Turn the page already

It's been more than two weeks since the Mark Foley internet chat scandal hit the papers and the airwaves--although you wouldn't necessarily know it, given that such a 98-pound-weakling of a story has done an impressive job of kicking sand in the face of some other major news stories. The slaughter of Amish schoolchildren by a man who may or may not have molested female relatives two decades ago and the growing nuke-u-lar threat from North Korea, well, they've tried hard, but nothing succeeds in the American psyche like a good sex scandal. And something creepy and painful like a milk truck driver from Pennsylvania carrying out an unfathomable mass murder in a peaceful, traditional, agrarian community, just can't compare to the easy, unencumbered titillation of the continuing drama, As the Page Turns.

Now comes news this morning of another page scandal, this one, blessedly, of yore. CNN reports the death of Congressman Gerry Studds (D-Massachusetts), who was censured by Congress in 1983 for having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old page ten years before. Studds was censured alongside of Representative Dan Crane (R-Illinois), who apparently had an inappropriate relationship with a 17-year-old female page in 1980.

Despite the censure and the inappropriate relationship with the page, Studds went on to serve several more terms in Congress and last year married his significant other in the Bay State (where gay marriage is legal, of course). Crane, meanwhile, returned to his old life in Chicago and his dental practice.

As far as I know, neither ever claimed alcoholism or unwanted attention from a priest was the root cause of their behavior, although I haven't read the autobiographies, should they exist.

Still, you gotta wonder what it is about these Congressman and their desire for high school-aged tail. The District of Columbia tends to attract a pretty serious, self-important crowd--I remember a Washington Post columnist once describing the city as being filled with people who were nerds in high school who finally made good--in bureaucracy. Despite the type of soul-killing "hottie" that's attracted to the policy wonk lifestyle--a lifestyle where people debate liability issues among strippers (an actual conversation I once overheard, never you mind where I was at the time when I heard it), it's not like the District of Columbia is filled with people in chastity belts, wimples, and burkhas (at least not yet anyway). From what I recall from my time there, it wasn't entirely impossible to get laid in Washington--and by/with someone of approximately your own age and lifestyle even.

So what gives? Maybe it's like what that columnist indicated, the nerds come to town--the guys and gals who never got a date with the prom king or queen, the ones who instead of hanging out with the in crowd at Friday night football games were at home having their parents drill them on Latin roots for their SATs--and they make good. Then, finally, at 40-something, everything convulses and convolutes. One sweltering spring day (this is Washington after all, we built this city on swamp and woe), they have a "What's It All About, Alfie?" moment while sweating in out solo in a wool suit at the Capitol South Metro station, watching a gaggle of teenagers in tees, jeans, and flip-flops, enjoying their easy laughter and casual camaraderie, without a care or a carbuncle. Or maybe they have a Tod in Venedig experience while watching an intern photocopy a House subcommittee on fisheries report, the blue-green glow of the tube highlighting their naturally tanned and lineless face. Snap! Crackle! Don't call me Pops! The midlife crisis kicks in, and they decide to strike back against nerdiocrity with the closest sexy young 17-year-old at hand.

At last. They have enough money, power, and clear skin (although still not the looks--as they say down around the Beltway: Washington, D.C.--Hollywood for Ugly People), not to mention wounded, festering egos and dull-ache hurt feelings, that they finally go after what they wanted all those years ago. In the mindset of arrested development, they hit on a "fellow" 17-year-old--and then end up on the front page with a page.

But holy wow! What a scandal! At least it shows all the jocks back in high school that you're a man's man after all! What a stud you are--and it only took 25 years after anyone stopped giving a rat's patoot to prove it. And never you mind about the power inequality in the relationship, that your seniority--if you'll pardon the expression--carries a disproportionate amount of influence in a relationship with a, um, kid. We're all just so proud of you, you great big stinking egocentric loser.

Perhaps a similar consciousness figured into Bill Clinton's consensual yet highly inappropriate tryst with Monica Lewinsky. Yet another goofy nerd from high school who grows up to be one of the most powerful men in the Free World, yet still can't get past being the fat kid in school (his words, not mine), so he decides to chuck it all in for a game of cigars, cigarettes, and Tiparillos with an over-eager beaver--who was of legal age but who still represented an inappropriate choice. After all, Clinton was, in effect, her boss.

Oh, and yeah, almost forgot, he was married, too, and had a daughter, Chelsea, who was about Monica's same age, but who's counting?

Does anyone else hear Sigmund Freud clearing his throat from his grave--or is it just me?

But perhaps all this psychology is just all too much psychobabble. I had a hard life as a teenager! My father abandoned me! My priest looked at me and licked his lips, then winked! "Go to Oprah! Go to Oprah!" as they chant during such moments on the Jerry Springer show.

Yet I am not here to defame Caesar nor to bury Caesar. (Caesar? I hardly know her. Wocka wocka.) I'm not even here to go all moralistic on Caesar's ass. (People who live in glass houses shouldn't invite anyone over without Windexing the place first and all that.) I may make fun of others' adult angst over childhood traumas, but I don't mean to make light of the actual trauma. Frankly, I have enough of my own to prevent me from going in high disrespect mode for anyone else's. Childhood is difficult and childhood trauma, no matter the depth or variety, stays with you for years. Maybe forever. Years and life changes later, it can bother us, aggravate us, shape us, even destroy us and destroy others around us, if the case of the truck driver and the Amish schoolchildren is to be understood at all.

Nonetheless, as much as I understand my own self at midlife, I think part of adulthood involves separating the explanations from the excuses and preventing as much as possible what perturbs us from poisoning those around us.

So Mister Congressman, step away from the page and keep you hands where we can see them. Get some counseling while you're at it and heal your inner child, instead of pawing someone else's child. And Mister Milk Truck Driver, if you molested someone--or someone molested you, which seems the likely scenario, given the rage and pain with which you approached the massacre--and are tortured by the pain of the offense, seek help, seek forgiveness, seek jail time, seek anything but firearms and revenge against a bunch of school girls who never did anything to you in the first place.

Turn the page already and close the book. You're done with that chapter of your life. Time to pick up a pen, put it to paper, and write yourself a better, happier ending.