Foley followup

I was reading an article on the continuing debacle of Mark Foley, and it went pretty much as I had expected. It looked a little like this:

--What did Jeff Trandahl (House clerk until 1999, oversaw page program) know?
--He had several complaints about the actions of Foley.
--He and Rep. John Shimkus (chairman of page board) quietly confronted Foley about the e-mails.
--The Speaker and his chief of staff were not told about the problem (they said).
--Did he commit a crime? Was it handled properly?

Yes, I suppose it looks as if I am getting a little bored with the subject? I am, a little. It's the old political two-step, and like ripples in a pond, they get smaller and less defined until you can't even see them anymore. I am content to let the ethics committees do their work from this point on.

Reading the article, I started to skim until I reached the point about Mark Foley's statement through an attorney which stated that he was alcoholic, gay and had been molested as a boy by a "clergyman." It turns out that Mercieca, a retired Roman Catholic priest from Malta, admitted to intimate contact with Foley, who was then 12 or 13.

Now hold on to your shorts, campers, because here is where Mercieca says that he thought their skinny-dipping, or trips to local saunas (accompanied by at least one occasion of "light touching.") as "within cultural bounds as he understood them." Mercieca had been in Brazil attending seminary. The article ended with this quote from Mercieca, "We had some kind of friendship. I was very friendly with him and his family . . .now because he got caught, he recited these things."

I have this mental image of a retired priest, sitting in a chair in the sun, shaking his aged finger at the naughty Mark Foley, who is dredging up these innocent memories and using them to explain his actions. I honestly started to giggle. Where has personal responsibilty gone? The finger-pointing gets more and more convoluted, and I end up having the choice to laugh or cry. I guess I choose to laugh. But for once, would it be so difficult for someone to say, "Yes, I am rather a dirty old man?"

Mark Foley is not public enemy No. 1. He is certainly creepy, and I wouldn't want him as my son's Internet pen pal. However, this issue is about ethics, and to me the humilation he has received is punishment enough. Let's get back to real issues: nuclear bomb tests, the continuing war, what politicians will really do to help issues once elected.

http://www.startribune.com/587/story/754648.html