Is it possible that we might achieve some sort of bipartisan consensus that what Bill Clinton did with intern Monica Lewinsky and what Rep. Mark Foley subjected male teen-age pages to were both wrong, and for the same reason?
The White House and Democratic leaders in Congress called Sunday for a criminal probe into former Rep. Mark Foley's electronic messages to teenage boys _ a lurid scandal that has put House Republicans in political peril.
White House counselor Dan Bartlett called the allegations against Foley shocking. He said President Bush hadn't learned of Foley's inappropriate e-mails to a 16-year-old boy and instant messages to other boys before the news broke last week.
Clinton and Foley were both adults with enormous power preying on people with none. It's the kind of behavior that quickly gets people fired (at the least) in the private sector. Getting rid of public officials is a little harder -- at least Foley had the sense to resign. I'm not bringing up Clinton to create some kind of equivalence to lessen Foley's deserved disgrace, and if people like Hastert knew what Foley was doing and covered it up, I'd like to see them gone, too. But I'm already getting a little tired of the selective, calculated outrage over this from people who kept saying the Clinton scandal was "just about sex." Yeah, like bank robbery is about money management.
And I realize it's misguided to keep expecting a basic level of intelligence from members of Congress, but how dumb are you if you think you can commit your obsessions to e-mail and not have it come back to bite you?
