Republican resigns for soliciting 16-year old page

[Updated Below]

Pretty creepy:

ABC News reported Friday that Foley also engaged in a series of sexually explicit instant messages with current and former teenage male pages. In one message, ABC said, Foley wrote to one page: "Do I make you a little horny?"

In another message, Foley wrote, "You in your boxers, too? ... Well, strip down and get naked."

Foley, as chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, had introduced legislation in July to protect children from exploitation by adults over the Internet.

(HT: Firedoglake) The irony is almost too heavy-handed to be believable. I had heard about this a day or so ago but I didn't post on it because it seemed like it could be some kind of smear campaign, but he's resigned and the Florida Republicans are scrambling to find someone to replace him for the November election. Poor kid: becoming a congressional page only to get hit on by a congressman. To the kid's credit, he reported it. Apparently, this story has been kicking around for quite some time: some prominent blogger (I forget who) claimed to have received these emails 11 months ago, but didn't publish them because they couldn't be verified.

Update: Crooks and Liars:

Later on Ross says that one page said his "entire class was warned about Foley from people involved in the program". Now if warnings were issued, then why was action never taken? Sounds like the leadership in Congress really needs to be asked some serious questions about this.

Could the Republican party be having their own pedophelia scandal, complete with cover-ups by leadership? (OK, technically it's ephebophilia, not pedophelia, because it involves teenagers, not kids.) Can't let the Catholic Church get a monopoly on enabling hypocritical sexual abuse now, can we?