"Like every Alabamian I have been revolted by the bizarre and sickening conduct of Mark Foley.  I am almost as mortified by what this scandal says about the Congress and its leadership. 

“While the facts are rapidly developing, this much appears clear – troubling information about Foley’s proclivities was known among the senior ranks of the Republican leadership, and the same leadership team knew enough to conclude that there was substance and not just rumor to the stories surrounding Foley.  While I assume that Speaker Hastert and his team did not know about the graphic emails and text messages that have been reported in the last several days, they knew that a grown man was pursuing social encounters with children – a tell-tale sign of pedophilia.  Rather than aggressively interrogate Foley, rather than interview past and current pages, the speaker and his team treated this matter as a potential embarrassment that they hoped would not surface during the election season.

“It is not the first time that Congress has seemed blind to events that would trouble an ordinary conscience.  It is not the first time that politicians who waved the moral banner have had a plague exposed in their own house. But the combination of blindness and hypocrisy may be the single worst thing I have seen in my limited time in politics.”

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