Following the Foley Money

I've long believed that political contributions are nothing more nor less than legalized bribery. The story of how sexual predator congressman Mark Foley quieted concerns about his page-trolling is proof as to how direct these bribes can be.

1. Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA) brought Foley's solicitation of a page to the attention of Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY) sometime last spring.
2. Reynolds, chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, had a conversation with Foley.
3. On July 27, Foley's campaign committee wrote a check for $100,000 to Reynold's committee. That is the only contribution Foley's campaign has made to any campaign in 2006.
   
4. Reynolds reports to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert that the Foley situation has been resolved.
   
5. The matter is very quietly dropped until the shit hit the fan last week.
   

Was that $100,000 hush money? Of course it was. Congressmen use their campaign committees to buy influence and favors from their colleagues all the time.
The converstion between Reynolds and Foley went something like this:

Reynolds: Mark, you've been e-mailing pages again, haven't you? One of the pages talked. Didn't we tell you to cut that out?
Foley: Am I in trouble?
Reynolds: No. Not if you show your loyalty to your party, to your colleagues, by writing my committee a generous check. I promise I'll make this whole thing disappear again.
Foley: How's fifty grand?
Reynolds: You can do better than that.
Foley: Hundred-k?
Reynolds: Sounds good. So, have you been able to bang any of those boys lately.
Foley: Nah.
Reynolds: Aw, tough luck. If you do, remember to gift them up good so they won't talk.
Foley: You bet.

Foley gave the National Republican Congressional Committee $200,000 just before the 2004 elections. Any guesses what that successfully covered up?

Foley's campaign gifts.