posted September 29, 2006 05:43 PM            

WASHINGTON

Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., resigned from Congress on Friday, effective immediately, in the wake of questions about e-mails he wrote a former male page.
"I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent," he said in a statement issued by his office.

The two-sentence statement did not refer to the e-mails and gave no reason for Foley's decision to abruptly abandon a flourishing career in Congress.

Foley, 52, had been a shoo-in for a new term until the e-mail correspondence surfaced in recent days.

His resignation comes less than six weeks before the elections. It was not clear how Republicans would fill his spot on the November ballot.

Campaign aides had previously acknowledged that the Republican congressman e-mailed the former Capitol page five times, but had said there was nothing inappropriate about the exchange. The page was 16 at the time of the e-mail correspondence.

It was not clear what prompted Foley to abruptly decide to give up a successful career in the House.

Foley, who represents an area around Palm Beach County, e-mailed the page in August 2005. The page had worked for Rep. Rodney Alexander, R- La., and Foley asked him how he was doing after Hurricane Katrina and what he wanted for his birthday. The congressman also asked the boy to send a photo of himself, according to excerpts of the e-mails that were originally released by ABC News.

Foley's aides initially blamed Democratic rival Tim Mahoney and Democrats with attempting to smear the congressman before the election.

The e-mails were posted Friday on Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington's Web site after ABC News reported their existence. The group asked the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to investigate the exchange Foley had with the boy, who served as a page for Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La.

"The House of Representatives has an obligation to protect the teenagers who come to Congress to learn about the legislative process," the group wrote, adding that the committee, "must investigate any allegation that a page has been subjected to sexual advances by members of the House."

According to the CREW posting, the boy e-mailed a colleague in Alexander's office about Foley's e-mails, saying, "This freaked me out." On the request for a photo, the boy repeated the word "sick" 13 times.

He said Foley asked for his e-mail when the boy gave him a thank you card. The boy also said Foley wrote that he e-mailed another page.

"he's such a nice guy," Foley wrote about the other boy. "acts much older than his age...and hes in really great shape...i am just finished riding my bike on a 25 mile journey now heading to the gym...whats school like for you this year?"

In other e-mails, Foley wrote, "I am back in Florida now...its nice here...been raining today...it sounds like you will have some fun over the next few weeks...how old are you now?" and "how are you weathering the hurricane...are you safe...send me an email pic of you as well."

What the boy wrote to Foley, who is single, wasn't available. The e- mails were sent from Foley's personal account, which Foley spokesman Jason Kello says he uses to communicate with many people, including Gov. Jeb Bush.

"They have taken these e-mails out of context in order to smear a good man," said Kello, who described the exchange as "nonchalant, casual." He said Foley didn't save his e-mails or the boy's response.

Efforts to reach the boy were unsuccessful, but he told the St. Petersburg Times last November, "I thought it was very inappropriate. After the one about the picture, I decided to stop e-mailing him back." The Times didn't publish the comments until Friday.

The campaign for Mahoney, who trails Foley in the polls, said it didn't release the e-mails and wouldn't make them part of the campaign. In a statement released by Mahoney spokesman Jessica Santillo, the campaign referred to the boy as an "alleged victim."

"The seriousness of these allegations goes far beyond the *** for tat of a political campaign," Santillo said. "This is a matter for the appropriate authorities to investigate. I believe Mr. Foley deserves the benefit of the doubt until these allegations are proven true or false."

Alexander's chief of staff, Royal Alexander, didn't return several calls to his cell phone Thursday and Friday seeking comment. Alexander's press secretary, Adam Terry, didn't return an e-mail or phone messages. Alexander and Foley wouldn't talk to reporters while the House was in session Thursday and Foley didn't return calls to his cell phone.

Kello disputed the claim that the e-mails weren't distributed by the Mahoney campaign.

"They've been shopping this around to reporters for weeks now. They want a headline and that's it. It's a political smear campaign of the worst kind," Kello said.

___

Associated Press Writer Brendan Farrington in Florida contributed to this report.

posted September 29, 2006 05:51 PM            

*** One request**** I really hope this doesn't turn into an accusation contest on which political party has the most perverts.

Congressional Sex Scandals in History

By Ken Rudin
Special to washingtonpost.com

As the House prepares for a possible investigation of sex-related allegations concerning President Clinton, it's worth taking a look back at how Congress has dealt with the frequent charges of sexual misconduct by its own members.

