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I admire the work of both gentlemen immensely, but I really don't think now's the time for Ben Stein and Mark Levin (on his blog at NRO) to be zeroing in on the hypocrisy and opportunism of Democrats, despite the temptation and as long as the list of examples may be (for both political parties, really).

Former Rep. Foley, based on his immediate resignation, more or less confirmed his abominable behavior. His disgusting messages to underage pages -- which apparently include attempts to rendezvous with at least one of them -- deserve the strongest condemnation without being watered down by "they're guilty too" defenses. This guy was either a pedophile, tried to be a pedophile, or dreamed of being a pedophile. To some degree or another he acted on those impulses, probably illegally. As far as the response is concerned, political ramifications should be in the deep secondary to the strong, forceful emphasis that any threat such as this to children entrusted to Congress is unacceptable, and will be prosecuted under the full force of the law.

That, of course, should also take into consideration whether or not Foley's actions were known to others much earlier than this weekend. Let's just not let the main thing get lost in it all.

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http://spectator.org/blog/2006/10/02/stein-levin-discussing-foley-r
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