If the Foley flap continues, some will say that he should come out in order to be a role model to younger gay men and lesbians. Please. Foley is no role model, unless he’s modeling political hypocrisy and personal cowardice. Others will say that the decision to come out is a personal one and Foley shouldn’t be forced into doing something he’s clearly not ready to do. Right. Foley is comfortable enough with his homosexuality to be out to every political insider in Florida even as he remains "closeted" with the public. Why he thinks he can still play this game with the public and get away with it is a mystery.

Notwithstanding his vote in favor of DOMA, Foley is one of the most pro-gay Republicans in Congress. He has a long, consistent record of supporting gay issues like domestic-partnership benefits, anti-discrimination legislation, and AIDS funding. His office maintains a policy of nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. GOP strategists worry that this will make Foley vulnerable in the primary — so much so, in fact, that White House strategist Karl Rove tried to convince US housing secretary Mel Martinez to run for the seat.

USC Annenberg Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism....

ABC News’ Brian Ross and the ABC News Investigative Unit won a special commendation for enterprise journalism that changed the course of the election. By breaking the Mark Foley story, Ross demonstrated the profound impact that political reporters can have when they expose information that vested interests would rather keep under wraps.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Six months after resigning from Congress, former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley remains under criminal investigation for sexually explicit Internet communications with underage boys but has not been charged, authorities said Wednesday.

"I can't really give any more detail other than to say we're still in the preliminary investigative stance and we are working with state authorities," said Debra Weierman, spokeswoman for the FBI's Washington field office.

Florida authorities announced their own criminal investigation in November but have remained tightlipped on the status since then.

Any publicity is good publicity — or so it seems for the House page program, which is now thriving with applicants.

Before last fall, relatively few Americans knew much about the page program. Even fewer knew of Congressman Mark Foley. In September, news broke that Foley, a Florida Republican, had sent sexually explicit e-mails and instant messages to a male former page in 2005. Foley immediately resigned, and House Republican leaders came under fire for not taking any action, despite being warned about Foley's inappropriate actions with male pages as early as 2003. House Democrats demanded an investigation, and a handful of Congress members called for the page program's immediate suspension.

Six months later, the Democrats have taken over Congress and a House Ethics Committee investigation concluded that Republican leaders did not break any rules in handling Foley's actions toward the pages. Not only does the House page program remain intact, it has received a record number of applications since the Foley scandal broke, according to the House's Office of the Clerk, which runs the program. A year earlier, the House page program couldn't even fill all of its available slots.

It seems like an ironic twist of events, yet those close to the program say the increased interest has everything to do with the Foley scandal. "People hadn't heard about the program before last fall," says Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican and veteran member of the House Page Board, the bipartisan committee that oversees the program. Democratic Rep. Dale Kildee of Michigan, who chairs the board, agrees. "I think the unfortunate bad publicity of Mark Foley brought attention to the fact that we do have a page program," he says.

(West Palm Beach, Florida) Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley is using leftover campaign cash to pay for the huge legal bills he's racking up defending himself in the congressional page scandal that led to his resignation.

Foley spent $206,000 in campaign cash on attorneys from November to January, according to recent filings with the Federal Election Commission. That left about $1.7 million in the Florida Republican's campaign account March 31, even after he returned more than $110,000 from donors.

"Many congressmen, when they resign, they keep the money and do good things with it. But paying for your legal bills? I don't think so," said Robert Starr, chairman of the Charlotte County Republican Party.

The FEC has ruled in other cases that such expenditures generally are lawful.

"I got my 500 bucks back. ... I gave him money because I believed in him. It's not that way anymore," Starr said.

(Washington) Justice Department investigators have absolved former Arizona Rep. Jim Kolbe of wrongdoing in his relationships with House pages, Kolbe says.

In a statement Wednesday, Kolbe and his Washington lawyers said they received notice Tuesday that investigators had completed their work on the preliminary inquiry opened by federal prosecutors last fall, and saw no reason to pursue it further.

Prosecutors began looking into Kolbe's relationships with House pages after hearing reports that he took a Fourth of July camping trip to the Grand Canyon with two former pages and others in 1996.

The inquiry was launched amid a separate investigation into sexually explicit messages sent to high school-aged congressional pages by former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., who resigned over the issue last fall.

Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, who has not been charged with breaking any laws when he sent sexually explicit electronic communications to former House pages, has spent nearly a half-million dollars in legal fees this year.

The money, a total of $483,254, came from left-over campaign funds Foley had accumulated during a dozen years in Congress and in the midst of a tough re-election fight last year.

Foley's campaign finance report filed with the Federal Elections Commission for the quarter ending June 30 indicates he paid $277,367 to the Washington-based Zuckerman Spaeder law firm. That is on top of the $205,627 in legal fees he paid during the first half of the year.

Foley's legal payments are likely to be even higher because the most recent payment, in June, only covered fees through April.

[...]

Foley could not be reached for comment. Foley, a Republican, has not made any public appearances since leaving office. He has been spotted riding a bicycle in Palm Beach.

[...]

Despite the hefty expenditures, Foley reported he still has more than $1.4 million in cash on hand he can draw from for expenses related to his congressional service.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami has settled a lawsuit in which a former altar boy claimed he was sexually abused by the same priest accused by former Congressman Mark Foley.

The lawsuit was not connected to Foley, who resigned in scandal last year.

The unnamed plaintiff claims the Rev. Anthony Mercieca sexually abused him in the 1970s when he was an altar boy at St. James Church in North Miami. The accuser, then about 13 years old, said Mercieca molested him in the church's bell tower after a bicycle ride together.

The lawsuit had sought more than $10 million in damages. Terms of the settlement were confidential, said the man's attorney, Jeffrey Herman.

Mercieca retired to the European island of Malta. His attorney there, Alfred Grech, declined to comment because he was not aware of the settlement or lawsuit.

A phone message and e-mails to archdiocese spokeswomen were not immediately returned.

I wonder what would happen if Mark Foley were to file a civil action for defamation, libel and slander against all the news organizations, politicians and other individuals and lobby groups -- including the queer ones -- who so richly deserve to be on the receiving end of such a suit?

Florida's top police agency said Wednesday its investigation into former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley's lurid Internet communications with teenage boys has been hindered because neither Foley nor the House will let investigators examine his congressional computers.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement says it hopes to conclude its investigation next week. Foley, a Florida Republican, resigned from Congress on Sept. 29 after being confronted with the computer messages he sent to male teenage pages who had worked on Capitol Hill.

"We have requested to review federally owned computers that Mr. Foley used during his time as a representative, but the U.S. House of Representatives ... cited case law restrictions that prohibited them from releasing those computers," said Heather Smith, an FDLE spokeswoman.

Smith said that the House claims the computers are considered congressional work papers, and that only Foley can release them for review.

A federal appeals court ruled this month that the U.S. Justice Department violated the Constitution in its 2006 raid of the office of Rep. William Jefferson, D-La. The FBI crossed the line when it viewed every record in the office without allowing Jefferson to argue that some involved legislative business, the court ruled.

[...]

Smith wouldn't comment on whether investigators have already reviewed Foley's personal computers. She also couldn't say how many federal computers the agency was seeking.

Smith said that the House claims the computers are considered congressional work papers, and that only Foley can release them for review.