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The Washington Times wants Speaker Hastert to resign.  To do so would be to capitulate to Democratic-activist-induced and MSM-abetted hysteria.  Not only should Hastert not resign, he should use every opportunity to swing back hard at a MSM deeply compromised by its ideological extremism and a Democratic Party committed to retreat and defeat in Iraq and fecklessness in the war generally.  If Republican candidates recognize that the "clamor" is just the echo chamber, they'll quickly come to understand that this is another Wellstone Memorial Service moment, when the left has persuaded itself that the American electorate is stupid and easily stampeded, and where overreaching appeals to emotional and unjust conclusions cannot be sustained in the new media environment.

Hastert did not know that Foley was a predator, only that Foley had sent a too-friendly e-mail to one teenage page, the sort of e-mail that would have been completely unremarkable if it hadn't come from a gay Congressman. To have attempted to censure Foley for that e-mail would have been to impose a rule on Congressmen concerning their contacts with minor pages and interns that has no precedent anywhere.  The warning about appropriateness that Foley did receive is exactly what ought to have happened and did.

Confirmation of that conclusion is provided by two newspapers.

Until Friday Hastert and other GOP Congressmen knew only what Florida newspapers knew and which those newspapers considered insufficiently newsworthy to run a story about.  From today's New York Times:

The St. Petersburg Times and The Miami Herald received copies of an e-mail exchange between Mr. Foley, Republican of Florida, and a teenager, but neither paper gathered enough solid material to publish a story, according to statements by the papers’ editors.

It was not until the exchanges were published online last week, first by an anonymous blogger, then on the ABC News Web site, that the story gained momentum and grew more damaging as other teenagers came forward.

The trickle of information about Mr. Foley’s messages, first made known to the news media almost a year ago, has raised questions not only for Congressional officials but also for news organizations about how to handle anonymous sources making explosive accusations in an election year....

The St. Petersburg Times said that last November, it received copies of an e-mail exchange between Mr. Foley and a former page from Louisiana. The newspaper said the boy, who was under age, did not want his name used, and the paper said it did not want to publish accusations based on unnamed sources. The Miami Herald apparently received the same information, although it is not clear when it received it.

Two major newspapers have known about the e-mail for eleven months.  There was no story because there was no scandal in the e-mails, only in the IMs, which shock and outrage everyone who reads them, and which have been concealed somewhere for more than three years --itself a scandal, but not one to be laid on the Speaker.

Not surprisingly, a Democratic field weakened by its leadership's insistence on retreat from Iraq and refusal to deal with the realities of the war have seized on the scandal:

Across the country, in competitive and noncompetitive races, Democrats seized on an issue that they said was resonating with voters. In an effort coordinated in Washington by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party’s candidates urged their Republican opponents to call for the resignation of Mr. Hastert and other leaders.

In Indiana, Baron Hill, a Democratic candidate for a House seat, asked the incumbent, Representative Mike Sodrel, a first-term Republican, to reject any financial contributions from the national party. In North Carolina, where Representative Robin Hayes, a Republican, is engaged in a tough campaign fight, the state Democratic Party issued a statement asking, “Who does Robin Hayes stand up for — Mark Foley and the Republican House leadership or under-age children?”

Unless someone has evidence that Hastert or anyone else knew more than the e-mail exchange which two newspapers deemed not newsworthy, the demands for Hastert's resignation will become increasingly absurd against both the facts and also against the backdrop of what the election is really about: the conduct of the war.  Editorialists like those at the Washington Times have done their own credibility great damage for a brief bit of pr posing.

Steadying the GOP's Congressional Party will require Hastert and others to stand up and keep returning fire, and to do so with the anger appropriate when one is being smeared.  It is also time to take off the gloves about Congressman Jefferson --still in Congress and still on Ways and Means-- Senator Menendez and Colorado's Bill Ritter as well as other past Democratic scandals which have gone unrepented and unpunished, as well as largely unpublished and unpursued by MSM. 

MSM's delight in this attempt to tarnish the entire GOP for the disgusting behavior of one of its members is exactly the sort of garbage that motivates the base to fully engage in the campaigns of the next five weeks.  Foley is gone, rightly condemned as he exited.  Jefferson is still sitting on the House's most powerful committee, and Menendez is still receiving an avalance of cash from his Senatorial Committee. Democrtaic Congressman Gerry Studds --for exactly the same behavior as Foley's-- was returned by voters to the House in five elections after his "censure" by the Democratic House, a censure understood by the Democratic leadership as the show slap on the wrist necessary and unpleasant but also not damaging to their loyal colleagues political prospects. Democratic Congressman Barney Frank's own personal scandal did not deter his rise through the ranks to the senior position he know holds as ranking member of the Financial Services Committee.

The enormity of the double standard and the baseless nature of the charges against Hastert specifically and Republicans generally will backfire on Democrats and their soulmates in the MSM, but only if Hastert and others fire back, early, often and with the specificity and anger necessary to underscore exactly what the Democratic Party-MSM partnership is up to, again.

You can start with a contribution to the RNC.  That will send a message to the party and to the media that conservatives haven't forgotten episodes such as the dropping the DUI story on Bush the weekend before the 2000 election or the attempt by Dan Rather to use absurd forgeries or the New York Times' hysterical last week charges about missing ammunition in Iraq to affect the 2004 election..  The purposeful conflating by MSM and Democrats of the Foley e-mail and the Foley IMs, combined the relentless attempt to obscure the media's own indifference to the former makes for one more episode in the attempt to make politics and elections about other than the key issues, issues which significantly cut against a Democratic Party committed to appeasement in the war and silliness on a host of other issues. 

