BOYZ 'N LAHOOD
Rep. LaHood makes inappropriate hand gestures around minors
Seeking the award for over-reaction of the year, Illinois Republican Congressman Ray LaHood appeared on CNN yesterday, suggesting that the congressional page program be shut down.
In effect, he admitted that Congressional leaders cannot be trusted to behave themselves around minors.
And who said politicians aren't honest?
An excerpt of the interview:
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: After all these years, why would you suggest dropping the page program now?
REp. RAY LAHOOD (R): Well, look it, Miles, this program was flawed when the Democrats ran it. We know that Gerry Studds, a Congressman from Massachusetts, was involved with a young boy in a homosexual activity. And there was Congressman from Illinois that was involved with a young page a couple decades ago. And we see what's happened now with former Congressman Foley and his activities with pages.
To send 15 and 16-year-old boys and girls to Washington, D.C., it's an antiquated system. And my idea is let's suspend it, send the pages home, and have some scholarly people in Washington really evaluate the program and bring it into the 21st century. It just -- it's a program that simply is flawed. It has its flaws. We should fix it. And then if it's a valuable program, perhaps bring it back.
M. O'BRIEN: Well, that's kind of a sorry state of affairs. In essence, what you're saying is that members of Congress can't be trusted to be around young people.
LAHOOD: Well, that's pretty obvious. It's pretty obvious with respect to Mark Foley and it was pretty obvious a couple decades ago when other members of Congress were involved with young boys and girls. And these young men and women come to Washington, they look to us as their heroes and people they can look up to, and then we betray their trust or some members betray their trust by taking advantage of them. And we should not subject young men and women to this kind of activity and this kind of vulnerability. And what I'm saying is let's have some scholarly people in Washington really look at the program.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, well...
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