned out OK in the sense that he never ran for office. So the glass is at least half full, I guess.
Posted by MJS | October 3, 2006 12:30 PM
Posted on October 3, 2006 12:30