Moral Values?

The House Republican Leadership Scandal (or as I named it, PedophileGate)

The Mark Foley Scandal is over. The Florida Republican congressman who sent “Do I make you horny?” messages to teenage pages has resigned his seat and gone into rehab. He needed help and, now, he’s getting it. There may be some legal playout to this sad tale, but his political journey is finished.

The Republican Congressional Leadership Scandal is most definitely not over. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Illinois, House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, House Republican Congressional Campaign Committee chair Tom Reynolds, R-New York, and other leaders of the GOP caucus who knew about the Foley problem and did little or nothing to deal with it, have been exposed for what they are: Political animals who care about nothing–absolutely nothing–except maintaining power.

How determined were these key Republicans to keep their grip on Congress in what has turned into an exceptionally troublesome election year for the party? On Monday, it was revealed that, as recently as last week, an aide to Reynolds tried to get ABC News investigative reporter Brian Ross, who broke the Foley story, to kill it. In return for joining the cover-up, Ross was offered an exclusive on what the GOP leaders had hoped would be a neatly-wrapped, relatively uncontroversial story of Foley’s decision to step down “for personal reasons.” According to Ross, “I said we’re not making any deals.”

Yep, they tried to bribe ABC to keep this out of the news. Moral values, anyone? Click through to read the rest of this.

ETA: I now realize that the more correct term for Foley’s problem is ephebophilia. How many people would understand EphebophiliaGate though?