Foley's Follies

Can the Brits report on a sex scandal or what? Talk about tongue in cheek, ha, ha. The Independent (10.02.06):

"The abrupt resignation of a Florida congressman caught sending sexually explicit computer messages to teenage pages at the House of Representatives has developed into a full-blown Republican Party scandal with senior party leaders accusing each other of knowing about the e-mails for months and doing nothing about them. Within hours of the departure of Mark Foley, a lawmaker from the Palm Beach area dogged for years by rumours about his sexuality, the party of 'family values' turned on itself in an unseemly sequence of denials, accusations and counter-accusations in which the party's top leaders appeared frantic to save their own political skins." Top Republicans accused of cover-up over sex scandal

"The furore has sucked in the Speaker, the Majority Leader and the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, all of whom are now in the firing line just a few weeks before next month's pivotal mid-term elections." "Mr Foley's eye-popping indiscretions with the teenage boys who act as runners and factotums on Capitol Hill - including one lengthy exchange about masturbation and his own sexual arousal - might have been less damaging had he not also served as co-chair of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children." Stay tuned! "Unconfirmed reports out of Washington suggest four or five pages in all may have come forward to denounce Mr Foley."