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Washington sex scandals
06/10/2006 15:28 - (SA)
Washington - A disgraced legislator's come-ons to teenaged boys in congress is just the latest in a long history of Washington sex scandals, not all of which have been politically devastating.
Bill Clinton, as everyone knows, was brought to the brink of impeachment in 1999 for having lied about his oval office dalliances with a 22 year old intern named Monica Lewinsky, to the righteous wrath of the conservative right.
Even the founding fathers had their faults: scientists have recently proven that Thomas Jefferson, the author of the declaration of independence and third president of the United States, had at least one child with one of his black slaves, Sally Hemings.
"What is fascinating is that we have sex scandals, given the visibility if these people," said Stephen Hess, a political scientist at the Brookings Institution.
Electoral campaigns
In modern times, American politicians have their privately life perpetually dissected by their adversaries and the press, especially during electoral campaigns.
With less than five weeks to go to national elections, and with Republican control of Congress at stake, the fall of Florida Republican Mark Foley has eclipsed all other political discourse.
Foley resigned last Friday after US media published his sexually explicit electronic exchanges with high school students working in congress as gofers.
The scandal has snowballed amid charges that Republican leaders knew of his conduct and looked the other way.
With an FBI probe underway, and with Republicans right up to President George W Bush expressing shock and disgust, Foley's political career lies in ruins.
'The redder they are, the harder they fall'
But it has not always gone that way for elected officials exposed in flagrante delicto: the repercussions tend to be greater for members of the party that likes to claim the moral high ground on so-called family values.
Or, as The Washington Post put it recently: "The redder they are, the harder they fall," alluding to the colour associated with the Republican party.
Other scandals
Many Democrats besides Bill Clinton have survived public exposure of their less than stellar private behaviour. Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank is still in office despite the revelation in 1990 that he had hired and housed a prostitute - who conducted business from Frank's living room.
More troubling, in 1983, the house ethics committee merely censured two lawmakers - one a Democrat, the other Republican - for their sexual liaisons with underage Congressional pages.
Republican Dan Crane apologised in tears for his affair with a 17-year-old girl before voters gave him the boot. But Democrat Gerry Studds refused to apologise for what he called a "consensual" relationship with a 17-year-old male page - and was re-elected for five more terms.
"It's always the case that these stories hit the Republicans harder, because they're more concerned with the moral posture of their voters. And when they do something like that, it looks like hypocrisy," Hess said.
Foley may be charged under laws he drafted
Foley, in fact, formed a committee in the house to find ways to protect missing and exploited children, including from sexual predators.
Ironically, even if he never had physical contact with the teenagers he electronically harassed, he could face charges over his behaviour based on laws he himself drafted condemning the use of the internet for child pornography.
Affair will hurt Republicans
Columnist Dick Morris, a former aide to Clinton who became one of his biggest critics, says the Foley affair will hurt the Republicans just as the Lewinsky scandal stained Clinton's entire eight-year presidency.
"The Foley scandal is the nail in the GOP coffin," Morris wrote in The Hill, a weekly newspaper about congress.
"Its centrality stems from the sheer arrogance and hypocrisy it demonstrates both on the part of Foley himself and his colleagues who hushed up the affair until it burst onto the public stage.
"One more pious member of the moral majority, one more legislator who makes a career out of fighting for 'values' and crusading to protect children, turns out to be a hypocrite and an abuser himself!" Morris wrote.
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