Alcoholics create havoc on the right: Foley, Coulter and Haggard
Likely Addicts Cause Havoc for the Right: Congressman Mark Foley, Writer-Pundit Ann Coulter and Evangelical Christian Rev. Ted Haggar
Alcoholics have an impact way out of proportion to their numbers. While only about 10% of the population consists of alcohol or other-drug addicts, they commit as much as 80% of crime, abuse and unethical behaviors. That affects all of us, often in disastrous ways.
Groups of people”and how others feel about their ideas”can also be affected. It probably didn’t help my libertarian brethren or dissemination of the philosophy of free markets that the man who may be more responsible for our freedom than anyone was an alcoholic. Thomas Paine authored Common Sense, the pamphlet that inspired the American Revolution and Declaration of Independence. By the time of his death in 1809, he had become so obvious and nasty a drunk that all of the surviving Founding Fathers had renounced him. While thousands showed up at Benjamin Franklin’s funeral, only six showed up at Paine’s.
His alcoholism was likely long-standing, as is true for almost every addict who becomes obvious in the spiral down. Paine’s behavior was erratic enough throughout his life that author Eric Foner hypothesized that he suffered from severe depression, while author Craig Nelson in a new book on Paine (Thomas Paine: Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Birth of Modern Nations) suggests he may have had Bipolar Disorder. Since these are usually mimicked or triggered by alcoholism, Paine likely went through the typical stages of alcoholism in which a trajectory of achievement in the early stage is often followed by crashing and burning as late-stage addiction takes hold.
Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL), author and pundit Ann Coulter and the Rev. Ted Haggard offer examples of achievement (whether or not we agree on the quality of the achievements), followed by crashing in various stages. The first was an obscure Republican Congressman from Florida whose poor judgment may have contributed greatly to his Party’s loss of the legislative branch of the federal government to the Democrats. The second is an outspoken Republican and offers a classic example of how nastiness”possibly impelled by alcoholism”can inflict damage on an entire political party. The latter just stepped down as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents 30 million evangelical Christians, due to accusations of gay sex and meth use. One alcoholic can have extraordinarily wide-ranging effects.
Congressman Foley, 52, was head of a congressional committee, charged with shutting down child molesters using the Internet, the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. He was caught sending lascivious emails to 16-year-old male Congressional pages. House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) admitted he had heard about the emails months before, but was told the matter “had been taken care of.”Not if Foley is an alcoholic and was still drinking, it wasn’t, because alcoholism drives misbehaviors.
Representative John Shimkus, the Congressman who runs the Page Board, attempted to treat symptoms. Shimkus, a straight-talking West Pointer and former Army Ranger, warned Foley in the fall of 2005 to stay away from pages. Shimkus, satisfied with what appeared to be remorse and a promise to follow orders, now refers to Foley as a “slimeball.”He admits he was fooled by Foley’s performance. Alcoholics can be great performers, tell you everything you want to hear, repeatedly make promises they never intend to keep and convince you of their sincerity, every time.
No one seems to be able to recall seeing Foley “drunk,”except when he “allegedly”showed up inebriated at the pages’ dorm after a 10 p.m. curfew in 2002 or 2003. However, consider the fact that enablers frequently keep the secret and that alcoholics often don’t look drunk at BALs that obliterate the rest of us. Also, consider the oft-repeated story that Foley’s former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, sometimes accompanied Foley to “keep him out of trouble.”There was probably far more going on than the public was let in on.
Ann Coulter has been described as “hard drinking.”She is quick-witted and callous. She branded 9/11 widows as “witches”in her latest book, writing, “I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ death so much.”I appreciate much of what Paine wrote; I even like much of what Coulter has written. But like Paine, she has made an ass out of herself.
Just days before the election, the Rev. Ted Haggard admitted he bought methamphetamine and received a massage from a gay prostitute who claims he was paid for drug-fueled trysts. Haggard denies having had sex with the Denver man, Mike Jones, 49, and claims he “never used”the meth and bought it because he was “just curious.”Sorry Reverend, your excuse sounds eerily similar to the one drug addicts use every day with parents and cops: the stash “isn’t mine,”or it’s a friend’s, or “I don’t know how it got there.”The denial of heavy use, “I only drank two beers,”is familiar to every cop making an arrest for DUI.
While it’s hard to quantify the effect each of these (likely) alcoholics’ misbehaviors had on voters’ decisions, it’s probably well above zero. The Economist reported before the election that the Foley scandal resulted in an additional seven Congressional seats as “toss-ups,”up from 18 before the scandal, all of which likely went Democratic (including New York’s 26th District, which threw out Rep. Tom Reynolds, who headed the House Republican campaign committee). Add to this the other scandals of the last few years, including Abu Ghraib and Rep. Bob Ney (see below), both of which involved alcoholism, along with likely-alcoholic Rep. Duke Cunningham and the entire Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal, which was probably brimming with alcoholics. It’s possible that many disillusioned evangelical Christians, who usually vote at least two to one Republican, didn’t quite make it to the polls on November 7. At exit polls, when asked which issue was extremely important to their vote, more voters said corruption and ethics than any other issue, including the Iraq war.
We should all reconsider when thinking we don’t want to know too much about someone, or that we should “protect”him because he’s our friend. It may bring down our house.