Statesmanship includes not panicking -- as Lincoln said, we must "think calmly, and well, upon the whole subject." We are in the early stages of this story. I suspect Mr. Hastert knows more than we do.

Some are already splashing around in the cesspool, but not, so far, the Republicans.

I think it’s a bad idea to wait calmly for the story to develop. Isn’t that what Hastert did for months or years? Isn’t that what has enraged voters against the Republican party? Sitting around and waiting for Foley to develop more young friends?

And now three more pages have come forward.

This is snowballing. Heads must roll.

You should give the context of Corn’s piece, which, predictably, RCP distorts. Corn’s point, I take it, is that Republicans are going to try to blame this whole affair on a network of gay Republican staffers, and they’ve got a list of those staffers and are planning on releasing it as part of their strategy. So, unless you think Corn is just lying, this is another example of Republicans going after each other in an attempt to deflect blame from the leadership.

"Some are already splashing around in the cesspool, but not, so far, the Republicans. "

Joe, the cesspool that some Republicans are splashing around in is the one defined by Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh - that these pages seduced Foley into sending the instant messages and emails. I hope you don’t agree with that one - they’ve been tarring rape victims with that brush for years.

While I’m at it, what’s with the weird "Foley is a Democrat" meme from Fox News and Ann Coulter? Can’t somebody put out a talking points memo and calm these people down?

So MSNBC thinks it’s going to bash Republicans over the head for complying with the BILL To prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation?

Bring it on! Maybe, if they bash hard enough, they’ll get the bill repealed!

Democrats are all about protecting the children now, eh?

They write pro-pedophilia books and then give them awards. They think militant gay activists have a Constitutional Right to their own Boy Scout troops. They’ve made sex-offenders a protected and affirmative action class in California. Every pro-predator ACLU lawyer and liberal judge is a Democrat.

What if instead of proposing sex, Foley had proposed marriage?

Not one of Brooks’s better efforts.
He talks smugly of "the long run," as if it doesn’t matter who controls Congress for the next two years.

Well, I have news for you, Mr. New York Times House Conservative. We’re fighting a war for the survival of the West. And as John Maynard Keynes said in another context: "In the long run, we are all dead."

OK, reading David Corn again today, it looks I was wrong about the provenance of "the List"; it’s part of a calculated outing campaign.

Brett has it right, if David Corn is right: the point is to provoke social conservative outrage against gay Republicans, presumably either depressing turnout this fall or driving gays out of the GOP.

I guess a person’s sexuality is nobody’s business unless it serves the interest of the gay lobby to make it somebody’s business.

I think most Americans would think that it would be just as "icky" if a middle aged Congressman was making sophomotic (middle school?) advances towards a 16 year old female page. This gay issue is a non-starter.

It may be a feeble attempt to slap back at the Democrats, but they aren’t the ones driving Foleygate. In fact, they’ve been pretty silent. Sitting on the curb, wincing, watching the bloody bodies being removed from the wreck.

With logic like that HOW IN THE WORLD could the American public think the Republicans consider themselves above the law.

"If they throw Denny Hastert off the sled to slow down the wolves, it won’t be long before you’ll be crying, ’Hey, you’ve got to throw somebody else over because they knew about it too,’" Baker said.

OK, exactly how many of these guys knew about it, Jim?

Someone put it to me this way... Every parent sees it like this. The pages is their kid. Foley is a teacher. Hastert is the principal. He heard about this teacher many times from kids, other teachers, parents, and he did NOTHING. For years.

They don’t want Hastert fired, they want him torn limb from limb. And anyone who protects him too. After they’re been burned with blowtorches.

I don’t think the party appreciates the level of rage out there in middle America.