You mean after seeing the e-mails Hastert didn't think of having a private detective vet it out? Haster should have assumed that if he flirted with one, he flirted with others, and Lord knows what he was stupid enough to commit to immortality in e-mail? Jeez, these politicians can crawl up the keister with a microscope on their electoral opponents, but the clearly suggestive e-mails didn't send up a giant red flag that Foley was a land mine just waiting to be stepped on? The blackmail potential, on the e-mails alone, should have been enough incentive for Hastert to find out the full story. He took them at face value instead of realizing that where there's smoke, there's fire.
The worst thing your army can do in battle is give ammunition to the enemy. This isn't just ammunition, this is a Howitzer cannon. Whether or not Hastert et al. had direction knowledge of the IM's, the e-mails alone should have spurred some kind of internal response, and from all appearances, it didn't.
That's completely ridiculous. Have you read the emails? He asked the kid for his picture, that's as "bad" as they got.