Thursday, October 05, 2006

Injecting Some Decency into the Foley Fracas

For the past two days, a conservative blogger has ginned up publicity for his work outing a 21-year-old young man--a former congressional page and current deputy campaign manager for a heartland Republican congressman--who received sexually explicit instant messages from disgraced Florida GOP Rep. Mark Foley when he was 17 and 18 years old. I have received several e-mails from the blogger and readers flogging the post.

I refused to link to the blogger then and even though the Drudge Report has plastered screaming headlines about the blogger's scoop, I refuse to link to it now. There was absolutely no good reason to expose the former congressional page's name and identity. Seizing on ABC News' redaction failure and reporting errors (more on that in a moment) to play gotcha in a feeble attempt to avenge Foley is not a sufficient reason to obliterate the young man's privacy. The young man was the prey, not the predator.
Michelle Malkin

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