Ethics update - Republican National Committee memo insinuating that Tom Foley is homosexual

National Review, July 14, 1989

YOU SAW the news story about the Republican National Committee memo insinuating that the new Speaker of the House, Tom Foley, is homosexual. When Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts made a stink about it (threatening to expose five Republicans in Congress as homosexual), the memo's author, Mark Goodin, was fired, with George Bush calling the insinuation "disgusting." The Democratic/ media attack widened to include Lee Atwater and Newt Gingrich.

It was a cheap shot, all right, but what you didn't read was that the rumors about Foley had been circulating in Washington for months. They seem to have come, as Evans & Novak reported weeks ago, from the general direction of Jim Wright's office when Wright was still fighting to keep his job and Foley appeared to be his likely successor.

Goodin didn't originate the rumor; the Democrats themselves did. It says a lot about Washington that a) the Democrats could assume the moral offensive over so small an offense, b) the media could tell the story just the way Frank wanted it told, even as he engaged in public blackmail, and c) the Republicans would take it lying down.

So Goodin paid with his job for an innuendo, while Frank's Massachusetts colleague and fellow homosexual, Gerry Studds, suffered no more than a reprimand, six years ago, for actually sodomizing a House page. Under the House's unwritten ethics code, it's acceptable to be a homosexual, even an aggressive pederast. But it's a mortal sin to call someone a homosexual.

Republicans on Capitol Hill are still divided-or at least undecided-about how combative they should be on ethics issues. The correct answer is: very. Unless, that is, they prefer the peace of total acquiescence. The Democrats, judging from Frank's aggressive reaction, know how vulnerable they are. This is the Republicans' window of opportunity. But if they start fights they can't finish, they will get the sort of treatment they got this time. If they choose not to fight, why are they in Washington?