CARBONDALE - By his own admission the past four weeks have been difficult, troubling and frustrating for U.S. Rep. John Shimkus.

On Sept. 29, the final day of the legislative session, Shimkus found himself in a national firestorm created when disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley resigned amid allegations that he had sent sexually graphic e-mail messages to a former teenage House page.

During a campaign swing through the region Tuesday, Shimkus met with The Southern Illinoisan editorial board and fielded a variety of questions on subjects varying from the war in Iraq to Foley to his change of mind concerning self-imposed term limits.

Noted as low-key and a behind-the-scenes worker during his tenure in Washington, D.C., Shimkus was animated and at times appeared angry, particularly when fielding questions concerning the Foley timeline that he has discussed in hundreds of interviews during the past month. In the end, Shimkus said, the controversy will make him a better lawmaker.

"I'll be a better Congressman because of this," Shimkus said.

Describing himself as a "social and fiscal conservative" Shimkus was asked about the war in Iraq and if he still agrees with President Bush's mantra that the United States "must stay the course."

"First of all my definition of stay the course was to get a constitution, have an elected government and then allow them to build up their police force and build up the military and as they build up we build down," Shimkus said. "What we don't want to do is leave a failed state because the world will benefit from having a Democratic moderate Arab state."

Noting that October has been one of the deadliest months this year in Iraq, Shimkus said he believes the increase is taking place "to affect our election."

"The signal we will send if we just leave is to say that we are not committed to democracy and freedom," he said. "And for the moderate Arab states, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, they are next as far as the fundamentalist wing and what they will try to do. I think the danger of leaving a failed state far outweighs the benefit of an immediate withdrawal. I think we as a world, not only as a country, will be harmed exponentially more by allowing a failed state to arise in Iraq."

Shimkus also said he does not buy into the comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam, noting that the latter was a country divided in half while in Iraq "one percent of a population of 25 million will do anything, blow themselves up for a cause. I would rather win than retreat."

Shimkus gave high marks to job creation on a national level in this country.

"We've got more people employed now than at any time in the history of this country," he said. "Illinois has its own unique problems and challenges that we have to address."

Shimkus also said he believes one of his strongest assets as a Congressman has been his work on energy issues.

"As far as the work I've done to diversify the country's energy portfolio and the expansion of coal and ethanol," Shimkus said, "I'll put my credentials against anybody in the nation."

Shimkus, who is chairman of the House page committee, was asked to provide a timeline concerning what he knew and when he knew it.

Shimkus reiterated that he first heard about the e-mail messages in the fall of 2005. Shimkus also said he recalls being contacted by the House clerk, who requested a meeting. It was at that meeting that Shimkus said he first heard a Louisiana family had contacted the clerk about e-mail messages sent from Foley to their teenage son. The parents asked that Foley be instructed to quit contacting their son, Shimkus said.

"That was their request and they asked that nobody else know," Shimkus said. "They wanted to keep it in confidence. At that point I had some of the excerpts of the e-mails and the one that everybody had focused on was a request Foley made for a picture of the page."

Shimkus said after that meeting he and the clerk immediately confronted Foley. Shimkus said he explained to Foley about the request made by the parents.

"Foley said 'if I'm being accused of being overly-friendly then I'm guilty of being overly-friendly,'" Shimkus said. "His next statement was that when he was a young boy 'an adult mentored me and that's why I'm in public service.' Foley insisted to me that he was just returning the favor."

Shimkus said he told Foley he believed his explanation, but once again stressed that the parents wanted all contact stopped.

"At that point I also told him, 'I want you to stay away from the pages,'" Shimkus said. "After that intervention we were not contacted back by the parents and we had no indication from current pages that Congressman Foley was being overly friendly. There was absolutely no indication that that intervention was not successful."

After the fall 2005 meeting with Foley, Shimkus said he heard nothing else about the issue until he was summoned to House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office on Sept. 29.

In hindsight, Shimkus said, based on the information he had, he would have reacted the same way.

Shimkus also addressed a question repeatedly asked of him on the campaign trail concerning term limits. Shimkus said he would not serve more than 12 years but then changed his mind and sought re-election. He said he sought input from his constituents and the only people who wanted him to keep his promise were his political opponents.

"I made a very tough decision that I still struggle with," he said. "People know me by my honesty and integrity and values and I hate not keeping my word."

Shimkus is being challenged by newcomer Danny Stover, a retired educator from Centralia who is running on the Democratic Party ticket.

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