Rich Lowry notes the ironies of the Democrats becoming so bluenosed over "inappropriate" sexual interests, even without any actual sex. He observes:

No one will believe that Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is going to be more suspicious of what gay congressmen are doing with the male pages — as some Democratic rhetoric implies — than Speaker Dennis Hastert.

Of course, it doesn’t take a puritan to object to a 52-year-old man luring a 16-year-old into cybersex. But this is all the more reason to reconsider the broader sexualization of teens in our culture. Britney Spears was the country’s hottest sexual commodity at age 17, but at 25 is considered over the hill. In the nation’s schools, sex education tends to encourage (“safe”) teen sexual activity, with little thought given to the fact that sexually active teens might well find sexually predatory adults (straight or gay) as their partners rather than other teens. In more than half of teen births, the father is an adult.

The point about how sexually savvy teenagers have become has been occurring to a lot of us since the report that Foley was lured into his lurid IMs as a prank. As that sinks in, I don't think people will blame Republicans for the decline of moral values regarding sex.

Congressman Chris Cannon made the same point, but not very artfully and is getting hassled for making excuses for Foley. Of course, Foley really has no excuse, but it does make the "victim' seem less like a victim than at first.