Posted by Steven Zak

Sure, Mark Foley's fall conjured lies from the left, but with plenty of support from the right. Everyone knows, for instance, of the dishonest campaign ad by Democratic congressional candidate Patty Wetterling, in which she describes Foley's behavior as "predatory" and Foley as a man "who used the internet to molest children." But why shouldn't a lefty be hysterical, even if inaccurate, when the moralistic right is behaving much the same way?

Michelle Malkin concurred that Foley's behavior was "predatory" and "lecherous." Tony Blankley called for Denny Hastert's resignation in the service of "traditional moral values." And numerous conservatives have described Foley's interest in male pages (or is it just his interest in males?) as "creepy," "disgusting," "sickening" and "repulsive."

Moralists on high horses -- all you've accomplished was to feed the Democrats' fire.

Most of the to do, of course, was over an IM (Instant Message) exchange between Congressman Foley and a male page that ABC news released on Tuesday, which IM consisted largely of flirtation and overt sex talk. We now know that the page was 18 -- a legal adult anywhere -- not 16 as ABC News had reported (though the age of consent in D.C. is 16 anyway). And that Foley's advances were welcomed and reciprocated by the page.

But worse: reports now indicate that the page was leading Foley on in order to have a laugh, with fellow pages, at Foley's expense. Well, they got their laugh -- and lost Foley his job, ruined his reputation and destroyed his life and legacy.

So who's the real "predator" here and who's the victim? What do you say now -- Michelle? Tony?

But doesn't the whole IM exchange still feel "creepy?"

Well, it should feel creepy to invade someone's privacy -- to peer in the window at flirtation between two consenting adults. And admit it -- you find flirtation between two men far creepier than you would if the chat were between a middle-aged man and a willing 18-year-old female high school hottie. Just a tad homophobic are you, you upstanding upholders of "traditional moral values"? 

To those peeping-Tom moralists hellbent on condemning not only Foley but Hastert and others, how do you feel now that the truth has come out? Now that you know you've been had? (Some of you still feel morally superior: Noel Sheppard in the American Thinker, for instance, reiterates that all should be "indeed repulsed" by Foley's behavior.)

Even before the facts were known, too bad so few of you had any sense of proportion. You might have reflected that sex chat with a young man clearly old enough to take care of himself -- even if he hadn't been 18 -- was hardly equal in import to, say, a drunken and debauched senator leaving a young girl trapped upside down in his Oldsmobile at the bottom of the Poucha Pond. 

But now the damage from your high-toned moralizing is done. Creepy.