Here are 21 case studies. In most, Congress took little or no official action, leaving the fate of the accused to the voters.

This history begins in 1974, but not because episodes of sexual impropriety only go back a quarter-century. In the old days, they simply weren't reported. In 1903, for example, the Speaker of the House, David Henderson (R-Iowa), was forced to resign over his sexual relationship with the daughter of a senator. Henderson never said why he was quitting, and neither did the press. But that was then, and this is now.

| Reynolds
1974

Rep. Wilbur Mills (D-Ark.)
On Oct. 9, 1974, Mills, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and perhaps the most powerful member of the House, was stopped for speeding near the Jefferson Memorial at 2 a.m. Shortly after, Annabella Battistella – a stripper who went by the stage-name of Fanne Foxe, the "Argentine Firecracker" – jumped out of his car and into the Potomac River tidal basin. The incident did not immediately threaten Mills, whose district was solidly Democratic. But Mills won reelection with only 59 percent of the vote, his lowest total ever. Within weeks, Mills appeared on a Boston stage carousing with Foxe, apparently intoxicated. Faced with an uprising among House Democrats, Mills was forced to resign as Ways and Means chairman, and in 1976 he announced he would not seek another term, ending his 38-year House career. He was succeeded by Jim Guy Tucker, whose own ethics got the attention of Kenneth Starr some two decades later.

1976

Rep. Wayne Hays (D-Ohio)
In its May 23, 1976, editions, The Washington Post quoted Elizabeth Ray as saying that she was a secretary for the House Administration Committee, headed by Hays, despite the fact that "I can't type, I can't file, I can't even answer the phone." She said the main responsibility of her $14,000-a-year job was to have sex with Hays. The fall of Hays, an arrogant bully who was one of the most powerful – and disliked – members of Congress, was rapid. The House ethics committee opened its investigation on June 2. He resigned as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on June 3. In the Democratic primary five days later, a car-wash manager/bartender who had run against Hays four previous times and never received more than 20 percent of the vote got 39 percent. Hays later resigned his committee chairmanship, dropped his reelection bid, and finally resigned on September 1.

Rep. John Young (D-Tex.)
On June 11, 1976, Colleen Gardner, a former staff secretary to Young, told the New York Times that Young increased her salary after she gave in to his sexual advances. In November, Young, who had run unopposed in the safe Democratic district five consecutive times, was reelected with just 61 percent of the vote. The scandal wouldn't go away, and in 1978 Young was defeated in a Democratic primary runoff.

Rep. Allan Howe (D-Utah)
On June 13, 1976, Howe was arrested in Salt Lake City on charges of soliciting two policewomen posing as prostitutes. Howe insisted he was set up and refused to resign. But the Democratic Party distanced itself from his candidacy and he was trounced by his Republican opponent in the November election.

Rep. Fred Richmond (D-N.Y.)
In April 1978, Richmond was arrested in Washington for soliciting sex from a 16-year-old boy. Richmond apologized for his actions, conceding he "made bad judgments involving my private life." In spite of a Democratic primary opponent's attempts to cash in on the headlines, Richmond easily won renomination and reelection. But his career came to an end four years later when, after pleading guilty to possession of marijuana and tax evasion – and amid allegations that he had his staff procure cocaine for him – he resigned his seat.

1980

Rep. Jon Hinson (R-Miss.)
On Aug. 8, 1980, during his first reelection bid, Hinson stunned everyone by announcing that in 1976 he had been accused of committing an obscene act at a gay haunt in Virginia. Hinson, married and a strong conservative, added that in 1977 he had survived a fire in a gay D.C. movie theater. He was making the disclosure, he said, because he needed to clear his conscience. But he denied he was a homosexual and refused GOP demands that he resign. Hinson won reelection in a three-way race, with 39 percent of the vote. But three months later, he was arrested on charges of attempted oral sodomy in the restroom of a House office building. He resigned his seat on April 13, 1981.

Rep. Robert Bauman (R-Md.)
On Oct. 3, 1980, Bauman, a leading "pro-family" conservative, pleaded innocent to a charge that he committed oral sodomy on a teenage boy in Washington. Married and the father of four, Bauman conceded that he had been an alcoholic but had been seeking treatment. The news came as a shock to voters of the rural, conservative district, and he lost to a Democrat in November.

