I’m trying to be properly outraged by the Foley scandal. Yes, Foley should go. That’s easy to my eyes to decide. Even if he was abused himself as a child, or an alcoholic, or had a neighbor’s dog telling him this was what he was supposed to do, it doesn’t excuse his behavior. But I’m having trouble seeing the same treatment as necessary for some of the other politicians involved, so I’m asking anyone who knows more than I do about politics (and that would be most people, I’m afraid) to help me understand some of the current calls against others.
The latest thing that caught my attention and I’m trying to understand is in this post at Americanblog. Part of the post has this quote from Rep Kolbe:
Sometime after leaving the Page program, an individual I had appointed contacted my office to say that he had received emails from Rep. Foley that made him uncomfortable. I was not shown the content of the messages and was not told they were sexually explicit. It was my recommendation that this complaint be passed along to Rep. Foley’s office and the Clerk [of the House, Hastert’s staffer] who supervised the Page program.
The person who posted the article then posted this as one of his response:
We’re to believe that a recent former staffer of Kolbe’s, who is a child, came to him and said he thinks he’s being sexually harassed by a fellow member of Congress who Kolbe knows extremely well, and Kolbe’s response is to tell the child victim to confront his adult abuser? You have got to be kidding. Kolbe should consider resigning now, before his term ends, just on that basis alone – if this allegation is even true.
And I don’t see those two logically tying together. Kolbe specifically says he was not informed what the nature of the emails was. Then the blog article’s author says since Kolbe knew the victim was receiving sexually harrassing emails he should resign. He follows this with several other responses to the quote. And none of them seem to naturally follow based on what was said.
So can anyone tell me how “I was not shown the content of the messages and was not told they were sexually explicit.” naturally leads to “…a child, came to him and said he thinks he’s being sexually harassed by a fellow member of Congress …” in a way that I can understand? Because no matter how many times I read the article I’ve linked above, I still don’t follow the author’s point.
Understand I’m all for clearing out politicians who have done wrong. I’m not trying to say Kolbe should still keep his job if he knew what was happening. I’m saying I don’t see how we can say he knew what was happening based on what he has said.
[tags]Kolbe comments on Foley situation[/tags]
