October 2006

Secret Keepers in the News

by John Prin
Addiction Counselor
The Republican congressman from Florida abruptly quit his post Friday, Sept 29 * -- for which he was considered a shoo-in for a new term in the upcoming election -- after his e-mails expressing undue interest in a 16-year old male page were exposed to the nation.

In those emails, Foley asked the boy to send a photo of himself and also sent sexually explicit instant messages to him and other pages. In one message he wrote, "Do I make you a little horny?" and in another, ".strip down and get naked." The boy told a colleague the e-mails "freaked me out" and were "sick," according to transcripts.

Foley's follies were known to Republican leadership as early as a year ago, in September 2005, which makes the recent exposure of them evidence of secret-keeping in itself.

Foley, 52, may be faulted for doing a poor job of covering up his indiscretions (atypical of accomplished Secret Keepers!) but not his superiors -- a phenomenon I've come to call "institutional secret-keeping" (that's where institutions like government agencies or corporations stonewall the public about scandalous misdeeds by their executives.think Enron, Tyco, HP, etc).

Your can read more details about Foley for yourself in the news. But please consider the enormous damage and harmful fallout his secret-keeping caused: 1. the impact on the boy and his family, 2. the Congressman's self-destruction of his flourishing career and the shame he foisted on his innocent family, 3. the scramble to find a replacement candidate only five weeks before an upcoming election, 4. the cover-up by party leaders and demands by Democrats (rightly) for yet another investigation into who-knew-and-when, and 5. the souring, once again, of our national psyche.

Secret-keeping destroys! Foley's photo accompanying the news stories portrays a friendly, trusting, healthy man of open-minded sensibilities -- yet another trait of Secret Keepers (appearances trump reality). Sadly, this current scandal is one in a long list of politicians smitten with power. Don't we humans ever learn from others' mistakes?

Email John Prin your thoughts.

You can also reach me at 952-941-1870 or read my books, Stolen Hours: Breaking Free From Secret Addictions. and the sequel, Secret Keeping: Overcoming Hidden Habits and Addictions.

* St. Paul Pioneer Press, Sept. 30, 2006 p. 6A