Buchanan: Gay "mafia" on Hill "looked upon the pages" as their "personal preserve"

On the October 9 edition of MSNBC's Scarborough Country, MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan, during a discussion about the scandal surrounding former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL), accused a number of gay staffers and lawmakers associated with the scandal -- including Kirk Fordham, former chief of staff to both Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY) and Foley -- of being "this little mafia in there [that] looked upon the pages, I guess, as their -- sort of their personal preserve." Buchanan added that "it stinks to high heaven what was done. And it stinks to high heaven that it was not exposed." However, as Media Matters for America has documented, Fordham has stated that he informed House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's (R-IL) office of Foley's interaction with underage congressional pages years ago, and another congressional staffer has come forward to corroborate Fordham's account.

From the October 9 edition of MSNBC's Scarborough Country:

SCARBOROUGH: Pat Buchanan, now we're finding out, again, other pages coming forward, saying maybe the reason why the Republicans didn't find out is because [Rep. Jim] Kolbe [R-AZ] was keeping to himself. These pages saying, according to The Washington Post, that Kolbe offered to let them use his apartment when he left town. I mean, is it any wonder that you look at these latest polls according to Newsweek, 53 percent of Americans want the Democrats to take control of Congress, only 35 want Republicans to hold it. I mean, this is a mess.

BUCHANAN: Look, Kolbe is gay. He is an out-of-the-closet gay. Foley was gay. The House clerk who was in charge of the pages was gay. Foley's administrative assistant, Mr. Fordham, The New York Times tell us, was gay. You hear about a lot of others. What's going on here, Joe, is basically these, this little mafia in there looked upon the pages, I guess, as their -- sort of their personal preserve. And it stinks to high heaven what was done. And it stinks to high heaven that it was not exposed and these types of people, thrown out by the Republican Party --

SCARBOROUGH: OK. Wait a minute.

BUCHANAN: It is Republican leadership --

[crosstalk]

ANA MARIE COX (Washington editor, Time.com): I think you need to be very careful about that kind of accusation.

SCARBOROUGH: Hold on a second, though, Pat. Well, but, Pat, what about the fact that Denny Hastert was told in 2003, 2004, or at least his staff was told in 2003 or 2004 that Mark Foley was behaving inappropriately? And by the way, certainly nobody suggests that Kolbe ever sent these type of IMs, just that he confronted Foley back in 2000.

—K.D.