These guys can ram through a law to destroy 900 years of jurisprudence by trashing the separation of powers, and give Bush the power to imprison any US citizen for anything, indefinitely, and they can’t protect one teenager from a sexual predator? WTF?

AP, 5:42PM on this fast-breaking story:

Hastert Told of Foley Months Ago
Rep. Thomas Reynolds, head of the House Republican election effort, said he told Speaker Dennis Hastert after learning a fellow GOP lawmaker sent inappropriate messages to a teenage boy.

The boy who received the e-mails was 16 in summer 2005 when he worked in Congress as a page. After the boy returned to his Louisiana home, the congressman e-mailed him, and the teenager thought the messages were inappropriate, particularly one in which Foley asked the teen to send a picture of himself.

The teen’s family contacted their congressman, Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., who then discussed it with Reynolds sometime this spring.

So, Reynolds hears a child in his district has been “inappropriately” contacted, and then Reynolds contacts Alexander, the Republican campaign manager? What’s up with that?

What’s wrong with these people? Well…

The Armchair subversive has a fairly comprehensive list. (NOTE: Some links are broken; but the links that are not… Well…)

UPDATE You know, I think consenting adults ought to be able to do pretty much anything they want in the privacy of their own bedrooms. So, to me, a lot of sex scandals aren’t scandals. Monica and Clinton were both adults, for example, and the whole thing could and should have been worked out between the two or possibly the three of them. And given the results of the Republican witchhunt against Clinton, I’d say these views are mainstream.

But the Republicans, and their base of “values voters,” don’t believe this. And in case after case, including the Foley example, it isn’t the hypocrisy that’s the issue:

It’s the abuse of the weak by the strong..

UPDATE Think Progress has a great timeline.