Friday, September 29, 2006

Politics, hypocrisy: One more closet door opens

After all the grief about Gov. McGreevey last year from the so-called moral right wing, today's news is quite interesting. At least McGreevey was looking for sex from an adult. Today, Republican Representative Mark Foley (Florida) resigned from congress amidst scandalous rumours regarding inappropriate email communication with a 16 year old male page. I don't really care about Foley's sexual orientation, but I am struck by the hypocrisy here. According to his web page, he is the Co-Chairman of the Missing and Exploited Childrens Caucus. Well, it would seem he has some direct experience to bring to the table for that caucus.
Among the latest of these is a program designed to show children how to protect themselves from online predators.

Here is Mr. Foley's statement:
"Today I have delivered a letter to the Speaker of the House informing him of my decision to resign from the U.S. House of Representatives, effective today. I thank the people of Florida's 16th Congressional District for giving me the opportunity to serve them for the last twelve years; it has been an honor.

I am deeply sorry and apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent."
According to ABC News:
Hours earlier, ABC News had read excerpts of instant messages provided by former male pages who said the congressman, under the AOL Instant Messenger screen name Maf54, made repeated references to sexual organs and acts.
Apparently this is not just one isolated incident.

UPDATE: ABC News has released a transcript of an instant message exchange between Mark Foley (Maf54) and a high school student. (note: sexually explicit content)

3 comments:

Graeme said...

oh the dangerous irony! When I heard the story, somehow I new it was a GOP congressman

Anonymous said...

The fundamental hypocrisy of this is illustrated by the fact that the GOP did not invoke RICO, although it was well warranted and within the law to do so, because they did not want to offend 65 million plus mostly conservative voting Catholics by going after their child molesting and raping so-called priests.

Charles

Anonymous said...

Post script: remember stiflingly Catholic John Ashcroft?

Charles