Response to "Who Knew Congressman Foley Was a Closeted Democrat?"

Coulter's column this week (September 4, 2006) concerns the Mark Foley sex scandal, and how the Republican Representative’s behavior, the neglect of the Republican leadership, and their subsequent attempts to cover it up reflect badly on … Democrats. Seriously.

The object lesson of Foley's inappropriate e-mails to male pages is that when a Republican congressman is caught in a sex scandal, he immediately resigns and crawls off into a hole in abject embarrassment. Democrats get snippy.

Republican congressmen embroiled in sex scandals immediately resign? In the late 1990s, it was revealed that Henry Hyde had carried on a four-year adulterous affair with a woman while they were both married. Not only is he still a Representative, he's chairman of the House International Relations Committee. Newt Gingrich had a three-to-five-year adulterous affair (cheating on his second wife) with a House aide twenty-three years younger than himself. The affair was ongoing while he was not only a Representative, but the Speaker of the House. Don Sherwood was accused by his mistress of five years of trying to strangle her, yet he has not resigned.

Foley didn't claim he was the victim of a "witch-hunt." He didn't whine that he was a put-upon "gay American." He didn't stay in Congress and haughtily rebuke his critics.

No, Foley didn't claim he was the victim of a witch hunt. Dennis Hastert, however, has claimed that the Foley scandal is a great Democratic conspiracy to make the Republicans look bad. Apparently it wasn't ignoring inappropriate behavior, or attempting to cover up the scandal that makes them look bad.

Coulter then continues by remembering another sex scandal, this time from twenty-three years ago:

In 1983, Democratic congressman Gerry Studds was found to have sexually propositioned House pages and actually buggered a 17-year-old male page whom he took on a trip to Portugal. The 46-year-old Studds indignantly attacked those who criticized him for what he called a "mutually voluntary, private relationship between adults."

This is interesting, not for the facts that Coulter brings up, but for those she leaves out. In 1983 another Republican Representative, Dan Crane, was censured on the very same day as Gerry Studds. Crane’s fornication, however, was with a 17-year old girl.

This leads to the possibility that Coulter didn’t mention Crane’s or any other scandals not just because they involved Republicans, but because they were heterosexual. She makes a specific effort to mention that Studds "buggered" this page. I was not able to find online references that detailed any sex acts which took place, so unless Coulter has inside sources or was present during the "buggering," she is likely making assumptions. It's also not clear if she considers this more scandalous, with penile-vaginal sex less so.

The most disturbing possibility is that Coulter is attempting to imply that Foley's behavior with these young men is actually because of his homosexuality. She attempts to degrade Studds by saying he was "not shy about presenting his backside to a large group of men," referring to when Studds turned his back on the House when it censured him. She also falsely implies that the Studds affair was ongoing, involving more than one page (which it didn't, unlike in the Foley scandal).

An attempt by a conservative to falsely link homosexuality with pedophilia isn't far-fetched. In fact, prominant Republicans and "family"-oriented intitutions are now saying that very thing.

Several times, Coulter draws attention to Foley's newly-revealed homosexuality, and accuses Democrats of wanting to wiretap his phones "soley because Foley was rumored to be gay." This is, of course, untrue. No Democrats have suggested that Foley's phones should have been wiretapped at all, let alone because he was gay. What Democrats are saying, and some Republicans as well, is that the Republican leadership should not have ignored Foley’s behavior when it was brought to their attention some years ago, nor should they have tried to cover it up.

Sources:

• Dan Crane. Wikipedia. Retrieved October 6, 2006.
• Gerry Studds. Wikipedia. Retrieved October 6, 2006.
• Henry Hyde. Wikipedia. Retrieved October 6, 2006.
• Newt Gingrich. Wikipedia. Retrieved October 6, 2006.
• "Weyrich, Robertson used Foley scandal to spread falsehood about gay men," Media Matters for America. October 5, 2006.

October 8th, 2006 Posted by Eric | one comment
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