[Alex]

Originally Posted by Strangler Lewis

Not if fit boys is what you're into and are hoping the other kid is, too.

Obviously. But we're not talking about a situation where it is known that the guy is into young boys. Foley knows it is an attempt at building a relationship out of sexual desire. Hastert has no way of knowing that and these emails are hardly strong evidence that it is true.

But you're right, it is sad to always have that stuff in the air. I coach a kid's soccer team, and one of the key pieces of advice at the orientation was never be alone with someone else's kid without another adult present.

But how do we know we can trust you to be alone with your kid? Incestuous child molestation is more common than all the other kinds.

You say this is sad but at the same time apparently feel that it should be assumed by Hastert, a presumably trusted colleague, is depraved on the basis on these emails.

Does not compute.

It doesn't compute that an adult can express interest in a young person without it being sexual? As I said, these emails aren't all that different from dozens I've seen written (and written myself on a few occasions) and yet there was no sexual interest. I will stand by my statement that if you put these emails among those emails you wouldn't be about to pick them out.

This isn't some kid with undeveloped impulse control who never learned appropriate boundaries. Like all the scandalous priests, he destroyed his own career.

Yes, he did. That's the point. He destroyed his career. Those emails would have been a pretty flimsy basis for another to destroy his career. And can you think of anything more damaging to a Congressman's career than the speaker of the house issuing a press release that he has asked the police to investigate you because you sent one former employee an email asking for a picture and said another former employee was fit?

Yes, in this case it would have turned out to be right, but it would have been an overreaction reminiscent of the trumped up child abuse cases of the late '80s.

Only in hindsight of the later letters are these emails obviously insidious.

I want to be really clear that I am in no way defending Foley, just the idea that Hastert should have called out all the dogs a year ago.