1981

Rep. Thomas Evans (R-Del.)
The Wilmington News-Journal reported on March 6, 1981, that three House members – Evans, Tom Railsback (R-Ill.) and Dan Quayle (R-Ind.) – shared a cottage during a 1980 vacation in Florida with Paula Parkinson, a lobbyist who later posed for Playboy magazine. All three proceeded to vote against federal crop-insurance legislation that Parkinson had been lobbying against, and questions were raised whether votes were exchanged for sex. Railsback and Quayle denied having sex with her. Evans said he regretted his "association" with Parkinson and asked his family and God to forgive him. But he forgot to include the voters, who in 1982 threw him out of office.

1983

Reps. Dan Crane (R-Ill.) and Gerry Studds (D-Mass.)
The House ethics committee on July 14, 1983, announced that Crane and Studds had sexual relationships with teenage congressional pages – Crane with a 17-year-old female in 1980, Studds with a 17-year-old male in 1973. Both admitted the charges that same day, and Studds acknowledged he was gay. The committee voted to reprimand the two, but a back-bench Georgia Republican named Newt Gingrich argued that they should be expelled. The full House voted on July 20 instead to censure the two, the first time that ever happened for sexual misconduct. Crane, married and the father of six, was tearful in his apology to the House, while Studds refused to apologize. Crane's conservative district voted him out in 1984, while the voters in Studds's more liberal district were more forgiving. Studds won reelection in 1984 with 56 percent of the vote, and continued to win until he retired in 1996.

1987

Rep. Ernie Konnyu (R-Calif.)
In August 1987, two former Konnyu aides complained to the San Jose Mercury News that the freshman Republican had sexually harassed them. GOP leaders were unhappy with Konnyu's temperament to begin with, so it took little effort to find candidates who would take him on in the primary. Stanford professor Tom Campbell ousted Konnyu the following June.

1988

Sen. Brock Adams (D-Wash.)
On Sept. 27, 1988, Seattle newspapers reported that Kari Tupper, the daughter of Adams's longtime friends, filed a complaint against the Washington Democrat in July of 1987, charging sexual assault. She claimed she went to Adams's house in March 1987 to get him to end a pattern of harassment, but that he drugged her and assaulted her. Adams denied any sexual assault, saying they only talked about her employment opportunities. Adams continued raising campaign funds and declared for a second term in February of 1992. But two weeks later the Seattle Times reported that eight other women were accusing Adams of sexual molestation over the past 20 years, describing a history of drugging and subsequent rape. Later that day, while still proclaiming his innocence, Adams ended his campaign.

Rep. Jim Bates (D-Calif.)
Roll Call quoted former Bates aides in October 1988 saying that the San Diego Democrat made sexual advances toward female staffers. Bates called it a GOP-inspired smear campaign, but also apologized for anything he did that might have seemed inappropriate. The story came too close to Election Day to damage Bates, who won easily. However, the following October the ethics committee sent Bates a "letter of reproval" directing him to make a formal apology to the women who filed the complaint. Although the district was not thought to be hospitable to the GOP, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a former Navy pilot who was once shot down over North Vietnam, ousted Bates in 1990 by fewer than 2,000 votes.

1989

Rep. Donald "Buz" Lukens (R-Ohio)
On Feb. 1, 1989, an Ohio TV station aired a videotape of a confrontation between Lukens, a conservative activist, and the mother of a Columbus teenager. The mother charged that Lukens had been paying to have sex with her daughter since she was 13. On May 26, Lukens was found guilty of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and sentenced to one month in jail. Infuriating his fellow Republicans, Lukens refused to resign. But he finished a distant third in the May 1990 primary. Instead of spending the remaining months of his term in obscurity, Lukens was accused of fondling a Capitol elevator operator and he resigned on October 24, 1990.

Rep. Gus Savage (D-Ill.)
The Washington Post reported on July 19, 1989, that Savage had fondled a Peace Corps volunteer while on an official visit to Zaire. Savage called the story a lie and blamed it on his political enemies and a racist media. (Savage is black.) In January 1990, the House ethics committee decided that the events did occur, but decided against any disciplinary action because Savage wrote a letter to the woman saying he "never intended to offend" her. Savage was reelected in 1990, but finally ousted in the 1992 primary by Mel Reynolds.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.)
In response to a story in the Aug. 25, 1989, Washington Times, Frank confirmed that he hired Steve Gobie, a male prostitute, in 1985 to live with and work for him in his D.C. apartment. But Frank, who is gay, said he fired Gobie in 1987 when he learned he was using the apartment to run a prostitution service. The Boston Globe, among others, called on Frank to resign, but he refused. On July 19, 1990, the ethics committee recommended Frank be reprimanded because he "reflected discredit upon the House" by using his congressional office to fix 33 of Gobie's parking tickets. Attempts to expel or censure Frank failed; instead the House voted 408-18 to reprimand him. The fury in Washington was not shared in Frank's district, where he won reelection in 1990 with 66 percent of the vote, and has won by larger margins ever since.

