"Attorney General Gonzales has told the public repeatedly that the investigation and prosecution of those who sexually exploit children is a top priority. We are outraged that the FBI failed to investigate Rep. Foley and is now blaming others for its inaction.

"It is time for all of those who had knowledge about Rep. Foley's conduct to step up and take responsibility for leaving a sexual predator on the loose."

CREW's letters and Rep. Foley's e-mails are available at www.citizensforethics.org.

Unlike the committee's usual practice of identifying the investigative target at the outset, this probe is wide open. Anyone who knew of Foley's salacious messages before the story broke at the end of September has reason for concern.

"At this point, what we're launching is an investigation into this whole affair, without a specific target," said California Rep. Howard Berman (news, bio, voting record), the senior Democrat on the 10-member committee divided evenly among Republicans and Democrats.

"But because Mark Foley has left the Congress, we don't have the authority to discipline him in any way. The reason what happened is relevant is because there are people now who have responsibilities, and we're gathering the facts which are related to his conduct to make judgments," Berman said.

A second committee member, Rep. Judy Biggert (news, bio, voting record), R-Ill., said House Speaker
Dennis Hastert's prominence in questioning about who knew what and when about Foley's conduct toward pages and Hastert's closeness to her will not be problematic.

Hastert's leadership political committee gave Biggert $6,000 for her 2002 campaign and his re-election committee gave her $1,000. Her district also adjoins Hastert's.

"We're looking at a great number of people, not just one specific person," Biggert said. "The facts will lead to us to who, if there is someone, who perhaps did a cover-up."

Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a group that monitors congressional ethics, wondered whether the committee can conduct an impartial investigation without an outside counsel. The committee rejected that idea, as it has done occasionally in other high-profile cases involving House leaders.

"Published reports have clearly indicated a number of House members were aware of the incident with the House page," Wertheimer said, referring to less suggestive e-mails Foley sent to a former page from Louisiana. "You would expect the committee to make clear they would be looking at those members. That doesn't mean they would reach any conclusion."

He noted the committee did not specify who it will interview. Hastert has said he was not aware of Foley's inappropriate conduct until the story broke publicly late last month.

"The House ethics committee process is a secret process so we don't know what's going to go on," Wertheimer said.

The committee was in turmoil from the start of the current Congress in January 2005 through last May, when it finally announced a number of investigations.

Bitter partisan arguments broke out in early 2005 when Hastert, at the request of former Majority Leader
Tom DeLay, replaced Republicans on the committee who had voted for reports critical of DeLay's conduct.

Then Hastert's hand-picked chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings (news, bio, voting record), R-Wash., and the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Alan Mollohan (news, bio, voting record) of West Virginia, argued to a stalemate over staff and rules for investigations.

It was only after Mollohan - under his own ethics cloud involving business deals - stepped down from the committee that the partisan squabbles ended. Berman took over as ranking Democrat and established a good working relationship with Hastings.

In a burst of activity last May, the two leaders announced a flurry of investigations - focusing on Rep. Bob Ney (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio, with links to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and on the Democrat at the center of a separate bribery probe, Rep. William Jefferson (news, bio, voting record) of Louisiana.

Ney agreed in September to plead guilty to two criminal charges in the congressional corruption probe spawned by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Jefferson, also the subject of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department, has denied any wrongdoing.

Here's Foley (code-named Maf54)
in instant message mode in April, 2003:

Maf54: I miss you

Teen: ya me too

Maf54: we are still voting

Maf54: you miss me too.

The two of them then-so say
the transcribers at ABC News-"appear to describe having
sexual orgasms."

Maf54: ok..i better go vote..did
you know you would have this effect on me

Teen: lol I guessed

Teen: ya go voteI don't want
to keep you from doing your job

Maf54: can I have a good kiss
goodnight ...

