"Overly friendly," Republican House Speaker Hastert called Mark Foley's creepy emails in his letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Overly friendly? Overly friendly is Harriet Miers' gushing letters to George Bush.
When a 52 year old man emails a 16 year old boy to tell him that he thinks his 16 year old friend is hot, that's not overly friendly. That's disgusting. Especially when both boys were away from their parents and in a mentoring relationship with the not-so-secret admirer.
The poor kid clearly didn't find Foley's fan letters friendly. He complained that he was "freaked out" by the entire unsolicited episode, and called Foley's actions "sick." And now that it's been reported that Foley routinely targeted underage kids for his online affections, and repeatedly asked them to measure the size of their penises for him, the 16 year old's concerns about his special friend were clearly warranted.
Of course, downplaying the suffering of sexually harassed children is nothing new to Denny Hastert and the GOP. On Friday, GOP Rep. John Shimkus described Foley's youth outreach thusly:
In that email exchange, Congressman Foley asked about the former Page's well-being after Hurricane Katrina and requested a photograph.Isn't that special? Foley simply wanted to show he cared. Pass the ruler.
Then today White House Spokesman Tony Snow describes the Foley scandal as "simply naughty emails" but not a big deal. I mean, what adult hasn't asked a sixteen year old boy to describe how he masturbates? (You can watch the video here.)
Denny Hastert and the GOP leadership need to stop downplaying the trauma Foley caused to this kid and far too many more. Or the voters may not be overly friendly to GOP predator-enablers come November 7.