1990

Rep. Arlan Stangeland (R-Minn.)
It was reported in January 1990 that Stangeland, married with seven children, had made several hundred long-distance phone calls in 1986 and 1987 on his House credit card to or from the residences of a female lobbyist. Stangeland acknowledged the calls and conceded some of them may have been personal. But he insisted the relationship was not romantic. Voters of his rural district were not buying, choosing a Democrat in November.

1991

Sen. Charles Robb (D-Va.)
On April 25, 1991, with NBC News about to go on the air with allegations he had an extramarital affair with Tai Collins, a former Miss Virginia, Robb made a preemptive strike. The Virginia Democrat, married to Lyndon Johnson's daughter, said he was with Collins in a hotel room, but all that took place was a massage over a bottle of wine. Collins, in a subsequent interview with Playboy, said they had been having an affair since 1983. It was thought that these charges, along with long-circulated but unproven allegations that Robb had attended Virginia Beach parties where cocaine was present, would jeopardize Robb's 1994 bid for re-election. But the GOP nominated Oliver North, the Iran-Contra figure who had his own credibility problems. Robb squeaked by with 46 percent in a three-way race.

1992

Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii)
In October 1992, Republican Senate nominee Rick Reed began running a campaign commercial that included a surreptitiously taped interview with Lenore Kwock, Inouye's hairdresser. Kwock said Inouye had sexually forced himself on her in 1975 and continued a pattern of sexual harassment, even as Kwock continued to cut his hair over the years. Inouye, seeking a sixth term, denied the charges. And Kwock said that by running the commercial, Reed had caused her more pain than Inouye had. Reed was forced to pull the ad, and while many voters took out their anger on the Republican, Inouye was held to 57 percent of the vote – the lowest total of his career. A week later, a female Democratic state legislator announced that she had heard from nine other women who claimed Inouye had sexually harassed them over the past decade. But the women didn't go public with their claims, the local press didn't pursue the story, and the Senate Ethics Committee decided to drop the investigation because the accusers wouldn't participate in an inquiry.

Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.)
Less than three weeks after Packwood narrowly won a fifth term, the Washington Post on Nov. 22, 1992, reported allegations from 10 female ex-staffers that Packwood had sexually harassed them. The Post had the story before the election, but didn't run it as Packwood had denied the charges. With the story now out in the open, Packwood said that if any of his actions were "unwelcome," he was "sincerely sorry." He then sought alcohol counseling. But his longtime feminist allies were outraged, and with more women coming forward with horror stories, there were calls for his resignation. It wasn't until September of 1995 when, faced with the prospect of public Senate hearings and a vote to expel, Packwood announced his resignation.

1994

Rep. Mel Reynolds (D-Ill.)
Freshman Reynolds was indicted on Aug. 19, 1994, on charges of having sex with a 16-year-old campaign worker and then pressuring her to lie about it. Reynolds, who is black, denied the charges and said the investigation was racially motivated. The GOP belatedly put up a write-in candidate for November, but Reynolds dispatched him in the overwhelmingly Democratic district with little effort. Reynolds was convicted on Aug. 22, 1995 of 12 counts of sexual assault, obstruction of justice and solicitation of child pornography, was sentenced to five years in prison, and resigned his seat on October 1.

Ken Rudin, a former editor at NPR and the Hotline, produces the ScuttleButton contest for washingtonpost.com and writes a column for The Hill. He can be reached at rudin@erols.com.

© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company

posted September 29, 2006 06:29 PM              

Maybe he was just being friendly...too friendly? Asking for a pic of the boy tho?

Have you watched Dateline's pedophile stings?? Absolutely DISGUSTING FILTH!!! One of the men caught, who thought he was going to get it on with i think a 13 year old boy, was a well respected Rabbi. SHAME!

posted September 29, 2006 07:20 PM            

One guy that got popped sent pics of his genitals, bought condoms and alcohol as gifts for what he believed was a 13 year old girl. He went to the house and recognized Chris Hanson.

posted October 03, 2006 03:32 PM            

Yes, you read that right: the Democrats. It's of course clear that Foley, a Republican representative from Florida, resigned for good cause. We don't defend him or his inexcusable behavior -- good riddance.

