Foley Recounts “Cruising” with Page to Morton’sIn its earlier report, AP noted that former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL), the boy-loving congressman from Florida, took a 16-year-old page to lunch at Morton’s.
How’s that again?
“John was the highest bidder on lunch with Mark Foley,” the congressman recounted in a June 2002 speech to House pages published in the Congressional Record. (The pages have a fundraiser every year to pay for their prom, a former page explained to me.)
“John had paid considerable sums to dine with me. I had offered to take the winning bidder to lunch in the Members’ dining room.” But after hearing how much the boy paid, Foley recounted,
“I said, ‘John, there is no way in the world after you committed so much money to have lunch with me that I would dare take you downstairs to eat in the Members’ dining room.'”
“I said, ‘Where do you want to go?’
“He says, without reservation, ‘Morton’s.’ I said, ‘Morton’s? Like in Morton’s Steakhouse?’
“He said, ‘Oh, would that be too much?’ I said, ‘Oh, no, we’ll go.’
“I said, ‘Call your mother, get permission, make sure she notifies the Clerk and we will go to Morton’s.’
“And so we proceeded to cruise down in my BMW to Morton’s.”
