Foley, Gays and the Religious Right: Is This the Nail in the GOP Coffin?

Foley, Gays and the Religious Right: Is This the Nail in the GOP Coffin?: "It's become clear that the Republican leadership protected a predator. Will it cost them the conservative Christian votes they so desperately need?

If there's any question as to why former Rep. Mark Foley was able to continue his harassment of teenage congressional pages, look no further than the spin of Bush spokesman Tony Snow: 'Look, I hate to tell you but it's not always pretty up there on Capitol Hill, and there have been other scandals, as you know, that have been more than simply, uh, uh, uh, naughty emails.'

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But the bigger, more institutional question remains: What did the GOP leadership know, and when did they know it? Evidence suggests that Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Jim Boehner both knew that there were issues -- though neither, of course, cops to awareness of anything approaching the text above. In fact, evidence suggests that Foley's behavior was well known in GOP circles for years, with former page Matthew Loraditch telling ABC News that pages were warned to "watch out for Foley" as early as 2001."

(Via AlterNet.)