Rep. Foley: Where does "immorality" really lie?

There's a lot of noise right now about Republican Rep. Mark Foley and his attempts to seduce House pages.

The fact is that such sexual predators are going to turn up now and then, and over the years those who are unmasked will include Democrats and Republicans.

Foley is a sick creep who needs to be kept away from kids, but sick creeps always have been part of the human race, and they always will be.

The true immorality in this story lies in the fact that the Republican leadership has known about Foley's activities for quite awhile -– maybe even years, certainly more than a year -- and has done nothing about him. Democrats are yelling indignantly and demanding hearings and such, but it's impossible to tell how much of their outrage is genuine and how much is simply political turd-throwing.

In any case, The Nation reports, Rep. Tom Reynolds, chair of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, the party's major smear machine, admitted Saturday that several months ago he told House Speaker Dennis Hastert, the Illinois Republican bully and pretender to a higher morality than thee and me, that Foley was known to send sex notes to teenage pages via email and instant messaging

Another Republican congressman, Rodney Alexander of Louisiana, said he warned his party's leadership, including Hastert, last year after hearing from the family of a former page.

And Illinois Republican Rep. John Shimkus, says he “investigated” the question of Foley's come-hither emails to pages last year, that he informed the party's House leadership, warned Foley to break contact with a particular page and then dropped the subject.

None of those good, moral Republicans saw fit to go public or take other action, nor did any of several other members of the party's House leadership who were informed of the situation.

The cover-up, no matter how long it went on, defines precisely the true morals of the morality-shouting Republicans who rule us.

No fear. Robertson, Falwell, James Dobson and the rest of the power-loving god-shouters know who they have to support if they are to continue to have places among the power brokers.