Mark Foley Scandal Hurts Democrats

Although some in the liberal media claim that recent reports of Rep. Mark Foley's overeager mentoring of male Congressional pages will be damaging to Republicans in the November elections, I think this incident demonstrates why turning Congress over to the Democrats would be such a disaster for our country. Once people know the truth about this scandal, I think it will actually hurt Democrats more.

Perhaps the most important issue people will be voting on this year is national security. Before the Democrats leaked this story, Republican leaders Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, Majority Leader John Boehner and Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee Tom Reynolds were able to keep it a secret for months, not even trusting Rep. Dale Kildee the Democrat member of the board supervising the page program, although they did let the Republican chairman Rep. John Shimkus in on the news. (It's also possible that, as Powerlines's John Hinderaker claims, the Republican leaders were too busy defending America from terrorists to remember to mention it to Rep. Kildee.) Democrats and the liberal media, on the other hand, just can't seem to keep a secret, spilling the beans on the National Intelligence Estimate report that said Iraq was actually making the War on Terror worse and leaking information about NSA wiretapping, secret prisons, the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and many other stories that Republicans tried so hard to keep from the public so as not to give aid and comfort to our enemies. The revelation about Rep. Foley is just another example of Democrats' being unable to keep their mouths shut. Who would you trust with our most important national security secrets: gossipy, loose-lipped Democrats or Republicans who have already demonstrated their ability to keep information that might be helpful to opponents completely hidden for months?

The Democrats seem to have no regard for Americans' privacy. They seemed to think it was OK to release Rep. Foley's private email and instant message communications to the media, which Republicans had endeavored to keep discreet. Are any of our private communications safe from the prying eyes of Democrats? After it was revealed that the NSA was wiretapping the communications of thousands of Americans (which we probably wouldn't even know about if Democrats were able to keep silent), Americans could at least feel safe in the knowledge that their private telephone calls and emails were safe in the hands of Republicans as long as it didn't seem like they were doing anything wrong. Once the wiretapping legislation is passed, giving the government even more license to spy on Americans, how could anyone feel secure knowing that the Democrats would have access to that information if they win control of Congress?

Democrats also proudly claim to be the party of homosexuals. But how could homosexuals support the "gay-hating Democrats," as Gay Patriot calls them, when their most sacred right--the right to stay in the closet and pretend that they aren't homosexual and resent any implication to the contrary--was violated so cavalierly by those who claim to support gay rights? If Democrats get in power, no closeted homosexual is safe from being outted and having their personal lives subject to gossip that is "revolting and unforgivable," as Foley characterized rumors of his own sexuality. You would think that homosexuals would be very angry at the Democrats' homophobia and hypocrisy on gay rights. Matt Drudge, who has been a tireless defender of the rights of homosexuals to stay in the closet, believes that Rep. Foley was set up and that he is the real victim here. There was a time when the media would not even be allowed to talk about a scandal like this, but unfortunately efforts by some gays to come out and to out others is just another example of what James Dobson of Focus on the Family calls "society's oversexualization," which, of course, can be blamed on Bill Clinton.

I think this incident also demonstrates how Democrats only care about their own particular agendas instead of what's best for normal Americans. For example, black Democrats all support affirmative action and quotas based on race, while black Republicans are usually opposed to affirmative action and quotas. They almost always vote against legislation that would help African-Americans, believing that it's best to vote for legislation that would help the majority of Americans instead of their own narrow interest group. Mark Foley, it now turns out was equally selfless. Although Rep. Foley was apparently homosexual, he did not let that affect the way he voted. Instead of selfishly voting for legislation that would help homosexuals like himself, he voted the opposite way, voting against gay marriage and for the Defense of Marriage Act. In fact, he was one of the authors of "The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006," the law under which the FBI is now apparently investigating him. While actually having sex with a 16-year-old is perfectly legal in Washington, DC, and other states, sending sexually explicit messages to 16-year-olds is now illegal under this Federal law. What he did wasn't even a crime until he helped make it one. If there is a better example of selflessness, I can't think of one.

The Democrats seem to have no loyalty to anything except to their own partisan agenda. The Republicans, however, value loyalty above anything else, even their own best interests. President Bush steadfastly refuses to fire Donald Rumsfeld because of his personal loyalty toward him despite the fact that his own chief of staff and others in his administration have advised him to cut the Secretary of Defense loose. On the other hand, when Secretary of State Colin Powell demonstrated his disloyalty by disagreeing with the President, President Bush fired him without a second thought even though Powell was planning to resign a few months later. For years, Republicans stood behind Rep. Tom Delay and resisted attempts to investigate him, standing strong in the face of a partisan witch hunt. And the Republican leadership all stood as one in protecting Rep. Foley. Once Rep. Foley realized that attacks against him might prove distracting to voters, he immediately resigned out of loyalty to the party. At a time when America is beset by enemies from within and without I think this kind of loyalty is exactly what this country needs.

Of course, there should be a full investigation of this matter just as soon as the election is over so that partisanship and Democrat dirty tricks will not get in the way of finding out what the facts are. But from what we do know already, this whole incident is another black mark on the record of Democrats and it should make voters think twice before giving them control of Congress.

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Jon Swift, Mark Foley, Democrat, Republican, Hastert, Boehner, Congress, Politics, War on Terror, Gay, Homosexuality, Internet, Beltway Traffic Jam