***update: Hastert on Rush…more: vid of Foley lawyer’s “bombshell”***

ABC News has new, stomach-turning details. It keeps getting worse and worse. Force yourselves to read the IMs:

Former Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) interrupted a vote on the floor of the House in 2003 to engage in Internet sex with a high school student who had served as a congressional page, according to new Internet instant messages provided to ABC News by former pages.

ABC News now has obtained 52 separate instant message exchanges, which former pages say were sent by Foley, using the screen name Maf54, to two different boys under the age of 18.

This message was dated April 2003, at approximately 7 p.m., according to the message time stamp.

I have kept my emphasis on Foley’s behavior and put politics aside because I believe every parent needs to see what went on in the Beltway and immunize their children against predatory authority figures–male and female, Republican and Democrat alike. I have been arguing that it was a mistake to rush to put the p.r. emphasis on attacking the Dems and the lib activists right now over a full accounting of Foley’s predation. I hope the GOP will listen now.

More on today’s Vent.

Ramesh Ponnuru sums it up in three words: “The plot sickens.”

Quoting Kate O’Beirne in full:

I won’t be surprised if the calls for Speaker Hastert to resign owing to his alleged malfeasance in the Foley scandal increase owing, in part, to frustration with his misfeasance in handling the fallout. Taking him at his word, if he doesn’t recall learning about the “overly friendly” e-mail exchanges until the end of last week, others are far more responsible than he is for the negligent response last year — including his aides who were informed, the House clerk and Congressmen Alexander and Shimkus. (If they didn’t think there was anything wrong/alarming with the exchange why speak to Foley? If it did strike them as wrong/alarming satisfying themselves with a conversation with him was not enough And hiding behind the page’s parents’ wish that nothing more be done is indefensible. One set of parents, who are only concerned with the well-being of their own son, cannot be allowed to decide how aggressively other parents’ children are going to be protected. Note: Page parents who want to cut off contact with a member of Congress should set off deafening alarm bells given that a successful stint as a page would be marked by having made contact with influential congressmen who take an interest in their offspring).

Now, according to Byron’s notes on his interview with Rush, Speaker Hastert explains that after learning of the Foley e-mails last year “We told him not to do it anymore. . . ” What’s with the “We?” He’s embracing the earlier negligent response as adequate?

And others more directly involved are more responsible than John Boehner and Tom Reynolds but their buck-passing is unbecoming of public officials. The well-being of the young people in their charge should be a personal concern of every member. Their responsibility is not discharged when they make no detailed inquiries and merely pass along some version of the Foley affair to Hastert because it was “in his corner” of responsibility or because he’s the “supervisor.”

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The Foley mess: deal with it
Predators in the House
The Foley mess

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