I would have outed the bastard and sent his case to the house ethics committee. The rest of your post pretty much boils down to political calculations explaining why it made sense for Hastert to cover up Foley's actitivities instead of doing the right thing and outing him. Guess what, even if it was politically expedient - it was still a cover-up, that's exactly what Hastert and the republicans are accused of in this scandal. What Foley did was probably not a crime in legal sense, Hastert therefore did not cover up a crime, he covered up and became an accomplice in a gross moral misconduct.
So a pervert protector asked Pa(b)st his prime, the neo-Nazi to run for congress. That seems about right...
But you support a party that will put Alycee Hastings, who was impeached for taking bribes as a federal judge, in charge of the Intelligence Committee? Beautiful.
if someone discovers that another is engaged in legal yet "immoral" behavior then that person should "out" the other? He/she does not have to but if he does not he becomes a de-facto accomplice and the entire thing can easily blow up in his face. It was Hastert's choice, he had every legal right to do what he did and that's why he is not going to jail, his life is not ruined by this scandal... only his political life is. Bet you don't have many people "open up" with you.... Nah, I am not a politician and besides I don't have that holier than thou attitude, you rightwingers have. Nevertheless if I saw a 50 year old man hitting on my neighbor's 16 year old son or daughter I would probably at least let my neighbor know about that. That btw was yet another possibility - Hastert could have let the pages' parents or the supervisor of the page program know about that. Too bad he did not but that was his choice, in 30 days voters with teenage children will make theirs.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the long run. Republicans are taking the short term hit, but Democrats might be overplaying their hand calling for resignations. One day we Dems will be back in power and this attitude of, one guy screws up they all gotta go, will bite us in the ass for sure.
Do you just post for the sake of posting? The issue isn't if Hastert should have told the parents. Hastert only knew because the page's parents tipped him off! The issue is, should Hastert have "outed" Foley to the page board. If I knew I had a homo Congressman (as at least 20 of them are) I would tell the page clerk, "give Foley the hottest 16yo girl you've got." And give Tammy Baldwin a dude! That's as far as it goes in terms of what need be discussed.
In all fairness the dems have never claimed to be the party of moral superiority, republicans have. The problem is not that republicans have bad apples like Foley, the problem is that the rest of the party leadership covers up for him and party members like you and Pabst try their best to justify this cover-up. PS Frankly this whole Foleygate is a joke. You republicans should have been driven out of power for your failure to catch Osama/Omar and destroy Al-Qaeda, for your Iraq quagmire, for your North Korea and Iran disaster, for your corruption, for your smear campaigns, for budget and trade deficits you have run up, for the assault on the middle class, for the situation with healthcare and oil prices. Too bad life is not fair, too bad americans don't care and don't understand those issues, too bad you'll be driven out of power because one your leaders masturbated in front of his computer during a congressional vote. What are you going to do, you declare yourself the party of moral values, now YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW.
I know it must be very frustrating for you and the others at Kos and Huffington that the voters are so pathetically stupid they can't recognize how vastly superior life would be for them with a bunch of socialist-pacifists in charge. At least we agree that there are more important issues than Foley's emails, like maybe al qaeda, nukes, taxes, etc. Of course, none of those are as important as macaca.
People who read Ann Coulter and Maureen Dowd are dim-witted malcontents who lack the imagination to express unbridled malice on their own. Coulter and Dowd are in the business of creating Hallmark cards for the misanthropic....and laughing all the way to the bank.