UPDATE:

From the AP:

The St. Petersburg Times and The Miami Herald, which had been given copies of the e-mail with the Louisiana boy last year, defended their decisions not to run stories.

"Given the potentially devastating impact that a false suggestion of pedophilia could have on anyone, not to mention a congressman known to be gay, and lacking any corroborating information, we chose not to do a story," said Tom Fiedler, executive editor of the Herald.

From The Miami Herald:

Who knew what, when

Some newspapers -- including this one -- knew of this message as well and did not find it worthy of a news story because it seemed innocuous. Thus, Democratic charges of a ''cover up'' of Mr. Foley's activities by the Republican House leadership seem not only premature but crassly political. But the discovery of other, more explicit, messages and confusion over who knew what and when raise questions that require answers -- preferably, under oath and soon.

UPDATE 2:

Here's the Time Magazine story from Saturday, before the Foley IMs became public:

Posted Saturday, Sep. 30, 2006
Opinion may be divided over whether the e-mails Florida Representative Mark Foley sent a teen-age male congressional page last year were inappropriate or even constituted outright sexual harassment. But most observers would agree that what was almost as surprising as the allegations themselves was how swiftly the six-term Republican congressman from West Palm Beach quit a thriving career on Capitol Hill after the e-mails were aired Thursday night on the ABC evening news. And a big reason for his abrupt exit, say Florida pundits, is that Foley, 52, was staring at the elements of a perfect political storm that not even a candidate from a hurricane-prone state could withstand in today's nasty election climate: not only possible accusations of pedophilia, but also the possible stain of gross hypocrisy, given Foley's high-profile legislative crusade against child sex offenders. "I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida," Foley said in a statement confirming that he would not seek re-election next month.

His work against child sex offenders is certainly the most glaring irony of the emerging Foley scandal. Foley is a founder and co-chair of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus and has played key roles in recent legislation to protect kids, including the Volunteers for Children Act, which gives organizations that work with youths access to FBI fingerprint checks to make sure they don't hire child molesters. Foley's Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, which has passed both the House and Senate, overhauls the national monitoring system for predatory pedophiles by closing legal loopholes, setting minimum registration standards and better coordinating law enforcement; he also co-sponsored measures to eliminate child pornography and exploitive child model sites on the Internet — and he has worked closely with the likes of John Walsh, host of Fox TV's popular America's Most Wanted.

Foley's aides insist that the e-mails in question do nothing to belie his commitment to child protection issues, saying the exchanges between the congressman and the page — in which Foley asks what the boy would like for his birthday and requests a picture of him — were innocuous and "nonchalant" chat. But the boy, a page in the office of Louisiana Representative Rodney Alexander, also a Republican, e-mailed other colleagues saying Foley's messages "freaked me out," and he repeatedly called the photo request "sick."

In other e-mail exchanges with the page, Foley discusses another boy who he remarks is "in really great shape — i am just finished riding my bike on a 25 mile journey now heading to the gym — what school like for you this year?" As a result, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a left-leaning congressional watchdog group, has asked the House Committee on Standards and Official Conduct to investigate, saying the legislators have "an obligation to protect the teenagers who come to Congress to learn about the legislative process." The committee, it said, "must investigate any allegation that a page has been subjected to sexual advances by members of the House."

Washington was rife with speculation that Foley resigned so quickly Friday because there might be similar e-mail or instant messages lying in the hard drives of other teens in the capital. But another reason is just as likely: Foley, a bachelor, has frequently worked to squelch rumors that he is gay. In 2003, he called a press conference expressly to insist that he would not answer questions about his sexuality as he prepared for a possible, but ultimately aborted Senate run in 2004.

Despite his earnest reputation on family values issues, Foley's orientation was an issue that Florida Republicans — whose leadership, including outgoing Governor Jeb Bush, has taken a sharp right turn in this decade — wrestled with nonetheless while Foley considered running for Senate (the party ultimately backed eventual winner Mel Martinez). The e-mail scandal simply would have made it more difficult for Foley to swim on that G.O.P. beach, and would have almost certainly made the next month of re-election campaigning horrific for him. (G.O.P. House Speaker Dennis Hastert today said Foley had done "the right thing" by resigning.) "When you look at how vicious political attack ads have become in this country, it's no surprise how quickly a candidate in Foley's position would say, 'It's just not worth it,'" says Susan MacManus, a political expert at the University of South Florida in Tampa. "The atmosphere is just too poisonous and venomous right now to risk it."

This story reflects the reality that the e-mails were not enough for anyone with knowledge just of them to act against Foley, or even to demand an investigation into them.  The Democrat-MSM spin cycle is conflating the e-mails with the disgusting IMs, and refusing to ask who sat on the IMs all these years when their release would have serevd to alert the House and protect other pages.

It will also be interesting to watch the evolution of the new standards of Congressional propriety and investigative tripwire evolve.  ABCNews' Brian Ross invites e-mails from sources. If they are hearing from lots of pages, what  guidelines will ABC use to evaluate these communications and to launch investigations?  What is "over-friendly," and which rumors about which Members are relevant to the decision to publish?

Mark Levin is battling those at The Corner who are blasting hastert's conduct.  It seems to me that this is a case where lawyers who have had actual experience with the appearance of impropriety understand that the warnings delivered to Foley on the basis of the e-mails were of the sort to deter him from that ethical boundary.  There would have been no basis for an investigation into his e-mails or computer server, and if there is a labor lawyer out there who would have advised a corporate client differently, please let me know.

And if you are a page sending leaks to ABC, keep them coming, but you might want to cc a second news organization at the same time to assure that ABC plays an honest game here.  One standard for all, right?