Rep. Foley resigns over incriminating IMs to underage page

This is a weird and distasteful story that the GOP did NOT need 5 weeks before the midterm elections. Congressman Mark Foley (R-Florida) resigned on Friday after it was made public that he had been harassing underage Congressional pages in an incident that was known by the top of the House Republican leadership including Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), Speaker of the House Denny Hastert (R-IL), Chairman of the House Page Board John Shimkus (R-IL), and National Republican Congressional Caucus Chair Tom Reynolds (R-NY) and kept quiet for 11 months. It's like the Mafia or something - they keep their own secrets.

Wonkette has more, and the disturbing IM transcripts. Not going to quote from them, they are terribly perverse. What gives the story legs, as they say, is that Foley chaired the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. No joke. ::shudder:: Ick!

UPDATE: Apparently the House GOP staff warned pages against spending alone time with Foley in 2001-2002, but some people like Congressman Shimkus continued to approve of Foley spending time with pages, even taking one out to dinner. Ewww! Americablog has the scoop.