Do you think Foley's hoping that eating his words isn't high in whatever's bad for you this week?

While I'm sure to be far from the first to bring this up, especially since I read it elsewhere to begin with, it still bears enjoyment. Ex-Rep. Mark Foley (R-West Palm Beach) of Florida, on President Bill Clinton in 1998:

"It's vile."

"It's more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction."

"It's unbelievable that he could behave so carelessly in that setting."

Yeah, trips down memory lane can be awkward when you were quoted by the press. What bugs me, however, is the slowly leaking news that the GOP knew of Foley's awkward social quirks beforehand, and in their own best tradition, did nothing until it had already hit the fan. ABC News had reported Friday that Foley also engaged in a series of sexually explicit instant messages with current and former pages, all male. Foley e-mailed the page in August 2005, at which time the page was 16. Foley asked him how he was doing after Hurricane Katrina and what he wanted for his birthday.

Foley also asked the boy to email a picture of himself, according to excerpts of the e-mails that were originally released by ABC News. While the excerpts I have read are nothing in the way of sexual, the whole thing still smacks of 'not getting the whole story.' Foley's office informed ABC News that it is their policy to keep pictures of former interns so that they could be remembered by anyone looking to recommend one. However, Foley's staff had no answer when asked why Foley needed a picture of a page that didn't even work in his office. One crisis at a time, I suppose.

According to campaign aides, Foley e-mailed the page in question five times, but had said there was nothing inappropriate about the correspondence. After learning about the emails, Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA) passed it on to Rep. Thomas Reynolds (R-NY), the chairman of the House Republican campaign organization. Alexander had sponsored the page from his district, but failed to pursue the matter further due to the wishes of the page's parents. The matter did make it to the House Page Board, three congressmen and two white officials, even though Reynolds learned from Alexander about the parents' wishes, according to Carl Forti, a yes hole for the COP campaign organization.

I just had a simple question, but now the increasing cast of characters has far splintered this thing up. Who should look worse here, the congressmen emailing the page, the fellow congressmen who "went through the motions," or the parents, who wanted the whole thing swept under a rug, presumably for "appearances," or some other hot mess?

Foley, who resigned from Congress with a one sentence letter Friday, represented an area around Palm Beach County and was also chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus. Foley's amendment to change federal sex offender laws became part of the Adam Walsh Child Safety and Protection Act of 2006.

Vile? Certainly. Sad? Most assuredly. Unbelievable that one could behave so carelessly in that setting? One would have thought, once upon a time.