House Speaker Thomas S. Foley is using the quiet of a congressional recess
to push an argument that hasn't sold well in a heated battle of sound bites - that the House bank scandal is overblown."Exaggerations have taken this thing to a dimension that is unreal," Foley said in an interview with The Associated Press this week, one of a long string of news media appearances by the Washington state Democrat.
Foley went on weekend television news shows, appeared on Cable News Network's Larry King Live call-in program, sat for tapings with other TV and radio groups and gave interviews to print reporters before flying off to his home district in Spokane.
He can't deny the public outrage or defend the operation of the now defunct members-only House bank, which, according to ethics committee data released Thursday, handled more than 24,000 penalty-free overdrafts during a 39-month period.
Instead, he's trying to correct some misimpressions that have become accepted by many as fact during the whirl of revelations.
"I'm a little frustrated," he said. "I keep quoting Mark Twain, a favorite quote of my former boss (Washington Sen.) Henry Jackson, that `it isn't what the people don't know that's the problem, it's what they know for sure that ain't so."'
His two biggest beefs:
- Although polls show most people believe otherwise, no taxpayer money was lost. Members who took advantage of the free overdrafts were using the balances of their colleagues.
- As a rule, the checks didn't "bounce." Indeed, they were virtually bounce-proof even if the member's account was well overdrawn. "It's kind of ironic, for example, all the jokes about how `we don't take congressional checks,' " Foley said.
The speaker blames sloppy news reporting but concedes many lawmakers themselves may be to blame. "There are people inside the Congress who are perpetuating some of the misconceptions for political purposes or otherwise," he complains.
Some of those members - including some fellow Democrats - blame Foley for the mess. A couple have even called on him to step down as speaker.
Foley has rejected the calls, but his increased attention on defending colleagues and engaging the news media more are aimed in part at addressing the criticism he's received.
The future of Foley and his leadership team could depend on the outcome of next November's election. Republicans have been working hard to make the bank scandal and the unrelated charges of drug dealing and embezzlement at the House Post Office a partisan issue.