On Friday, Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned from Congress as a result of sexually explicit messages he sent to underage House pages over the internet. In a long series of Washington scandals, governmental screw-ups, and outright tragedies that the Republican Congress has overlooked, this is the most universally appalling. We can have legitimate differences of opinion on the war in Iraq, whether the Duke Cunningham, Tom DeLay, or Jack Abramoff scandals are anything new. Though I’m not willing to cede any ground, there are quite a few people who do argue that the torture of detainees is necessary. And there was enough blame to go around on Hurricane Katrina that you can’t just pin it on one party. But this? Offends everyone. A Congressman abused his authority and committed ultimate hypocrisy. Worse, Republican leadership in the House knew about it for at least one year, possibly longer.

“In his letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, [House Speaker Dennis] Hastert (R-Ill.) acknowledged that some of Foley’s most sexually explicit instant messages were sent to former House pages in 2003. That was two years before lawmakers say they learned of a more ambiguous 2005 e-mail that led only to a quiet warning to Foley to leave pages alone.

Foley, 52, abruptly resigned Friday, and Democrats have since been hammering Hastert and other GOP leaders. They have accused Republicans of covering up the matter and allowing Foley to remain as co-chair of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus instead of launching an inquiry and possibly uncovering the raunchier communications.

As the scandal broke, Hastert contended he learned of concerns about Foley only last week. But after Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.) said Saturday that he had notified Hastert months ago of Foley’s e-mails to a 16-year-old boy, the speaker did not dispute his colleague, and Hastert’s office acknowledged that some aides knew last year that Foley had been ordered to cease contact with the youth.

Republican leaders continued to insist yesterday that it was understandable that the “over-friendly” Internet e-mails they had seen did not set off alarm bells. But one House GOP leadership aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job, conceded that Republicans had erred in not notifying the three-member, bipartisan panel that oversees the page system. Instead, they left it to the panel chairman, Rep. John M. Shimkus (R-Ill.), to confront Foley.”

I will not reprint any of the IM messages that brought this whole thing public. Those are readily available online if you really want to know what, exactly, Foley said to these pages. There are far too many disturbing facts surrounding this case. Pages were warned about Foley as early as five years ago. Foley pushed legislation to enforce stiffer penalties for exactly the type of behavior he was engaging in. He served as co-chair on the Caucus for Missing and Exploited Children in the House for a year after the House leadership learned of his e-mails to a page. Foley proclaimed moral outrage at Bill Clinton’s affair, and now it comes to light that Foley has been a sexual predator for years. But what disturbs me is the lack of concern by House leadership over anything but the political fallout. When Rep. Rodney Alexander learned of the contact between one of his pages and Foley, he did not go immediately to the House leadership or the Page Board. He went to Rep. Reynolds, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Majority leader John Boehner said he notified Hastert months ago, and Hastert assured him that they were “taking care of it.” (Boehner later changed his story, claiming that he “could not remember” whether or not he told Hastert). The Democrat on the Page Board was not notified at any time.

Any investigation into the matter would have undoubtedly uncovered the more explicit messages that surfaced this weekend. Instead, after a page notified his sponsor of a “creepy” e-mail he received from Foley, Foley got a silent reprimand. Based on the accounts from several pages in the media over the weekend, it is apparent that there was knowledge of Foley’s behavior among the pages. The House Republican leadership simply ignored the fact that a sexual predator was serving in Congress, because it presented a political problem for them. Family values, indeed.