Those were the words of ABC's Dan Harris on "
World News" tonight. In other words, there's a cancer on the House and its Republican leadership.
More people are coming forward, and we now know Republicans have known about ex-Rep. Foley's sexually predatory behavior toward minors for 5 years, yet they repeatedly protected the predator over the pages.
The ABC
report chronicles the early stages of a prolonged, partisan cover-up by House Republicans:
A Republican staff member warned congressional pages five years ago to watch out for Congressman Mark Foley, according to a former page.
...
Pages report to either Republican or Democratic supervisors, depending on the political party of the member of Congress who nominate them for the page program.
Several Democratic pages tell ABC News they received no such warnings about Foley.
Clearly, this Republican staff member/page supervisor failed to alert all the pages. I guess it's just a coincidence that those pages working for Democrats were kept out of the loop. Predator 1, Pages 0
And what about the pages who did interact with Foley:
Loraditch says that some of the pages who "interacted" with Foley were hesitant to report his behavior because "members of Congress, they've got the power." Many of the pages were hoping for careers in politics and feared Foley might seek retribution.
So Foley targeted Republican pages because they could be cowed into silence. Not to mention the fact that they probably wouldn't be greeted as liberators after being outed to their conservative Republican families. Political intimidation, fear and self-loathing--this man is a true Republican! Predator 2, Pages 0
So exactly how many underage pages were exploited? I don't think anyone knows:
Some of the sexually explicit instant messages that led to Foley's abrupt resignation Friday were sent to pages in Loraditch's class.
This is why an outside criminal investigation is vital. Only by acquiring all of Foley's electronic and personal contacts can law enforcement begin to trace the outine of a web of silence (and possible criminal negligence) within the House Republican caucus. There should be a petition so we can demand a full and impartial investigation of the Republican speak-easy sex scandal. This is the kind of "culture of corruption" voters can wrap their heads around.
And for those keeping score, the pages continued to be shut out as the Pagegate timeline continued.