Congress, Washington Culture to Blame for Foley Vindication

The recent news
that congressman Mark Foley had been vindicated of all
charges associated with allegations that he'd sent sexually
explicit e-mails and instant messages to former
congressional pages is not entirely surprising -- but
not for the reasons that have been discussed at length
previously in The Advocate. The investigation
by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has to be
viewed in a much larger context.

During their
investigation of Foley, law enforcement officials ran into a
pretty big obstacle: Congress. After investigators were
initially denied access to Foley's office computer by
the House Office of General Counsel, Florida
Department of Law Enforcement commissioner Gerald Bailey
appealed directly to House speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Rather than
intervene and provide investigators with an opportunity to
discover whether laws had been broken, Pelosi forwarded the
letter without comment to the House Office of General
Counsel. The counsel's office promptly denied the
request once again.

This is important
because it is indicative of an astonishingly pervasive
mode of operation in our nation's capital. It is part of
every aspect of Washington society: politicians,
media, advocacy organizations, lobbying firms, and
staff. It's like the cocktail party circuit that everybody
wants to be a part of, so they smile and say polite things.
Anything that upsets the delicate balance of the party
is frowned upon in a very serious way.

Accordingly, each
of these elements of Washington operates to
preserve the status quo, thus inherently being averse
to anything that would promote change or threaten
existing power structures. It is what's wrong
with Washington, and it is what may have prevented the
full truth about Foley's actions from being known to the
American public.