Perhaps, but if that is the case, why didn't the Republican leadership come out with this much earlier so as not to allow the Dims to do it so close to election time? Shows even more incompetence on the part of the GOP leadership than might normally be expected.
Because the Republicans DIDN'T know until the IM's were broadcast on ABC News. SOMEONE (not a republican and most definitely NOT part of the republican house leadership) gave those IM's to the press. The leadership came out AS SOON AS they found out about it. I don't understand how they could possibly be incompetent, unless you expect them to read minds.
Cindie
The leadership knew the parents didn't want the matter to become public about the over-friendly emails.
And that is all they were at that point...over-friendly. GOP leadership only learned about the other lurid emails a couple of days ago.
The Leadership was informed that a family complained that Foley had sent inappropriate emails and the family would like it to stop. The family refused to hand over the actual emails citing privacy concerns (good parents apparently) but told Congressman Alexander (D) that there was not any sexual conotation to the emails. I believe there was a story from the American Spectator or another conservative publication which said the original emails were (1) Foley asking the boy for a photo to keep with their records so that Foley could remember the pages when references were requested; and (2) Asking the boy what he would like for his birthday.
Now, this might be overly friendly for an older man to email back and forth with a child, but easily explainable to the Leadership as an innocent attempt to stay in touch with pages or just being friends with the kid. The leadership told Foley to knock it off and stay away from the pages, per the family's request. The head of the Page program, John Shimkus was notified as well. As far as the Leadership was concerned --- BASED ON THE CONTENT AS REPORTED BY CONGRESSMAN ALEXANDER --- they dealt with the issue and met the request of the family to end the emails.
Based on the content they knew, there was no reason for them to see this as anything but a constituent not comfortable with the congressman emailing a kid to get a photo for his records, or giving a birthday gift. Nothing sexual according to the parents, per Alexander. That's it. They did their job. I don't think Hastert was ever even made aware of the facts - and why would he be?
That's a good question, and I think the answer is that the Republicans may have believed the last thing the Dems would do is something like this in that the Dems may have a ton of sex-stain laundry in the closet the Republicans know about as well.
I hate to think this, but could it be that there is an unspoken agreement in DC that nobody squeals on anyone about anything except when the information becomes known and is made public by someone who doesn't belong to the club?
Some would say that guilty knowledge is the glue that binds them all together, affording them all a modicum of job security and an extra measure of legislative leverage.
We'll know soon enough if those closet doors are pried open and and few more dirty bundles comes tumbling out in the next couple of weeks.
Are we NOT getting it yet?! All they could have come out with were innocuous e-mails that they were shown by one person. They asked Foley to stop with the e-mails and he did.
The Instant messages came out Friday. That's when the Republican leadership saw them...basically after the news was out. Now how in the world were they going to come out with anything "earlier?"