But it didn't take long at all after Foley's resignation for the Democrats to call for an investigation of the entire Republican leadership in the House, charging that GOP stalwarts knew early on that Foley, as they like to say in the rehab business, had a "problem."

Democrats have begun losing their once-significant lead in the polls, and a mere five weeks remain until the midterm elections. Is this scandal the Democrats' own "October Surprise," meant to throw the GOP into a tailspin shortly before the vote?

Recent polls show Democrats aren't doing very well on several key issues. What better way than a good, old-fashioned sex scandal to get people's minds off such things as the importance of winning the war in Iraq, our ongoing vulnerability to terrorist attack and the necessity of keeping the Bush economic boom going?

As it is, Republicans deny knowing about the explicit text messages that Foley sent to a 16-year-old congressional page back in 2003. In repudiating Foley, House Speaker Dennis Hastert called the messages "vile and repulsive."

Despite this, the immediate take by Democrats and much of the mainstream media was that this was a classic example of Republican hypocrisy -- talking "morals" and "values" while all the time shielding a child predator. But it was nothing of the kind.

If anything, the episode reveals the Democrats' hypocrisy about their own behavior. The fact that Foley resigned virtually within minutes of being told that ABC News had copies of his salacious e-mails and text messages indicates he at least felt shame for his actions. Can the same be said for Democrats?

Sadly, it doesn't seem so. How else can you explain the following?

In 1983, then-Democratic Rep. Gerry Studds of Massachusetts was caught in a similar situation. In his case, Studds had sex with a male teenage page -- something Foley hasn't been charged with.

Did Studds express contrition? Resign? Quite the contrary. He rejected Congress' censure of him and continued to represent his district until his retirement in 1996.

In 1989, Rep. Barney Frank (news, bio, voting record), also of Massachusetts, admitted he'd lived with Steve Gobie, a male prostitute who ran a gay sex-for-hire ring out of Frank's apartment. Frank, it was later discovered, used his position to fix 33 parking tickets for Gobie.

What happened to Frank? The House voted 408-18 to reprimand him -- a slap on the wrist. Today he's an honored Democratic member of Congress, much in demand as a speaker and "conscience of the party."

In 2001, President Clinton, who had his own intern problem, commuted the prison sentence of Illinois Rep. Mel Reynolds, who had sex with a 16-year-old campaign volunteer and pressured her to lie about it. (Reynolds also was convicted of campaign spending violations.)

You get the idea. Democrats not only seem OK with the kind of behavior for which Foley is charged, but also they protect and excuse it. Only when it's a Republican do they proclaim themselves shocked -- shocked! -- when it comes to light.

We have a lot more questions about this whole affair. The timing of the revelations, as we noted, couldn't be more propitious for the Democrats. Turns out both the Democrats and several newspapers seem to have known about Foley's problem as far back as November, according to research by several enterprising blogs.

Why didn't they come forward then? Who dredged up these e-mails -- and why did they hold them until now? This reeks of political trickery.

We're glad Foley's gone. He betrayed Congress, his party and the trust of the 33 pages who serve in Congress, and their parents. He behaved immorally, and we won't be surprised at new revelations.

posted October 03, 2006 04:50 PM            

quote:

---

He went to the house and recognized Chris Hanson.

---

Rofl. I would have liked to have seen that one.

posted October 03, 2006 05:37 PM            

The discussion should be over what the respective parties do about it when they find one of their members involved with a minor. So far, no direct sexual contact has been found to exist between Foley and any minor...unlike Gerry Studds and Mel Reynolds..both democrats who carried on sexual relationships with minors.

On that score, democrats show by actual practice they not only condone it but reward it since it fits in nicely with leftist values.

This hysterical shrieking by leftists only proves their extreme hypocrisy.

Foley has resigned and did so immediately; unlike democrats who refused to resign and were rewarded by the democrat party with juicy committee assignments and employment within democrat ranks.

Democrats have no interest in protecting children from sexual predatators. To democrats, this is about getting elected. It's going to blow up in their faces before it's all over.

