Rep.Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned from congress when e-mails and instant messages he had been sending to congressional pages all under the age of 18 came to light last week.
The internet dialogue reveals a sick man who desperately needs help. Like former NJ governor Jim McGreevy who resigned when the sordid details of his double life were exposed last year, Foley's life and reputation are destroyed.
On one hand one can't help but be disgusted by the sleaziness to which these men have descended (the incriminating dialogue Foley engaged in with a minor can be accessed through the above link, but I don't recommend it unless you have a high tolerance for human degradation), on the other, one must feel very sorry for them. Their lives, even before they were found out, must have been filled with fear of being caught and self-loathing at what they had become.
It's easy to feel contempt for powerful people when, despite their transgressions, they are arrogant, defiant, and unrepentant, but surely when they're broken and devastated, contempt must give way to compassion. To the extent that Jim McGreevy and Mark Foley are humiliated and laden with self-reproach they need, and should have, our prayers. Unfortunately, it's not clear that either of them are yet at that stage.
In any event, as if the Mark Foley imbroglio hasn't done enough to harm Republicans going into the mid-term elections, it turns out that House speaker Dennis Hastert and House Majority leader John Boehner are both being accused of having known of Foley's illicit involvement with underage House pages and lied to cover it up.
If this is true, and I'm not persuaded yet that it is, it would be absolutely astonishing, especially in light of the ordeal the Catholic Church has been undergoing for the last decade over similar revelations about some of their clergy. It's hard to believe that in light of the Catholic Church's nightmarish experience the Republican party would make the same mistake.
Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters has details and is calling for the resignation of both Hastert and Boehner from their leadership positions. I think this is a little premature since it's not clear yet how much anyone knew about what Foley was doing. If it turns out, however, that anyone, including Democrats and media types, knew for months what was happening and didn't do anything to stop it, then those people should indeed be required to pay a price.
UPDATE: Dennis Hastert has just come out with a statement insisting that the Republican leadership knew nothing of the salacious instant messages, but, he notes, somebody did know about them and evidently did nothing to stop them. It's beginning to look as if these messages have been withheld in order to use them for political purposes close to the election. That's almost as immoral as the messages themselves.