GOP Should've Outed Mark Foley Last Year

This scandal could've and should've just been about that disgusting creep Mark Foley, but it sounds like instead of reporting him to the proper authorities immediately upon finding out that he was a pedophile, the GOP was more concerned about protecting one of their own. And if that's the case they deserve all the heat just waiting to fall on them.

(AP) Rep. Thomas Reynolds, head of the House Republican election effort, said Saturday he told Speaker Dennis Hastert months ago about concerns that a fellow GOP lawmaker had sent inappropriate messages to a teenage boy. Hastert's office said aides referred the matter to the proper authorities last fall but they were only told the messages were "over-friendly."

Reynolds, R-N.Y., was told about e-mails sent by Rep. Mark Foley and is now defending himself from Democratic accusations that he did too little. Foley, R-Fla., resigned Friday after ABC News questioned him about the e-mails to a former congressional page and about sexually suggestive instant messages to other pages.

"The improper communications between Congressman Mark Foley and former House Congressional pages is unacceptable and abhorrent. It is an obscene breach of trust," Hastert, R-Ill., Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said in a written statement Saturday evening. "His immediate resignation must now be followed by the full weight of the criminal justice system."

The House leaders said it is their duty to ensure House pages are safe. They said they are creating a toll-free hot line for pages and their families to call to confidentially report any incidents, and will consider adopting new rules on communications between lawmakers and pages.

Of course, if you believe in karma like I do (and it find it ironic that this brouhaha involves a senator from Florida), somehow, someway you hope that Katherine Harris (whom the GOP has recently sold out) can benefit from all of this.