(Just when I think I’ve seen the weirdest sex scandal ever, something even more shocking happens in this town. It never fails.)
Colleagues and reporters (yes, reporters, as Foley was known as press hungry) who knew him were surprised. Sure, everyone knew he was gay. My colleagues had long teased a straight guy in our newsroom for being asked to go for “a workout” with Foley at the gym. “You go!” we declared jubilantly. “Think of the story you’d get.” (He never went.) Another friend recalled dinners with Foley on the outskirts of town. My friend wasn’t gay; just a political whore.
But Foley a pedophile?
No one could believe it, including the authorities—police never filed charges.
Few politicians ensconced in sex scandals ever suffer real consequences apart from shame or embarrassment. Sen. David Vitter (D-LA) got tangled in a sex scandal last year when he turned up on the DC Madam’s list. Nothing happened to him legally. But he admitted to paying for services, as he, too, stood alongside his wife—an attractive brunette in a sexy, fitted tiger print blouse—and apologized.
In recent years, strange sex scandals on Capitol Hill have become so commonplace that lawmakers, aides, and Capitol employees have become desensitized to them. That’s not to say people don’t get juiced by them still, because they do.
But the reality is that many politicians do not behave badly and it’s embarrassing to even pose a question about sex scandals.
Oh, but what the hell. I posed my question to flacks, politicians, and fellow reporters.
A GOP flack explains the phenomenon like this: “If you look around a room in Washington, it’s populated by guys who never got laid in college who suddenly have money and/or power.”
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT)—known for Vice President Dick Cheney telling him to “Go fuck yourself” on the Senate floor—paused awkwardly after my question. “For someone who has been married for forty-five years, I’m the last person to ask,” the balding sixty-eight-year-old senator replied.
Others are self-deprecating. “My wife knows me enough. She figures some woman would have to be crazy [to engage with me],” said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID).
