Katha Pollitt: Is Foley Truly the Worst Scandal in Washington?

By Katha Pollitt, The Nation. Posted October 6, 2006.

Rep. Mark Foley was a cancer in the House, and the GOP leadership screwed up royally in protecting him, but why can't Democrats attack Republicans on more serious issues that matter to the country?

I know the election is just a month away and the Democrats need every vote, but... Did Mark Foley really deserve to be drawn and quartered for engaging in lubricious instant messaging with male former Congressional pages?

Foley's advances were creepy and disturbing and bordered on sexual harassment, to say nothing of bad taste -- I'd definitely put "I always use lotion and the hand" in the Too Much Information category. But given that by law Senate pages must be 16 years old or more, and that 16 is the legal age of consent in Washington (and most states), to call him a "child molester" (Tucker Carlson on MSNBC) and "child predator" (various pundits) seems rather severe. Almost as severe as, um, calling Bill Clinton's affair with the 22-year-old Monica Lewinsky "vile" and voting to impeach him. Which, as it happens, Representative Foley did. "It's more sad than anything else," Foley went on, prophetically, "to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain."