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Republicans Defiant in Wake of Major Scandal

The Republican Party is refusing to bow down in the face of massive pressure from Democrats in the wake of the revelation of a major political scandal involving sexually-suggestive emails between a Florida Republican, Mark Foley, and a teenage congressional page. Calls by a conservative-leaning Washington newspaper for the Republican Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, to resign after revelations that he might have known about the wrongdoing by Representative Foley but kept the story quiet in the hopes that the bad winds would just blow over, have been rejected by the White House and other GOP leaders.

Republicans charge that the scandal is being inflated by Democrats just weeks before mid-term elections determine whether, for the first time since the hard-fought presidential election of 2000, Democrats will regain control of the House, the Senate, or both. Conservative commentators have tried to refocus public speculation on the inability of Democrats to defend America?s security during the War on Terror, though the proximity of the scandal to the mid-term elections in November and the involvement of a minor being pursued sexually by an elected representative might not be enough to distract open-minded, critical voters.

Attorneys for Mark Foley, who has resigned his seat and bowed out of the congressional race in his district, say that he was sexually molested by a clergyman in his youth but has never once sexually abused a minor himself. Foley is being treated for alcoholism and mental illness, his attorneys say. Many GOP candidates have returned donations from Foley, and charities as well have been said to be returning funds given by Foley or his campaign.