The right wingers called this one perfectly and were scorned as being paranoid.

Congrats democrats, you got what you paid for.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20061212-123555-4731r.htm

Democratic campaign operatives pushed newspapers to write about then-Rep. Mark Foley’s e-mails to teenage pages in the hope that a scandal would emerge before the midterm elections, according to a House ethics report.     

The findings were bolstered when an aide to Rep. Rahm Emanuel, Illinois Democrat, said the congressman also knew about the e-mails, which were dubbed "inappropriate" by the ethics panel. Mr. Emanuel, who was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) when Mr. Foley’s sex scandal broke in late September, had denied knowledge of the Florida Republican’s e-mails.     

No no!  Say it aint so!  Only the evil republicans were lying right?

Nope.  The democrats spun this and then sat back under the cover of plausible deniability.

The House ethics panel, which is formally called the Standards of Official Conduct Committee, Friday released its final probe into Mr. Foley’s behavior, scolding Republicans for failing to act on years of troubling signs and naming Democrats who knew about the e-mails.

Both sides should feel shame.

The page, sponsored by Republican Rep. Rodney Alexander of Louisiana, said Mr. Foley was "starting to freak me out," the panel reported. The 16-year-old forwarded the Foley e-mails to fellow Alexander staffer Danielle Savoy, wondering whether he was just being "paranoid."

According to the panel, Miss Savoy forwarded the e-mails to a lobbyist friend, who forwarded them to her boyfriend, Justin Field, a staffer for the House Democratic Caucus. Mr. Field gave caucus press aide Matt Miller a copy of the e-mails. Mr. Miller testified he "feared nothing would come" of forwarding the messages to the ethics panel, which at the time was not even meeting because of partisan deadlock over other matters. 

Instead, Mr. Miller redacted the page’s name and faxed copies of the e-mails to reporters in Florida. Mr. Miller then alerted Mr. Burton, who worked for Mr. Emanuel at the DCCC, to see if his hunch was correct that a Foley story was brewing.

They lay their lures and waited for the winds to change.  Soon operation duck hunt would begin….And the republicans obliged and flew right into the trap.

I repeat:  Both sides should feel terrible shame, and the page program should be closed.

Like the parents who let their kids spend nights at Michael Jackson’s house knowing the accusations made against him, what sensible parent would allow their child to be a congressional page after all the scandals?

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