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	E-Mail Scandal's Fallout Rolls up Hill to Hastert By Dawn Turner Trice Chicago Tribune [United States] October 2, 2006 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0610020164oct02,1,4520756.column?coll=chi-news-col&ctrack=1&cset=true Gee, does U.S. Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) want to keep a Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. This may be most evident in how the speaker of the House is handling the latest Washington scandal, which focuses on allegations of sexually charged electronic messages that recently resigned U.S. Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) sent to current and former teenage male pages. At the center of the controversy is Hastert who, if we recall, became speaker during President Clinton's sex scandal, which also claimed some House Republicans. Also at the center is U.S. Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), a Downstate congressman who heads a panel that oversees the pages. According to a statement from Hastert's office, an aide to a Louisiana congressman contacted Hastert's staff last fall saying he was "concerned" about an e-mail exchange involving Foley and a 16-year-old page. Hastert's aides said they checked it out right away, and the matter was referred to Shimkus. Hastert's aides also said that because the teen's family wanted to maintain his privacy, no one in the speaker's office actually saw the e-mail messages. But they were assured that the messages were not of a sexual nature. So you can imagine the red faces when they found out about more messages that were clearly of a sexual nature. When exactly did they find out? Well, that's one of the big questions. Hastert's office said the messages had been characterized as "over-friendly." OK, let's stop there at "over-friendly." Maybe I'm missing something, but how can someone be told that a middle-aged man--52 to be exact--had been sending "over-friendly" messages to a 16-year-old page and it not ratchet up the "ick" factor? What makes this even more egregious is that Foley championed the new sexual-predator law that sets a mandatory 10-year prison sentence for sex crimes against people under 18. The law cracks down on folks who send lewd stuff--such as explicit e-mail messages--over the Internet to children. For his part in this, Shimkus has said that he acted quickly in late 2005 after he learned about the e-mail exchange. According to reports, Shimkus went to Foley and asked him if he had been sending nasty e-mails to pages. Foley emphatically denied doing so. Shimkus then told Foley to cease and desist. And that was that. No investigation. The word "over-friendly" shouldn't lead to an indictment. But haven't we learned enough in recent years for the matter to have merited far more scrutiny than it apparently received? If you have even the faintest knowledge of the priest sex-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church and all the coverups there, this matter should have merited more scrutiny. If you have only vaguely heard about the type of people--we call them pedophiles--who troll the Internet trying to hook up with children, it should have merited greater scrutiny. Foley resigned ignominiously Friday after ABC News broke the story and the oxidation process got under way. Foley's departure came without the usual rhetoric of vowing to stick around and fight. He apologized and then got out of Dodge. The big question now before Hastert and other House Republican leaders is this: Was there a coverup? (And who thought "over-friendly" was the proper euphemism to wash over the absurd?) During the weekend, the Republicans began calling for investigations and talking up the importance of keeping pages safe. That should engender a ton of confidence in parents who send their teens to Washington to work for our legislators. As the Republicans run amok trying to mount a public relations campaign, there's a greater lesson here for Democrats who may see this as an opportunity to make up some political ground. For months they've been trying to retrofit Republican stratagems to win elections. "Let's show voters our moral values." I, for one, don't want to hear it if it's just to win elections or to gain seats. That may sound naive at a time when so very much is at stake, from the cases before the U.S. Supreme Court to our occupation of Iraq to the assault on the Constitution. Yes, winning is important. But the end here doesn't justify the means. I don't know about you, but all of this makes me weary. Scratch that. I've got a better description: "over-fatigued." E-mail: dtrice@tribune.com
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