A "Prank Gone Awry"?
Matt Drudge is headlining the claim that the lurid IMs written by Mark Foley to a former page were the result of a "prank" by the young man himself, who "goaded an unwitting Foley to type embarrassing comments that were then shared with a small group of young Hill politicos." The joke got out of hand, according to this report, when the IMs were forwarded to a Democratic Party political operative.
It also appears that the former page may have been 18 at the time of the IM exchange, and, according to Drudge's sources--two people who "know [the former page] very well"--he is not a homosexual.
If this turns out to be true, the Foley story will go down as one of the weirdest in recent history. I would have said that it would be impossible for a story to be more over-hyped than the Valerie Plame affair, but this one has the potential to set a new record.
And if it's true that the former page was 18--he is 21 now, and the IM exchange was in 2003; the exact date is no doubt available, but I haven't seen it--doesn't the entire story fizzle? Are Republican Congressional leaders supposed to police private communications between two consenting adults? Can you imagine the outcry if they tried?
UPDATE: ABC News reports that three more former pages have contacted that organization and said that Foley made overtures to them over the internet. So I guess we can say that Foley's status as a slimeball--never seriously in doubt--is definitely confirmed. These three individuals are from the "page classes" of 1998, 2000 and 2002. It's a little hard to tell from the ABC account, but it sounds as though one of them actually had a relationship with Foley, who "arranged a sexual liaison after the page had turned 18."
Again, the ABC account is not very detailed, but there is no suggestion that any of these three reported Foley's conduct to anyone. Which, if true, is too bad.
