Florida Congressman Mark Foley

Reading this story this afternoon (about the Congressman who resigned for sexual text messaging with teenage male pages) was like reading a copy of The Onion or watching a SNL skit - it was so ridiculous that it seemed like satire. What he did was bad enough, but he's pushed legislation to protect children from sexual predators, and he founded and co-chairs the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus.

Regardless of his actual intentions toward the teens, Foley, who is unmarried, just isn't a viable candidate anymore. It's further evidence for the famous political axiom: the only thing that can permanently ruin your political career is a dead girl or a live boy.

UPDATE, OCTOBER 3RD

It turns out that the real story here is that the Republican leadership, including Dennis Hastert, knew for quite some time about what Foley had been doing, and other than telling him to cut it out, had turned a blind eye. What I really like is how the Repugs are spinning this - somehow the whole thing is a malicious political move on the part of the Democrats to win Congressional seats. Though how exactly the Dems forced Foley to prey on kids, and then tricked the leadership into letting him, is a pretty clever set of machinations, especially considering how inert they've been for the last 5 years.

UPDATE, OCTOBER 5TH

The Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, is trying to hold onto his job amid calls for his removal, so he's going on the offensive. Today he asserts that Dems held onto this information for "a year or two" so it would come to light just before the election. Of course, two years ago, as I recall, there was an election that the Dems would have wanted to influence!. More to the point, the Reynolds aide who resigned today (who had formerly worked for Foley) claims that he reported Foley to Hastert's office three years ago. Even if Hastert claims that the timing is politically motivated, Hastert can only look like he handled it badly, and hid what was going on for a very long time.