Every election has its turning point – an event that changes the dynamics of the race irrefutably. We have reached that moment in this year’s midterm elections.
The stunning series of news reports coming out of ABC News about Rep. Mark Foley and his propositioning of former House pages is devastating on a series of levels.
First is the irony of a man who led the House caucus on Missing and Exploited Children acting in a way that he was trying to legislate against. Hypocrisy isn’t necessarily surprising with politicians, but this is absolutely unacceptable.
The Internet is powerful technology and the bills worked on by Foley and other representatives made a statement that Americans wouldn’t put up with child predators going after innocent children.
Foley’s recent claims of alcoholism and being molested as a child come as excuses for his actions. Day by day, the media releases more Internet conversations, so it’s hard to have any sympathy for him. He took advantage of his position of power.
Foley’s actions can only be described as repulsing and disappointing.
Second is the lack of action by House Republican leaders.
For a party that wraps itself in the flag and American values it’s hard to see what it had to gain by sitting on the scandal.
Hoping this would stay quiet until after the midterms reeks of a party and leadership that is more interested in serving its own interests rather than the electorate’s.
House leadership knew almost a year ago of allegations made by a Louisiana page and other instances have come up over the past year. Yet nothing was done about it.
Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert has a lot of explaining to do. He is the leader and the buck stops with him. For him to have allegedly dismissed the allegations as he did is an absence of leadership.
It is now the responsibility of house leadership to conduct a thorough investigation of what went wrong and to find out exactly who knew what and when they knew it.
The public deserves to have representatives interested in the public good rather than covering up for each other.
And if the House doesn’t do it – the public might do it for them.
It’s hard to see how Republicans will take back the House after this. Much like the situation in the 1994 midterms, the party in power has become complacent.
A shake up seems for sure and right now it seems for the best.
