Congressman Mark Foley resigned this past Friday, a day after ABC published questionable e-mails from Foley to a Congressional page. One of Foley’s sexually explicit instant message conversations with a 16-year old page, which you can easily find on the internet, has also been published.

Before Foley’s resignation, he had an active schedule; according to his own IMs he was “never too busy haha.” During his tenure in Congress, Foley was the co-chairman of the Congressional Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. He was also instrumental in crafting legislation creating tougher penalties for violent and sexual crimes against children and took the initiative in asking several underage congressional pages to “measure” for him.

It seems that even the most powerful among us, even if they are a member of the “Party of God” and family values, is capable of an awkward and sloppily-typed IM conversation that reads more like something you did back in high school (hopefully, of course, with someone your own age) than the beginning of the film “Hard Candy.”

This past Sunday, ABC News reported that Republicans in Congress have known about Foley’s predatory actions towards teenage boys since at least 2001. Pages were warned to “watch out for Congressman Mark Foley.” Matthew Loraditch, congressional page from 2001-2002, has stated that pages were instructed not to “get too wrapped up in him (Foley) being too nice to you.”

But why should any of this matter to you? Well, two congressmen from Illinois were aware of and have been enabling Foley’s behavior for some time.

At a speech in 2002, the chair of the Congressional Page Board, Republican Congressman John Shimkus, who currently represents Illinois’s 19th District, complimented Foley as someone that he knew “spends a lot of time” with the pages. This was after pages were warned about him. According to an aide to Shimkus, when Shimkus learned in late 2005 that Foley had written to a page asking for an “e-mail pic,” he questioned Foley. After Foley assured Shimkus that he had done nothing wrong, Shimkus ordered Foley to cut off contact with the page and left it at that.

Apparently more interested in damage control than in protecting minors, Shimkus took Foley’s words at face value and never told the one Democrat on the congressional page board.

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, from Illinois’s 14th Congressional District, also took a lead role in covering up Foley’s actions. Hastert’s office was informed of the same e-mails between Foley and the page early in 2006. According to the Washington Post, “House Majority Leader John Boehner . had learned this spring of some ‘contact’ between Foley and a 16-year old page. Boehner said he told Hastert . and that Hastert assured him ‘we’re taking care of it.'”

The text of the Washington Post article I quoted has since been changed, as Boehner retracted his comments and congressional Republicans attempted to coordinate their stories. On Friday, the day Foley resigned, Hastert’s staff claimed that the speaker did not know about the allegations regarding congressman Foley until the week before.

On Saturday, Republican Congressman Tom Reynolds stated that he also told Hastert about concerns over Foley’s behavior this spring. After this, Hastert changed his story and admitted that Reynolds had told him and that he had been aware of the allegations against Foley.

Exactly what Representative Hastert has been “taking care of,” I am not sure. It seems that although he knew Foley was a sexual predator, Hastert has been more interested in protecting his own reputation and holding on to Foley’s seat for the Republican Party than protecting minors.

What have we learned from this scandal, other than to keep your kids out of the steam room? If Dennis Hastert and John Shimkus have the moral integrity of the cardinal of the Boston Archdiocese, what are we to do with them? Is this kind of behavior a product of having one-party rule for too long, or is this simply what you should expect when you elect officials from a party that claims that government is corrupt and doesn’t work to run your government?