[fhayek]

I am precariously close to fifty. My point was more in the realm of the court of public opinion. If you are 18, you are considered (for all intents and purposes) an adult. If someone sends a salacious IM, you are expected to be able to deal with it. Not so with a 16 year old. Everything I have been hearing is that Foley was hitting on 16 year olds. If this guy is 18, it kind of shoots a lot of the story out of the water. I am not, however, saying that Foley isn't a pervert. But there is much perversion in this world that is nevertheless legal.

[eddie willers]

My point was more in the realm of the court of public opinion.

So was I and here is where we differ in opinion and I may very well be wrong....but I believe that most people, over 40, think a 52 year old man hitting on an 18 year old is no different than a 16 year old.

And people over 40 vote!

The only think we can do is stress that IMs are different than Emails and that we did the right thing at the right time.

Anything else just keeps it in the news

[Eva]

If you read some of the earlier postings by the kid, you'll see that he already knew of Foley's reputation before he took the job. It sounds to me as thought the kid was playing Foley for a fool, not the other way around. None of this is meant to exculpate Foley, just to say that the kid wasn't really a victim.