The Democrats and Foley

The Washington Post's Jonathan Weismann has a very revealing story on the Foley scandal.  On the one hand, it does look like the timing of the scandal was largely accidental, contrary to what I suggested in my most recent post.  On the other, it is now clear that "Democratic Operatives" have possessed the less explicit e-mails (the ones that the House Leadership supposedly covered up) for months, and have been trying to get the press to publish them.

Two of the news media's sources of Mark Foley's sexually explicit instant messages to former House pages said this week that they came forward to expose the Florida congressman's actions, not to help the Democrats in the midterm elections.

But there are indications that Democrats spent months circulating five less insidious Foley e-mails to news organizations before they were finally published by ABC News late last month, which prompted the leaking of the more salacious instant messages. Harper's Magazine said yesterday that it obtained the five e-mails from a Democratic Party operative, albeit in May, long before the election season.

It was the publication of the "less salacious" e-mails that encouraged two former pages to release the sexually explicit ones.  One of those pages is a Democrat; the other describes himself as a staunch Republican. 

House Republicans have been accused of putting politics over the safety of children by covering up the habits of Representative Foley.  I have addressed this in my recent posts.  But if that accusation is fair, what are we to make of those still anonymous Democratic operatives who possessed the same information the Republican leadership did, and who, instead of acting openly on that information, spent months peddling it secretly to the press?