I saw this on a blog earlier today. I didn't blog it, even to condemn it, because I didn't want to give it any play. I didn't want to have a part in spreading the word.
A conservative blog, not one I know well, figured out the identity of one of the pages in the Foley scandal today and posted it. Drudge has since run with the ball.
This is just as nasty as the outings from the Left I was decrying earlier today. The page in question is now 21 years old. At the time of his chats with Foley, he was 17, and turned 18.
Some argue that this changes the Foley story. I don't think so. It makes me think less of ABC's reporting, which claimed the pages were all underaged. It was a pretty big oversight to leave out the fact that one of the pages was, in fact, 18 during at least part of the messaging and e-mailing. It was irresponsible reporting.
But the impropriety still started when the page was 17, and Foley remains the one who must take responsibility for it, no matter what age the young man was. Foley was the Congressman. This kid was the page. Foley was the adult. The kid was the adolescent. Foley was the boss. The kid was the subordinate. Foley had a responsibility to behave himself with his adolescent subordinates.
Now, the kid's name is all over the Internet in a major, national story about some very personal and explicit IMs he sent as a much younger person. It probably would have eventually come out, but I hate the fact that it was a right blogger who brought it out. If they were trying to figure out if the former page is now an operative who would have had motive to go after Foley, they kinda blindsided him by getting him on Drudge before he knew what was going on. Blech. Sometimes, just because you can figure out something via Internet research, it doesn't mean you should necessarily publish it.
I gotta post something nice and fluffy after this. Rough day.
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