THE FOLEY WEEKEND. Hard to stay on top of this scandal, but it certainly looks mega-toxic. The FBI's investigating, Nancy Pelosi is calling for a House ethics committee probe that includes "questioning, under oath, the House Republican Leadership," and more former pages are beginning to surface with creepy-email tales of their own. See some cynical-but-plausible reads on Speaker Hastert's call for a criminal investigation here and here.
Needless to say, cover-up and hypocrisy are the key themes worth focusing on. To digress slightly, however, I'll second this comment from Glenn Greenwald noting "the bizarre and incoherent contradiction in the law � that in-person, actual sex between Foley and a 16-year-old page would be perfectly legal in D.C. and in most places in the U.S., but it seems that it is a criminal act for Foley to discuss or solicit sexual acts with the same page over the Internet." (Greenwald has more here.) That does seem odd, and, not to get all James Kincaid here (and certainly not to excuse Foley's behavior), it makes the Foley-co-sponsored "Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act" sound like a crappy law.
--Sam Rosenfeld
