Paging Mark Foley...

As usual, I'm with Mac:(listen here)

Personally, I would find it refreshing if the scandal could be treated properly — as one man’s sick indiscretion deserving of his individual shunning and prosecution. But that might be too much to ask of the party of courageous Gerry Studds.

The Dems are counting their chickens... stocks say they won't hatch, but there are a lot of pessimistic conservatives out there.

Yahoo News:

... the immediate take by Democrats and much of the mainstream media was that this was a classic example of Republican hypocrisy - talking "morals" and "values" while all the time shielding a child predator. But it was nothing of the kind.

If anything, the episode reveals the Democrats' hypocrisy about their own behavior. The fact that Foley resigned virtually within minutes of being told that ABC News had copies of his salacious e-mails and text messages indicates he at least felt shame for his actions. Can the same be said for Democrats? ...

Again, Mark Foley is a scumbag who should have been out of office the second his "problem" was known... whenever that was. The timing of this is more than a little suspicious though.

More from Yahoo News:

... Democrats not only seem OK with the kind of behavior for which Foley is charged, but also they protect and excuse it. Only when it's a Republican do they proclaim themselves shocked -- shocked! -- when it comes to light.

We have a lot more questions about this whole affair. The timing of the revelations, as we noted, couldn't be more propitious for the Democrats. Turns out both the Democrats and several newspapers seem to have known about Foley's problem as far back as November, according to research by several enterprising blogs.

Why didn't they come forward then? Who dredged up these e-mails - and why did they hold them until now? This reeks of political trickery.

We're glad Foley's gone. He betrayed Congress, his party and the trust of the 33 pages who serve in Congress, and their parents. He behaved immorally, and we won't be surprised at new revelations.

That said, if this scandal is the Democrats' answer to their problems at the polls, it's pretty pathetic. It shows a base contempt for the voters.

We'll see how the voters feel soon enough.

I'm with Cranky too:

Conservatives have already begun the necessary housecleaning. We will take our lumps, correct the situation and get back on our feet. As bad as this is, it shouldn’t cost the Republicans the election.

Meanwhile, we need to emphasize that politically speaking, Foley’s greatest sin was not being a Democrat. Were he on the other side of the aisle, this would be a minor setback if not the opportunity for a book deal.

Glenn Beck speaks for me...


Update: A previous update containing a link to a site that had ID'd one of Foley's IM'ers has been deleted. The link was only up for a few minutes. Having read the post more carefully, I now regret sending the trackback. We need to know who knew what and when, but it doesn't appear that this former page had anything to do with the seemingly political timing of this story. Again, the quickly-deleted link and quick-trigger trackback was an error in judgement on my part. I made a mistake.