Now, with 20/20 hindsight, people are complaining that Congress didn't do enough to nip this problem in the bud. But what should Congress have done?
In this editorial, the Wall Street Journal asks just what could have been done. I suppose his e-mails and IMs could have been subjected to surveillance, but wouldn't that have triggered cries of "homophobia!!!"?
Interestingly enough, Foley's isn't the worst case of congressional misbehavior around pages.
From James Taranto's blog, we learn that:
Then again, there have been scandals involving congressional pages before. In 1983, Reps. Dan Crane (R., Ill) and Gerry Studds (D., Mass.) were both found to have had actual sexual relations with pages (Crane with a girl, Studds with a boy). Both were censured by the House; Crane lost his re-election bid in 1984, while Studds was re-elected six times before retiring.
So if you're a Democrat, it's okay to get the pages sticky.
