Some perspective on Hastert's actions

Betsy' Newmark blogged I'm not with those people, like the editors of the Washington Times, who are calling for Hastert's scalp for not having done more when informed that Mark Foley was writing overly friendly emails to one page. I'm with the comments that the Wall Street Journal makes today.

And I agree with Betsy

The emails were inappropriate, but the IM conversations were the really toxic stuff.

And I have not heard any indication that anyone knew about the IM conversations before very reently. And when the Republican leadership did learn about them, they did not rally around Foley saying "it is just about sex", they sent him packing.

The emails didn't rate an Ethics Committee investigation. In the rearview mirror it is clear that the GOP should have notified the Democratic members involved with the page program. But, remember that several newspapers and the FBI knew about the emails in July and didn't do anything or consider that this was evidence of predatory behavior. The parents didn't want any of this to go further. The Democrats and other critics want to conflate the two sets of messages, but that is dishonest.