The Week

Mark Foley has checked himself into rehab for alcoholism. We hope the scotch was older than the boys.

There is more than enough disgrace in the latest congressional scandal to spread around. Most of it goes to Foley, who repeatedly propositioned boys who had been congressional pages. (He resigned when it became public knowledge.) But some must also attach to his Republican colleagues, who did not show sufficient alarm at the early warning signs. When the family of a page requested that Foley end contact with him, House leadership aides told him to comply with the request. Presumably, they took the request seriously because Foley’s interest in young men was well known. But they did not take it so seriously as to launch a real investigation to make sure that other pages had not been endangered. Once the story broke, they spun every which way they could without ever taking responsibility for their mistakes. If Republicans lose their majority over this incident, it will be odd, but it will not be entirely unjust.