Hastert the pimp
An interesting lesson about the efficacy of intelligence collection can be found in the sordid, soap-opera drama of Rep Mark Foley, a Republican Representative from of all places, the nation's political freak zoo--Florida. Foley as you may remember, is the apparent stalker, possibly would-be pedophile who sent mashing and explicit notes to a Congressional Page, asking for, among other things, a picture of the young man. Foley resigned when some of the emails became public. The lesson here is that knowing something is not as important as doing something about it.
The FBI has now decided to examine Foley's emails.
In the case of Foley, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was notified of Foley's contacts with pages as early as a year ago and did nothing but warn Foley to "leave the pages alone." Hastert's defense is that they hadn't seen the raunchier emails yet.
The hypocrisy of these guys never ceases to amaze me. When you look at some of their bizarre "principle" stands like trying to upend the Constitution to keep poor, brain-dead Terry Schiavo alive and yet leaving a Humbert Humbert wannabe in Congress and get this, also serving as co-chair of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus; it's mind-boggling.
So the lesson here is that increasing intelligence collection is not sufficient in of itself. Protection of our shores and apparently our children is not guaranteed by having prior knowledge of attacks or scouring email looking for intent--it requires the will to act and the absence of overarching political concerns. Information is useless unless it is actionable.
Posted on October 02, 2006