Foley Scandal Is a Page-Turner
It just keeps getting juicier. So the FBI is going to investigate Foley and his trail of sexy emails to young boys. Five weeks before national elections, Republicans in Congress (who thought the worst thing they had to worry about was the debacle in Iraq) are now in Full Panic Mode over the Foley scandal, trying to contain the damage amid charges that top Republicans covered-up Foley’s misdeeds. (It seems too good to be true: a family values scandal that helps Democrats.) Specifically, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, perhaps the world’s most overweight ex-wrestler (who had a family-values scandal of his own a while back when it was revealed he’d had an affair), was told many months ago by another Republican member of Congress, Tom Reynolds, about Foley’s indiscretions.
Today, of course, months later, Hastert is “outraged and disgusted” by Foley. Of course. But as the scandal unfolds, and as its ripples spread, it could seriously damage the GOP’s already precarious position in the vote next month.
Foley, by the way, resigned instantly on Friday after ABC News told him they knew about some of the sexually explicit emails he’d send. According to the Washington Post, Foley’s staff tried a bargain, asking ABC not to reveal the contents of the emails if Foley would resign. Didn’t work. And after ABC posted some of the emails to one boy, several other former pages (that is, former junior Capitol Hill assistants) wrote to ABC with stories of their own about Foley.
Expect this story to snowball for weeks. Five weeks, to be exact.