A New Page in an Old Book
TERZIAN, PHILIP
A New Page in an Old Book A short history of congressional dalliances. by Philip Terzian First, let's dispense with formalities and come to quick agreement on the gathering scandal of Rep. Mark...
...Charles Robb, D-Va., Reps...
...Wayne Hays, D-Ohio, a coarse, bullying chairman of the House Administration Committee, who was found, in 1976, to employ a young woman in his congressional office (at taxpayers' expense) who could neither type nor take dicta-tion—"I can't even answer the phone"—and whose main responsibility was to have sexual intercourse with Congressman Hays...
...And like President Bush, we too are "shocked," "dismayed," "disgusted," and "disappointed" by Foley's behavior...
...This is now such a familiar expedient to evade responsibility—Mark Foley has claimed not only alcoholism but also an adolescent episode of molestation at the hands of a clergy-man—that it is startling to recall its recent origins...
...before that, we are likely to conclude that the moral climate on Capitol Hill has fallen on a swift, and relentlessly downward, course...
...The Boston Globe called on Frank to resign, but he resisted its entreaties, and Frank's Democratic colleagues neither expelled nor censured him...
...Jon Hinson, R-Miss., Robert Bauman, R-Md., Allan Howe, D-Utah, and Gary Condit, D-Calif...
...We can certainly agree that Foley's emails to youthful House employees make for stunning reading, and that he should have been disciplined by his colleagues at the very least...
...Now, having said that, let us put things in perspective...
...For as much fun as the Foley affair has been for the press—and for Democrats, who had feared an October Surprise of another sort just a few weeks short of the mid-term elections—it is really a garden-variety congressional sex scandal...
...This was an instructive incident for two reasons: It was one of the first times that the private conduct of a member of Congress was held up to public scrutiny, and Wilbur Mills deployed alcoholism as an excuse for his behavior...
...Gus Savage, D-Ill...
...There is, however, a paradox in all this...
...and embarrassing indiscretion (Sen...
...it is simply another instance of a fundamental truth: In any random selection of 435 members of the House of Representatives, a handful are likely to be lowlifes and perverts...
...The second category might best be described by the case of Rep...
...The model for the former category is one of the first, and most memorable, modern instances of mortification: the Wilbur Mills/Fanne Foxe Affair...
...But whereas Crane tearfully apologized to the House, and was defeated for reelection the following year, Studds neither apologized nor disturbed his Massachusetts constituents: They reelected him seven times until his retirement in 1996...
...Six years before that, it was learned that Reps...
...Modern congressional sex scandals fall into two principal categories: Members making fools of themselves...
...Over the years there have been instances of serial boorishness (Senators Bob Packwood, R-Ore., and Brock Adams, D-Wash., Rep...
...He was later reprimanded by the House for fixing Gobie's parking tickets and has since been reelected by ever-lengthening margins...
...But two famous spectacles have some relevance for Mark Foley...
...It may yet prove fatal to the House Republican leadership, as well as to the GOP majority in the House...
...The paradox is that, as the popular culture has become more tolerant of sexual license, the reaction to congressional misconduct has grown disproportionately shrill...
...But that would be misleading...
...It's just that they weren't called "gay" in the middle 19th century, and until very modern times, congressional sexual misbehavior was largely kept out of the news...
...And as the late Mayor Jimmy Walker of New York once said, in a different context: "No woman was ever ruined by a book...
...Studds's, in 1973, involved a male...
...But it is also true that there is no evidence Foley realized the scenarios he typed on his computer, or threatened any of his reluctant correspondents...
...Elizabeth Ray, an amiable country girl whose life's ambition was to appear in Playboy, briefly exploited her sudden notoriety, but was mainly (if passively) instrumental in forcing Hays to quit his chairmanship and lose his next primary election...
...Mark Foley, R-Fla., whose lascivious emails and instant messages to House pages have Washington in thrall...
...The episode might have ended on that surreal note, but a few weeks after Mills's reelection in November, he followed Ms...
...While Mills and the officer conversed, his passenger, an Argentine-born stripper called Fanne Foxe, bolted from Mills's car and inexplicably jumped into the waters of the nearby Tidal Basin...
...If we look backward in time—say, over the past three decades—to count up previous congressional sex scandals, and then compare the figures to three decades Philip Terzian is Books & Arts editor of The Weekly Standard...
...In October 1974, Rep...
...and members using their exalted status to prey on subordinates or extract favors...
...Crane's indiscretion, which took place in 1980, involved a female...
...Barney Frank, D-Mass., describing himself as "Hot Bottom," had advertised in a newspaper for a new lover, and acquired the companionship of a prostitute named Steve Gobie, who transformed Frank's Washington apartment into a brothel...
...He retired after the 1976 election...
...Foxe on tour and appeared with her onstage, manifestly drunk, at a Boston strip club (where for $3,500 a week she was performing as the "Washington Tidal Basin Bombshell...
...borderline pedophilia (Reps...
...The Foley epistles are "abhorrent" (House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi), "repulsive" (Speaker Dennis Hastert), and "repugnant" (Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid...
...In 1989, it was revealed that Rep...
...Mel Reynolds, D-Ill., Donald Lukens, R-Ohio, Fred Richmond, D-N.Y...
...That was too much for his Democratic colleagues in Washington, who forced Mills to resign as committee chairman...
...since the early days of the Republic, Congress has contained its portion of pedophiles, fanny-pinchers, drunken rapists, and predatory gay men...
...The affair between the 17-year-old boy and the 36-year-old Studds had been "consensual," Studds explained...
...Daniel Crane, R-Ill., and Gerry Studds, D-Mass., had enjoyed "sexual relationships" with 17-year-old congressional pages...
...The moral, of course, is that it is better to be a carnivorous congressman from Massachusetts than from Florida or Illinois, and that the quality of congressional sexual misconduct has much to do—surprise!—with politics...
...Wilbur Mills, D-Ark., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and a 1972 Democratic presidential candidate, was stopped in the middle of the night near the Jefferson Memorial in Washington...
...but there is no compelling evidence of cosmic significance, nor apparent conspiracy to thwart justice...
Vol. 12 • October 2006 • No. 5
