BCT Editorial – 10/5/06

This page was last updated on October 5, 2006.

Blind eye; Editorial; Beaver County Times; October 5, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“GOP leaders shirked duty by ignoring Foley mess

“Imagine this scenario: You are the superintendent of a local school district, and you learn that one of your teachers has been writing sexually explicit e-mails to students.

“Do you go to the teacher and say, ‘You’ve been a naughty boy, but we’re going to forget about it this time. Just don’t do it again.’

“Or do you immediately start asking questions and take action to ensure the safety of your students?

“Our hypothetical superintendent would have been obligated to at least look into the allegations. Anything else would have been a violation of the public trust and an unfathomable shirking of duty.

“U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other top House Republicans apparently thought otherwise in the all-too-real scandal swirling around U.S. Rep. Mark Foley.

“Foley, R-Fla., resigned last week after he was confronted by reporters about a series of sexually charged e-mails he sent to underage young men serving as congressional pages. Facing a federal investigation, Foley has checked himself into an alcohol rehabilitation facility.

“Ironically, as co-chairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus, it was Foley’s job to find ways of protecting kids.

“Foley’s explicit e-mails were exacerbated by the reported inaction of his Republican political bosses.

“The New York Times has reported that high-ranking Republicans, including Reps. John A. Boehner of Ohio, the majority leader, and Thomas M. Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, knew about the communications between Foley and the pages last fall. Reynolds said in a statement that he notified Hastert of the problem earlier this year.

“The speaker has acknowledged that his staff was aware of ‘over-friendly’ e-mails Foley had sent, but Hastert said those e-mails were not viewed as ‘sexual in nature’ and that he was not aware of ‘a different set of communications which were sexually explicit,’ according to The Associated Press.

“Regardless, Hastert has known for months, and other GOP honchos have known for nearly a year, that something was amiss.

“And what did they do?

“They circled the wagons. They ignored the warning signs. They protected their own.

“They did nothing, and by doing nothing, they violated the public trust and put children working in the Congress they control at risk.

“Democrats have suggested that the GOP leadership tried to protect a House seat in an election year.

“We hope that isn’t true. We hope Hastert and the others have some explanation for their previous reticence.

“We hope the very people who espouse moral values have not put politics before their own morality.

“You have to wonder, though, why they remained silent until now.”

[RWC] The final paragraph confirms what I knew about the previous two paragraphs; they were lies.

As just about everyone, I find the alleged actions of Mr. Foley pretty disturbing. Given what we know so far, he was right to resign and should have been booted out of Congress if he hadn’t resigned. Beyond this, however, all we have are sound bites and accusations and certainly not enough information to make further judgments, either about Mr. Foley or House leadership. The truth is, I don’t believe anyone knows the full story yet and probably won’t for a while.

I was tempted to do a point-by-point critique of the editorial, but that would make me as bad as the Times. As I already noted, at this time no one has sufficient facts to make the allegations in this editorial or to refute them.