Representative Mark Foley (R-Florida) has resigned his seat after trading some pretty disgusting Instant Messages (IMs) with several underage House pages. Here is the pdf of one of the IM conversations, and here is pdf of several others. Don’t read them, as they should be very offensive to you.

Here’s a brief sample, by no means the most disgusting, wherein Congressman Mark Foley is Maf54 and the child’s name is blocked with x’s:

Maf54 (7:55:42 PM): shows your package then

Xxxxxxxxxx (8:33:29 PM): ya slow things down a little im still young…like under 18
dont want to do anything illegal…im not 18 till feb 23

Maf54 (8:33:43 PM): i know..
Maf54 (8:33:50 PM): nothing will happen
Maf54 (8:34:04 PM): just dreaming

The man is predator, and this should not have happened to the young man. Or to a young woman.

But TIME magazine doesn’t see it that way:

Opinion may be divided over whether the e-mails Florida Representative Mark Foley sent a teen-age male congressional page last year were inappropriate or even constituted outright sexual harassment.

The magazine wants to protect Foley, but why?

Foley’s aides insist that the e-mails in question do nothing to belie his commitment to child protection issues, saying the exchanges between the congressman and the page - in which Foley asks what the boy would like for his birthday and requests a picture of him - were innocuous and “nonchalant” chat.

WRONG. Foley’s chatter with the teens was disgusting. It went far beyond the limits for an adult.

Again, why is the TIME protecting Foley? Would the magazine protect him if he had tried to solicit sex from a young woman?