Two years ago about this same time during the congressional elections, Democrats were making hay out of the revelation that then-U.S. Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) had initiated inappropriate relationships with male pages for the House of Representatives, although a subsequent investigation failed to find that Foley had violated any criminal laws. Democrats held on to the information for months, waiting to spring it on the public at a point when it was too late for Foley's name to be removed from the ballot. Foley resigned his seat, but voters had to cast a vote for him in order to vote for his Republican replacement. Democratic congressional candidate Tim Mahoney scored the Republican seat for Democrats in the wake of the scandal. Now it seems Mahoney has a bit of a sex scandal himself.
While running for Congress against Foley, the married Mahoney began a sexual relationship with a female staffer according to ABC News. A theme of Mahoney's campaign was "Restoring America's Values Begins at Home" and featured pictures with his wife in reference to Foley's gay page scandal. Foley was single. Mahoney gave his mistress a $36,000 a year job in his Florida congressional office following his election. Patricia Allen is said to have claimed that Mahoney fired her after their relationship ended. Allen hired a former attorney for Foley and threatened to sue Mahoney. As part of a mediated settlement, Mahoney agreed to pay Allen $120,000, half of which went to her attorney according to ABC News. Allen reportedly agreed to destroy damaging recordings of her relationship with Mahoney and not to campaign for his opponent or discuss the allegations publicly. It is unclear whether the settlement is being paid out of Allen's personal pocket or his campaign's. According to the report, Mahoney had promised a job for Allen with a political consulting firm for his campaign. Hmmm. Sounds a little like the way former Sen. John Edwards structured payments to his mistress.
Note that senior Democratic House leaders, including Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who had plenty to say about Mark Foley's page scandal, knew about Mahoney's problem last year. Their only concern seems to have been to keep the scandal from hurting Mahoney's re-election chances. Let's see, wasn't that the complaint House Democrats made about the House Republican leadership two years ago? Hypocrites all around. The big difference here is that Foley's problems led off news broadcasts and made front-page news. The media is saying little about Mahoney's scandal. National Organization for Women? Anything? Naah. Doesn't fit their political agenda. Who cares if a congressman expected sex from one of his employees. He's a Democrat so it doesn't matter. NOW only cares what Republicans do.
5 comments:
I'm a fan of creative analogies, but it's a bit of a stretch to compare an inappropriate relationship with a minor to a consensual adult relationship. The reality is BOTH parties engage in hypocrisy. Arguments to the contrary are not rooted in reality.
Foley broke no laws. He never had sex with anyone. He sent some stupid, inappropriate e-mails. He's guilty of being stupid. This guy Mahoney gives a taxpayer-paid job to a woman because she is having sex with him and then fires her when she stops having sex with him. I think a law may have been broken there. What he did is worse from the public's standpoint than Foley. At least Foley had the decency to resign his seat. This arrogant Mahoney has the audacity to say that it was simply a private matter. Not hardly. He made Foley's e-mails with pages the public's business. He damn well better understand that it's the people's business when he's using our money to pay women for sexual favors.
Not to split hairs here, but part of the reason nothing illegal happened is because there was an intervention. One could argue, albeit loosely, that Foley engaged in attempted child solicitation...just a thought. Either way, I think the public is overwhelmingly less supportive of men that attempt to have intimate relations with minors (criminal or not) than they are of men that have extramarital affairs. In fact, aside from fellow pedophiles, I can't fathom that folks find Foley's behavior acceptable. Now, is Mahoney a pillar of morality...absolutely not, but that does not in any way, shape, or form mitigate Foley's behavior.
Legaldiva obviously doesn't practice employment law. Foley did not hire the 18-year-old page in question (which the last I checked made the guy above the age of consent). The page did not work for Foley. Foley had no responsibility for supervising his work. And Foley had no authority to fire him. Moreover, Foley is not a pedophile. A pedophile, legaldiva, would be Obama's childhood mentor, Frank Davis, who admitted to having sex with a 13-year-old. And does anyone else find legaldiva's writing style a bit familiar or is it just me?
I'm fairly certain that at least one of the pages that received sexually explicit messages was 16 years old, which makes him a minor. Again, there's hypocrisy in both parties, but my gut tells me more people are offended when adult men prey on 16-year old children. I can't imagine that my writing style is familiar to you because I don't recall meeting you during the course of court proceedings, and I don't blog.
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