Never let it be said that the gathering threat of nuclear armageddon distracted us from Mark Foley’s salacious exchanges with underage male pages. The weekend brought the revelation that Republican lawmaker Jim Kolbe knew of the exchanges as far back as 2000 (pushing back by at least five years the date when a member of Congress has copped to knowing about Foley’s behavior); and the claim, made by a former page to the Los Angeles Times, that he had a sexual encounter with Foley in 2000 at the latter’s Washington home, after he left the page program. Now begin the investigations, with the FBI and the ethics committee pursuing a range of important questions, the sordid answers to which could yet put Dennis Hastert — and who knows who else? — out of a job.
