Inside the Mind of Mark Foley? Yeah, Right.

Ex-congressman's Mark Foley’s new radio show debuted this evening, and man, was it a snoozer. When Seaview AM 960 in Palm Beach County, Fla., first announced that the disgraced former representative was going to take to the airwaves, it titled the program Inside the Mind of Mark Foley. This sounded like an exhilarating proposition─a little creepy, maybe, but definitely worth a listen. How deeply into his psyche would we be venturing, and what fascinating and disturbing things would we discover?

Well, it turns out, not much. The show is now called Foley on Politics, and rather than delving into the stuff we really want to know─like how he reconciled working on the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus with sending suggestive e-mails to minors─instead we got to hear his thoughts on the importance of means-testing programs. We heard his take on Wall Street bankers (they’ve “taken and taken and taken from us”) and Joe Wilson (a “mild-mannered guy,” believe it or not). We also learned that the legislative process is “insidious,” that bills are full of “chicanery,” and that lobbyists are “Dr. Kevorkians” intent on annihilating opposing interests. Not that he has bad feelings toward Congress. He isn’t "somebody who has an ax to grind,” he reassured listeners. True, he noted, people on the Hill who used to call themselves friends, it turns out, weren’t. “I don’t hear from them anymore,” he said. “Now, I left under different circumstances. But nonetheless.”

Foley confided that he’s not expecting too much from his experiment with talk radio. “I have never set out to be the next Rush Limbaugh,” he told listeners. “We’re not even sure where this is going.” Basically, he said, “I’ve always enjoyed having conversations.” So what the heck─why not have them on the air, and see where this takes us? Not being an adept questioner yet, Foley actually spent the first show as the interviewee rather than the interviewer, taking a whack at softballs served up by another radio host. But the duo gave us a taste of what to expect in coming weeks by imagining whom Foley would like to interview if he could, and what probing questions he would ask. Of Joe Wilson: “What provoked you?” Of Florida Gov. Charlie Crist: “What’s so special about Washington” that he'd want to run for the Senate? Of former president Jimmy Carter: “Why are you making these outrageous statements” about race? Of course, none of these people will ever join him on Foley on Politics, so we’ll have to imagine their answers. But tune in next time anyway. He’s got some very interesting ideas about a tort-reform provision in the health-care legislation.