Steamed About Foley

I have a feeling this is going to be one of those posts that I write while I’m steamed and end up having to edit later.

Be that as it may, I am steamed.

Rep. Mark Foley of Florida was confronted by ABC News on Friday about sexually explicit conversations he’d had via instant messenger with underage pages. He quickly resigned and has checked himself into a treatment center for alcoholism.

Let’s start there. Alcoholism? Please. I don’t doubt that the man is an alcoholic, but his alcoholism isn’t what made him hit on underage men. Could it have been living a lie? Playing the conservative game and denying his attraction to men? He’s gay, goddamn it, a total ‘mo! But no, apparently Foley would rather the general public interpret him as an alcoholic and a pedophile. As reported in the New York Times:

“I strongly believe that I am an alcoholic and have accepted the need for immediate treatment for alcoholism and related behavioral problems.”

I don’t think that Foley is actually a pedophile, although the amount of time he spent supporting strict laws against anyone who would try to exploit children over the internet makes me wonder if he doth protest too much. I think he just didn’t see any other outlet for his attraction to men.

It was incredibly inappropriate to say the least. Add to that the fact that members of the GOP may have known about Foley’s inappropriate behavior and you have a recipe for a successful election season for the dems, or so we can hope. But you know what I hope more? I hope they string him up. They had better make at least as much of a spectacle of him as they made of Clinton when he had consensual sex with an adult. I hope they convict him using the laws he put in place, and I hope the treatment center makes him get therapy, and I hope the poor man can finally come out of the god damn closet. And I hope the next gay republican politician recognizes that alcoholism and accusations of pedophilia are just as likely to ruin a political career as coming out.

Oooh, I’m so angry!

Here's what two other, more eloquent bloggers are saying on the subject:

Republic of T:Foley belongs to a party that wouldn’t let him be an openly gay congressman and live a life of honesty and integrity. So, lacking that possibility, he chose (and obviously there were other choices open to him, however painful they might have seemed then as compared to now) to seek expression in an arena where he (a) had some power and (b) was likely to be protected by the political interests of his colleagues and (c) the vulnerability of those he targeted.

Andrew Sullivan: If his resignation means the end of the closet for him, and if there is no more to this than we now know, then it may even be for the good. Better to find integrity and lose a Congressional seat than never live with integrity at all.