Scott Montgomery, Government & Politics Editor for the St. Petersburg Times blogging at The Buzz notes that they were informed of the initial “inappropriate” e-mails from Foley to a page.
The interesting piece of information is that the Times did do some investigation of Foley, although it appears that they were only able to talk to one other page (although they report that they looked for more):
There was nothing overtly sexual in the emails, but we assigned two reporters to find out more. We found the Louisiana page and talked with him. He told us Foley’s request for a photo made him uncomfortable so he never responded, but both he and his parents made clear we could not use his name if we wrote a story. We also found another page who was willing to go on the record, but his experience with Foley was different. He said Foley did send a few emails but never said anything in them that he found inappropriate. We tried to find other pages but had no luck. We spoke with Rep. Alexander, who said the boy’s family didn’t want it pursued, and Foley, who insisted he was merely trying to be friendly and never wanted to make the page uncomfortable.
If a newspaper looked and didn’t find anything, that talks some pressure off of leadership in terms of what they could have found out.
On the other, there is this paragraph from a Palm Beach Post story (Foley shocker jolts race, GOP)
Congressional staff members who asked not to be identified said it was widely known among Hill staffers and some House leaders that Foley had been engaging in inappropriate conduct and language with young aides.
On the one hand, these are unnamed sources. On the other, one would think that that given Foley’s electronic behavior that there had to have been something that he did in public that would have raised eyebrows.