The Left's Pedophile Problem
By Andrew Walden
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 3, 2006

Democrats trying to make political hay out of the resignation of Florida Republican Congressman Mark Foley should take a good look at their own party. There was Bill Clinton’s last minute pardon of former Rep. Mel Reynolds, D-IL, who had been imprisoned for having sex with a 16-year-old staffer. (He was later hired by Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition; both Clinton and Jackson had also had sex with subordinates.) There is the case of Rep. Barney Frank, D-MA, whose office housed a prostitution ring. However, less known is one Hawaiian case, in which more than seven high ranking Democrat senators and representatives (and one Republican) worked to assist one Leon Rouse – a convicted child molester serving time on underage sex charges in the Philippines. Rouse, now released after 8 years in prison, was hired last session as an employee of a Democrat-controlled Hawaii state Legislative Committee. 2008 Democratic presidential hopeful Russ Feingold also came to his defense, along with a Clinton-era U.S. embassy and more than half-a-dozen Democrats.

Arrested in the Philippines on October 4, 1995, and later convicted for paying 200 pesos to have sex with a 15-year-old boy, Leon Rouse served eight years of a 10-to-15-year sentence in New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City. After complaining of kidney stones, he was released by the Philippine authorities on September 29, 2003, and immediately deported to the U.S. As a condition of his release, he was banished from the Philippines for life.

In spite of being a convicted child molester, Rouse has received extensive help from many elected Democrats and one Republican. According to the May 22, 2005, Honolulu Advertiser:

U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye, D-HI, and U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-HI, informed a friend of Rouse’s on Maui that they had written to the Philippine ambassador to the United States. Both the late U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink, D-HI, and U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-HI, wrote to the State Department.

In Rouse’s home state of Wisconsin, U.S. Sen. Russell Feingold, D-WI, and U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, D-WI, along with several U.S. House members, wrote letters for Rouse. U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-PA, one of the most conservative members of the Senate, wrote to the State Department, as did U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, among the most liberal members of the House of Representatives…

Former Big Island [Democratic] State Sen. Andrew Levin wrote to the American ambassador in Manila to look into whether Rouse was denied due process. Levin also asked then-[Hawaiian Democratic] Gov. Ben Cayetano’s office for advice about whether the [Democrat-controlled] state Legislature should pass a resolution requesting that Congress investigate Rouse’s plight.

Former Hawaii State Democratic chair Richard Port wrote a 2005 opinion column in support of Rouse.

According to an October 29, 2002, article in the Wisconsin gay community newspaper In Step:

Rouse has been actively pursuing his case from prison, personally and through family and friends, contacting several members of the U.S. Congress for help. Rouse and supporters wrote letters to Rep. Gerald Kleczka, Rep. Tom Barrett, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Tammy Baldwin, Sen. Russell Feingold, Sen. Herb Kohl, and Sen. Daniel Inouye. Personal pleas were also made to the Philippine Ambassador to the United States and other government officials, all to little effect.

In recent years, Rouse also corresponded with [then-] Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland. Weakland wrote a letter to Cardinal Jaime Sin of the Philippines, asking for help on Rouse’s behalf.

(Weakland, one of the most liberal Catholic Archbishops, resigned in disgrace in 2002 after revelations of a sex-and-hush-money scandal.)

It is not clear whether Pelosi acted in support of Rouse; it would be most instructive to find out, as she has demanded House Republican leaders step down if they failed to act in response to Foley’s advances toward an underage boy.

The Clinton-era U.S. Embassy in Manila contacted the Philippine authorities on Rouse’s behalf. (The arrest came nine months after the Philippine authorities thwarted an al-Qaeda plot, known as “Operation Bojinka,” to bomb numerous commercial flights out of Manila – including at least one headed for Honolulu.)

Given these levels of support one might expect that Rouse had an exculpatory story, but even the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, in a July, 2005 report on an appeal by Rouse – a report which Rouse claims proves his innocence – describes the circumstances of Rouse’s arrest in damning terms:

Around noon on the day of arrest, he [Rouse] arrived at Pichay Lodging House, where he saw Harty Dancel, a former acquaintance, accompanied by two individuals, Pedro Augustin and Godfrey Domingo. The four of them had lunch in a restaurant, where Dancel offered Godfrey to have sex with the author. The author refused, arguing that the latter was too young, even after Dancel insisted and assured him he had reached the age of majority.

