Drunk on power, GOP wercks the public trust

Drunk on power, GOP wrecks the public trust
Published on: 10/04/06
Cynthia Tucker -AJC
Drunkenness is getting a bad name.
A couple of months ago, Mel Gibson blamed his anti-Semitic diatribe on a state of intoxication. After resigning abruptly on Friday, former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) released a statement saying that he was going into alcohol rehab, suggesting that his sexually explicit overtures to teenagers in e-mails and instant messages were the result of a tendency to over-imbibe.

Presumably, however, Foley was stone-cold sober when he pushed for harsher sanctions against adults who do just what he did. As co-chairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, Foley had achieved national recognition for his efforts to protect children against sexual predators. Indeed, he was a champion of legislation that makes it a crime under some circumstances to use the Internet to entice someone under the age of 18 to engage in sexual activity.
No word yet on whether the House leadership was too drunk to expose Foley last year and force him to resign then. But I'm guessing that House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and his colleagues were also intoxicated— with their own power. The GOP's stranglehold on the legislative and executive branches of government has not been good for them or for the country. It has bred hubris and encouraged abuses of the public trust.
On Sunday, recognizing a widening political scandal, Hastert asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to conduct a criminal inquiry into Foley's conduct. Earlier, though, the Republican leadership had tried to evade responsibility — didn't know, couldn't have known. Among other things, they've said repeatedly that the communications they learned about last fall were not sexually explicit, but merely "over-friendly." Some top Republicans — notably former House Speaker Newt Gingrich — even blamed the failure to expose Foley on political correctness. Gingrich told Fox News talk show host Chris Wallace that the GOP leadership would have been "accused of gay-bashing" if they had "overly aggressively reacted" to Foley's e-mails.
Nonsense. Let's be clear about what happened here.
A year ago, U.S. Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.) learned about message traffic between Foley and a 16-year-old page who worked for Alexander. The congressman turned to Hastert's staff, who notified U.S. Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Page Board. Eventually, Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and U.S. Rep. Thomas Reynolds (R-N.Y.), head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, were also told about the communications.
In a series of Internet exchanges, Foley inquired about the page's age, asked what the page wanted as a birthday gift and requested a photograph. For the sake of argument, let's pretend the 16-year-old was a girl. (That removes the issue of homosexuality, which tends to distort the debate.) What responsible adult doesn't view that communication from a middle-aged member of Congress as alarmingly inappropriate?
Hastert, by the way, is a former high school teacher and wrestling coach. He can't spot a predator? (A sexual predator is just that, regardless of the gender of his or her prey.)
Instead of immediately demanding Foley's resignation as co-chairman of the exploited children's caucus and launching a full-fledged investigation, House leaders simply warned him to cease communications with that one teenager. They accepted his assurances that he was just a friendly guy whose actions didn't merit further scrutiny. So when Foley's sexually explicit messages were revealed in the last several days, GOP leaders found themselves accused of a cover-up.
Of course, sexual misconduct is not the sole property of Republicans. Bill Clinton tarnished his own legacy with lechery and lies. In August 1998, I wrote: "... if Clinton remains in office, his will be a presidency badly diminished, lacking moral authority, unable to inspire trust."
Former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, a Democrat, took arrogance to new heights when he placed his lover on the state payroll as homeland security adviser. Lacking American citizenship, Golan Cipel was not even qualified to sit in on high-level security briefings.
But misconduct is all the more likely when one party is clutching all the keys to power. From Tom DeLay to Bob Ney to Duke Cunningham to Mark Foley, the GOP Congress has been rife with corruption — a cesspool of arrogance, recklessness and disdain for the public.
Power is intoxicating, and an inebriated GOP Congress has driven right off the cliff.
• Cynthia Tucker is editorial page editor. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays.