Foley Dips His Wick

I like watching tight-assed, blue nosed, uber-conservative Republicans get their knickers in a twist when one of their own steps over the line.  Over the weekend, the Republican Reptiles have been spinning frantically as revelations come out that Congressman Mark Foley was trolling Congressional Pages online. 

For those not familiar with the general arc of the story, now ex-Congressman Foley was chatting up a Congressional page on a chat program.  Comments range from "What are you wearing?" to much more salacious.  Idiot that Foley was, he was doing it from his office, where his typing passed through a number of servers, most of which are probably tapped by the Department of Homeland Paranoia in the War on Terror.  Odds are it was either the object of his ‘affection’ who saved the chat, or someone in IT/DHS who trapped the chat with off-the-shelf sniffer software.  In either case, the transcript wound up in the hands of ABC News.

Unfortunately, it was known to some in the Republican hierarchy that Congressman Foley had been trolling online for a while, his particular taste being underage boys. From the Department of Irony That I Can’t Make Up, Congressman Foley was the co-chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children and helped author a bill to make Internet sexual exploitation of minors, illegal.  To quote Congressman Foley, "They’re sick people; they need mental health counseling,"

Since it was well-established that the young men involved in these chats were minors, Foley was drinking out of the same toilet he wanted to flush.  The chat transcripts themselves are explicitly sexual in nature.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert has asked the FBI and the Department of JustUs (Don’t Worry, it’s Just Us tapping your phone) to begin an investigation.  Hastert also sent a letter to Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Sunday requesting that he "direct the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to conduct an investigation of Mr. Foley’s conduct."

In his letter to Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales, Hastert has also asked that they find out who in the House knew about the emails and when.  Congressman Thomas Reynolds from New York, who headed the House Republican election effort, said he told Speaker Hastert about Foley’s illegal behavior several months ago.  A couple of Democratic Congressmen are also coming forward with allegations they told the Speaker a few months ago that pages they had sponsored had complained about ‘sick’ emails they had received from Foley.

This morning in a letter apparently from Foley, faxed to WPBF in Palm Beach, Florida, he states that, "I strongly believe that I am an alcoholic and have accepted the need for immediate treatment for alcoholism and related behavioral problems.  On Saturday, with the loving support of my family and friends, I made arrangements to enter a renowned in-patient facility to address my disease and related issues."

Oh, he’s not a kiddy diddler, he’s a drunkard?  I suppose being an alcoholic is more acceptable to the Conservative right-wing nuts than being a online predator. I won’t mention the power dynamic a sitting member of Congress has over a teenaged House Page, except to say it is heavily weighted towards the Congressperson.

What I’d really like to hear is how the chats got out.  It would be Right, in the scheme of things, that the Department of Homeland Paranoia caught Foley in one of its interceptions of personal communications that are done without such niceties as warrants, under the Patriot Act.