Writing this diary gives me no pleasure whatsoever; you can believe that or not. Something has been innocently noted on another DKos diary and I realized its implications. It may be good for the Democrats; I don't know. I'm afraid that it may be bad for gays. That truly bothers me. Neither one is the point. The truth needs to come out; that's the point. What follows may help make sense of some of the chatter that's been going on recently about "gay Republican conspiracies" in the Foley matter.
<strike>Jim Kolbe is a politically brave man.</strike> He is only the second openly gay Republican to serve in the House. Elected in 1985, he came out in August, 1996, after voting <strike>against</strike> for the Defense of Marriage Act.
He was also the head of the Page Board from the first day Newt Gingrich was sworn in as Speaker in January 1995 until he was suddenly replaced in <strike>April 2001</strike> February 1999 by Sue Kelly, R-NY. That's what I just found out tonight.
More below.
[UPDATE: Actually the brave one alluded to above was Steve Gunderson.]
Credit for this find -- which has been out and available in the open air, but which I, at least, have not seen mentioned in relation to the Foley scandal -- goes to DKos poster MrMacMan, who posted an answer to a question I had posed in his diary regarding who had been in charge of the Page Board in the past.
I assume (but do not know, I'm not a reporter) that the Page Board works much the same way as does committees in Congress, where the member of the majority party has the most power. (Thus Rep. Shimkus's ability to keep Rep. Kildee away from the Foley investigations.) That means the from Day 1 of the Republican revolution, and from Day 1 of Rep. Foley's tenure in Congress, Rep. Kolbe was in control of that program.
I believe that most gay men, in that position, have strong moral fiber and would not act in a predatory way towards pages, just as most straight men wouldn't. I have no basis to believe that Rep. Kolbe is an exception. Nor is there reason to assume that Rep. Kolbe knew of Rep. Foley's interests in pages, let alone that he abetted Rep. Foley's pursuits. There is reason to ask questions, clearly, largely due to the fact that when Rep. Kolbe became head of this program, he was in the closet, and his own sexual liaisons, whether with adults or not, would be ones that he worked to keep away from the public record. (My sense is that pages would have more to fear from predation by closeted gay men than from openly gay men; the latter situation would be more directly akin to a girl rebuffing a straight male representative's advances, without the added concern about one's objections leading to outing him.) I previously asked my question of who the previous Page Board chairs were just to see who else might have kept Rep. Foley's secrets. I did not expect Rep. Kolbe's name to come up.
For what it's worth, Jim Kolbe has struck me as one of the more decent Republicans around, despite his support for the torture bill, and frankly I hope that the obvious questions that derive from the facts at hand have benign answers. But let the chips fall where they may.
At a minimum, Rep. Kolbe's status on that committee may explain why the likes of Pat Buchanan are foaming at the mouth abut gay Republican conspiracies. It would not be unlike Mr. Buchanan to be unfair and to base his accusations on nothing but hot smoke. But there are certainly now reasons for Mr. Kolbe to be asked, and publicly answer, several questions from journalists.
I assume that Rep. Kolbe would not admit to having had any sexual relations or erotic encounters (internet or otherwise) with pages, if any did ever happen, in the absence of compelling evidence forcing him to do so. Obviously, he'll be asked, but he'd probably decline to comment or say "no" even if he had.
What Rep. Kolbe ought to be asked is whether and when and how he learned of any sexual interest on the part of Rep. Foley for House Pages, and what if anything he did to prevent or dissuade it. (He will also of course asked whether he did anything to facilitate it; again, I assume that he would refuse to answer the question or say he didn't do so absent contrary evidence, regardless of the facts.) From August 1996 on, Rep. Kolbe was a senior, openly gay Congressman. It would be very surprising if he would not have had a fair amount of interaction with a closeted Republican member who clearly didn't worry too much about staying well-hidden in the closet. Perhaps he was a mentor, perhaps a scold, but either way, they probably talked about aspects of being a gay Republican in Congress. They probably weren't talking about this to Marliyn Musgrave or Jim Demint, after all.
Finally, Rep. Kolbe -- and Rep. Hastert, who was running Congress at the time -- should be asked why he was replaced as head of the Page Board in <strike>April of 2001</strike> February of 1999. I have no evidence that there was anything weird about that except that the timing is unusual <strike>and he left the Board at the end of the year</strike>. Why the abrupt transition?
[Update: several posters have corrected the dates I originally posted; Kolbe was replaced as chair in 1999 and remained on the Board until 2001.]
Sue Kelly should be asked the same questions -- while she is in a different room from Rep. Kolbe.
I'm not sure what the best case is for Rep. Kolbe. I suppose it would be that Rep. Kolbe never had any improper contact with pages, had no reason to think that Rep. Foley had any such contact, and was suddenly replaced as Board head for benign reasons. This is all certainly possible. Then again, one has to ask why, then, male House pages were warned about Rep. Foley in 1995 under Rep. Kolbe's watch.
The worst case is horrible. But I won't even focus on the ramifications for Rep. Kolbe, who is about to retire after eleven terms in the House. Rather, if Rep. Kolbe's hands are not clean here, what are the ramifications for Denny Hastert, who must have known about this back when the Page Board Chair was suddenly shifted to Sue Kelly <strike>in April 2001</strike>?
What are the ramifications for Sue Kelly, now in the fight of her life against John Hall in NY-19, who must have had some inkling about why she was taking over suddenly? What did Sue Kelly know back when she took the baton in <strike>2001</strike> 1999? If Foley is one of a string of Congressmen who used the House Pages not for their pleasure not merely from a random perch in Congress, but as the head of the very program in which those pages worked, then how could she possibly justify keeping her mouth shut and continuing to recruit pages while more than one such "overfriendly" predator remained in Congress?
We've been picking on Hastert, deservedly so. But what did Gingrich know before he quit? Gingrich hasn't had his head stuck in a bog since 1998; if Kolbe was helping Foley along, why didn't he raise his voice? What happened to the man who wanted Gerry Studds expelled from Congress for far less than this?
I really don't like this sort of speculation. I don't like posting this diary. But a couple of dots were there to be connected, I recognized Kolbe's name, for whatever reason so far as I can tell this has not been reported until now, and I think that these fact lead to the legitimate questions I have asked above. Rep. Kolbe must be asked questions about the Foley matter and his own role in administering the House Page prorgram. He must answer theose questions honestly, publicly, and immediately.