Teen: :-*

Teen: kiss

What was Foley off to vote
for? That evening the House voted on HR 1559, Emergency War Time
supplemental appropriations. Just another wargasm in the life
of Empire.

Did Foley actually lay his
filthy paws on gilded youth? There are gay guys who like to hang
around teens, not necessarily with an overpowering urge for immediate
sexual contact but more for the overall homoerotic buzz and the
hope that one day one of the lads might say, You're the one.
It's like the pilot in that great 1980 movie Airplane:

Captain Oveur: You ever been
in a cockpit before?

Joey: No sir, I've never been
up in a plane before.

Captain Oveur: You ever seen
a grown man naked?

Captain Oveur: Joey, have you
ever been in a-a Turkish prison?

Captain Oveur: Joey, do you
like movies about gladiators?

This sounds like Foley to me.
When in doubt, head for the Betty Ford Center. Although no one
seems to be buying it, Foley is trying to bring booze into disrepute,
saying that he was drunk all those times he whacked out the instant
messages on his laptop or Blackberry. He also says he was abused
by a priest as a lad and now suffers from mental illness. A trifecta!
Foley probably spent a lot of time studying the human pyramid
and dog photos from Abu Ghraib before rushing off to draft the
strong language he inserted into the Child Protection and Safety
Act earlier this year. People cry angrily that this is hypocrisy.
I'm not sure why. If you, as a human, know what you are capable
of, surely it's sound moral conduct for you, as a legislator,
to try to guard society from the Beast Within.

What gives a scandal legs is
always the cover-up, or the appearance of a cover-up. Republicans
in tight races are panicking because Hastert and other senior
Republicans sat on the scandal. "I don't think it would
pass the sniff test," says West Virginia Representative
Shelley Moore Capito, referring to claims that the first set
of e-mails between Foley and the pages on the topic of boxer
shorts did not seem to be conclusive evidence of anything really
bad. Sniff test? What can Shelley have been thinking of?

Beyond their inherently uplifting
aspect-bringing powerful people into ridicule and disrepute-political
sex scandals can be very educational about sex and political
economy. (This one has already dealt a few knocks to the myth
of teen innocence, beloved by prosecutors.) Who does not recall
that tryst in the White House-unearthed by special prosecutor
Ken Starr-between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in 1996, when
Bill, receiving satisfaction from Monica in his nether regions,
gave satisfaction over the phone to Alfonso Fanjul, the Florida
sugar baron who was complaining that Al Gore had just proposed
a sugar tax and had vowed to clean up the Everglades.

The bluenoses try to ban sex
ed and then provoke scandal which duly engenders sex ed in glorious
Technicolor. Bill Clinton fired his first Surgeon General, Joycelyn
Elders, asked at a 1994 conference at the United Nations whether
adults should promote masturbation among youth as a way to discourage
dangerous sexual behavior. "I think that is part of human
sexuality," she answered, "and perhaps it should be
taught." Maybe Foley should volunteer to be a teacher, as
part of a plea bargain.

I often tell people they shouldn't
worry too much about the evangelical Christians. People who spend
so much time lecturing others about sin are likely to go sinning
themselves, and in the end, like Jimmy Swaggart, they get caught
heading into the whorehouse. Republicans are a repressed lot,
unless they become libertarians like Justin Raimondo. He can
flaunt his own trifecta: gay, antiwar and pro-capitalism. Back
in Reagan time, when I was on the campaign trail, the motels
were always filled with Republicans stitched into their squeaky-clean
suits who were obvious closet cases.

Most certainly the country
has been ripe for a political sex scandal. Given the paralysis
at the straightforward political level, it's pretty much the
only safety valve we've got. Let's hope the Foley scandal will
give us at least a hundredth as much educational uplift and fun
as did the great Lewinsky scandal of immortal memory. This doesn't
mean Bush won't bomb Iran. He might do it to change the subject,
and all those Republicans will interrupt their instant messaging
to the page boys to go vote the President all appropriate powers.