Threaten the victim? He wasn't protected by the Sex Offender registry, was he?

It appears that kooks who would rather ignore the real ramifications of the Foley sex scandal and the ensuing mess in D.C. are actually threatening a former page who was the recipient of the more mild emails from the former Congressman.

One little issue seems to be causing some debate (to put that charitably) within loyalists of the two parties: the actual age of the former page. The News-Press reports that the terrified page is NOW 17.

Alexander sponsored the then-16-year-old’s service as a House page but said the teenager worked for the House clerk. The boy, who is from Monroe, La., is now 17.

But then there is a pesky question about who told who, when? This, dear reader, is where the plot thickens, and Rep. Alexander has some explaining to do. He first indicated that he was contacted by the former page's parents about the "overly-friendly" emails, but here he says differently:

“My first job was protecting the innocence of that young man and his family,” Alexander said. “When I informed the family, they said they were aware of the situation and told me that they weren’t going to pursue it because of the harm that it could do to their son.”

But then he says this:

“It wasn’t normal for (Foley) to be sending those e-mails to a 16-year-old, which is why I informed the House leadership,” he said. “The young man clearly felt that the e-mails were creepy, which is why he notified our office.”

Well? Which is it? Did the kid go to the Congressman before going to his own parents? Does that even matter?

And speaking of party loyalists, the poor former page was 'outed' by a hard-core hater, "Wild Bill" Kerr of Oklahoma - a wanna be radio talking-head. Maybe he thinks that he has to be a bigger asshole than the assholes that are currently polluting the airwaves to get any attention? He's pretty slimy and disgusting to even go where he did. Others are posting photos of his son (which was available online anyway, but now connected to the 'outing' it is associated with hatred and vengeance on the other foot) and implying that his son should receive the same death threats and other threats to bodily harm and personhood that the former page is experiencing. That whole situation is totally out of hand.

First off, it is unconscionable to publicly "name & shame" a victim of a crime (yes, I know, there are many claims that there is no "victim" and that he was 18 at the time of the emails). Regardless, it is still a despicable thing to do - to anyone, by anyone, period. To do it out of some bizarre blind loyalty to a political "party" is even stupider. (And that means Nancy Disgrace, too!)

Loyalists of both of the two major parties are really missing the point here. Mark Foley committed a sex crime, and possibly more than one. It is irrelevant whether any non-law enforcement know the exact details of the IMs, what IS relevant is that the tough sex offender laws did NOT protect the pages (or any other minors) from a 50+ year old man who abused his position and access.

That is the relevant fact that seems to be lost in all of the partisan bickering (which is really, really sickening and embarassing, folks). Realistically, any internal investigation will be stymied by those in power (happens to be the GOP this time), people will get "thrown under the bus" and it will fade due to some manufactured crisis designed to divert the country's attention from getting too close to the disgusting and pervasive sexual perversions of those who rule us.