[Vision2020] Studds, 1st openly gay congressman, dies

[Andreas Schou]

On 10/14/06, Pat Kraut <pkraut at moscow.com> wrote:
> So, explain to me how emails started by a page to Foley are not OK but it is
> OK for Stubbs because the page consented?? I read the emails and I say that
> the page knew what was happening and was consenting. Just why are the dems
> so excited about Foley?? Who, by the way, is out of office!

Here's the thing, Pat:

The Democrats deserved to lose in 1994. They were corrupt, bloated
with pork, and had very little regard for anything other than
re-election. And they'd been fighting a rear-guard action against the
worst of Reagan's idiocy since 1980. If the ethics committee had bee
paying any attention, Stubbs should've been at least censured, and
possibly expelled*.

I actually don't believe that either Foley or Stubbs was a pedophile
(the correct word, actually, is "ephebophile"), and there's a
reasonable argument to be made for setting the age of consent at 16.
After all, historically, people were married and running their own
households at that age and earlier. The problem, Pat, is not sex, but
power.

It's unethical to have sex with anyone under your authority, as both
Foley and Stubbs did. Especially when the power differential is that
between a congressman and an adolescent -- it is so great that there
can be no meaningful formulation of consent. It is also unethical to
serially sexually harass 17 year olds, as Foley did. And I might add
that it is also unethical to try to break into the congressional page
dorm after hours, as Foley did.

All of these things are unacceptable. Why can't you do anything but
whinge about how the other team is responsible for your team's impulse
to cover up anything remotely damaging? If Foley had been investigated
in 2003, 2004, or 2005, the Republicans wouldn't be in a mess that,
potentially, is going to be fatal to their majority in both houses.

-- ACS

(1) Actually, I think the bar set for expulsion from any
democratically elected body should be set to criminal conduct. If
Foley didn't commit a crime, and it's not yet clear that he did, then
he shouldn't've expelled. Resignation, though, is appropriate,
especially since there's no way in hell he's winning that election.
With Stubbs, if I were in the House Ethics Committee, I would've
stripped him of his committee appointments, censured him, and ridden
him hard to resign. But expel him? Override the will of the voters
that elected him over something that isn't a crime? I'm distinctly
uncomfortable with that.