You can sense the disappointment

in Larry Margasak's AP article:

WASHINGTON - The House's investigation of a page sex scandal has only one certainty: Former Rep. Mark Foley will escape punishment by his peers.

Escape? He's under investigation by Florida and the feds. He resigned in disgrace. He's become the poster child for a variety of ills that Americans passionately despise. I'd say that so far he's escaped little. And while I feel he deserves far worse than he'll ultimately receive, he'll get the maximum our laws and our society can dish out. It'll have to be enough.

Unfortunately, the optimism in the article about the ethics probe won't pan out:

Unlike the committee's usual practice of identifying the investigative target at the outset, this probe is wide open. Anyone who knew of Foley's salacious messages before the story broke at the end of September has reason for concern.

Larry's (and apparently AP's) optimism is that Republican leadership will be shown to have known all the graphic details from the very first IM and turned a blind eye or even actively enabled Foley. I'm confident that this will not be the result, as it's become obvious that the early emails were unactionable and Hastert and crew's reactions were appropriate. But it's unfortunate that the damage will already have been done long before that result is reached.

Also unfortunate because it appears that those who knew (and hid for months) the true nature of Foley's disgusting advances towards young men weren't in Congress, therefore beyond the reach of the ethics committee. Democratic leadership may have been aware, but the trails the emails and IMs followed to the media were sufficiently distant from the House that no prominent Dem will be successfully called to task. Such a small number of Americans pay close enough attention to politics that few will connect the dots to see that a political party desperate for power is more than willing to place children at risk while they patiently bide their time for the moment with the most political effect.

It's a pattern we've all seen before in politics. Rarely does an elected official have to dirty his/her own hands, there are plenty of folks willing to do it for them. As a result, the ones responsible almost never face consequences. Does anyone really this will play out otherwise? I have a bridge for sale if you do...