Later in the day, the same three persons waited for the author at his hotel. Dancel had them invited to the author’s room. After the author [Rouse] had taken a shower, Dancel and Augustin left the room, leaving him alone with Godfrey. The latter requested to use the bathroom, where he undressed. When there were knocks on the door, the author opened, and police officers entered. At that moment, neither the author nor Godfrey wore clothes.

In the initial Philippine court decision the events are described thus:

On or about the 4th day of October 1995, in the City of Laoag, Philippines, and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the herein accused did then and there, willfully, unlawfully, and feloniously by using his adult influence and promising to pay 200 pesos ($3.79 US), engage one Godfrey Domingo, a male child who is below 18 years of age, as in fact he is 15 years old, for lascivious acts and committed said acts by masturbating and sucking the ***** of the child and inserting his ***** into the anus of the child all of which acts were committed by the accused on said child at Room 205 of the Pichay Lodging House at Laoag City, but which acts although already performed by the accused on the child was discontinued due to the intervention of the police who apprehended the accused who was then naked and in the company of Godfrey Domingo who was also naked in Room 205 of the Pichay Lodging House.

Rouse appealed all the way to the Philippine Supreme Court where his appeal was denied on April 23, 2003.

When Rouse was deported back to the United States, he returned to Hawaii where he had been a gay rights activist in the early 1990s and helped State Senator Brian Kanno, D-Kapolei, launch his political career. Rouse’s activism extends back to his native Wisconsin, where the gay magazine Blueboy describes him as the first to use gay rights as an excuse to drive the military off campus:

The current nationwide movement to force ROTC, and by extension the Department of Defense, to stop discriminating against sexual non-conformists or to get off campus began in 1982, when Wisconsin became the first state to pass a lesbian and gay civil rights law. Two students at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Eric Jernberg and Leon Rouse, decided to ask their school to adhere to the spirit of the new law by suspending participation in the ROTC program if that program continued to violate the terms of the statute.

The anti-military campaign started by Rouse in 1982 was finally put to an end 24 years later by the unanimous March 6, 2006, Supreme Court ruling upholding the Solomon Amendment which requires federally funded colleges to allow access to military recruiters.

Democrats’ support for Rouse extends beyond helping win his release from prison. When he returned to Hawaii, State Senator Roz Baker, D-Maui, gave Rouse a recommendation for a cabin-boy job with Norwegian Cruise Lines. Rouse took the job May 2, 2004, but didn’t last long. On June 11, 2004, he was fired and thrown off the ship at a port call in California after being accused of sexually harassing his male co-workers.

When news of Rouse’s firing reached his friends in the Hawaii Legislature, they immediately sprung into action. According to an article in Hawaii Reporter:

Kanno asked his colleagues, both House and Senate elected officials, to sign a letter demanding that the company rehire Rouse or pay him restitution and travel expenses. The letter dated Aug. 24, 2004, to Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL), was signed by Democrat Senators Kanno, Baker, Suzanne Chun Oakland, Brian Taniguchi and Carol Fukunaga – all chairs of their respective committees. In addition, House Chairs Roy Takumi, Kenneth Hiraki and Eric Hamakawa [all Democrats] signed the letter.

Kanno also introduced a resolution (SR65) requiring the cruise line to detail its sexual harassment policy, and demanded that the state Department of Taxation consider mandating the cruise line pay Hawaii’s 7.25 percent transient accommodations tax. The Senate members who signed the resolution include: Sens. Carol Fukunaga, Roz Baker, Brian Kanno, Gary Hooser, Clarence Nishihara, Ron Menor, Russell Kokubun, Kalani English, Colleen Hanabusa and Brian Taniguchi. [All are Democrats.]

Hooser, Hanabusa, and Menor were all competitive but unsuccessful candidates this year for the Democratic Party nomination for Congress, 2nd District of Hawaii.

When NCL refused to bend to the legislators’ demands, Sen. Kanno helped Rouse get a job as office manager for State Representative Rida Cabanilla, D-Waipahu. Rouse resigned that position in April, 2005 as news of his criminal record came to light. But that was not the end of Rouse career as a legislative aide. In full knowledge of his conviction, Rouse was then hired in a new position serving one of his original sponsors, Sen Roz Baker, D-Maui, as a legislative assistant. This made Rouse the only employee of a State legislature anywhere in the United States known to have a criminal record for child molestation.

Rouse’s position under Baker expired with the end of the Hawaii Legislative session. It is possible he will be rehired for the next session.