Everyone loves a good scandal.

That is, unless you're an already politically entrenched party on the cusp of a midterm election that could tip the delicate balance of legislative power in this country towards the other side. You know—if you're Republican.

Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned September 29 after a series of sexually explicit emails and instant messages to his underage high school pageboys came to light. ABC News published them in their entirety, and I must say that there's only one word to describe the leader of the House caucus on missing and exploited children asking a teenage boy to measure his erection and report the results: disturbing.

But it really isn't the scandal that's interesting, it's the way it's being handled—with all the finesse of a double amputee elephant building a ship in a bottle. After the all-too-familiar “go directly to rehab, do not collect 200 felonies” move Foley has pulled, the Republican party has been all aflutter over how to handle this thing. You see, party leaders knew this shit was going down, knew before 2004. And former pages have come forward saying they were warned to steer clear of Foley's offers of ice cream as early as 1995. But no one stepped in. Ignore it, and maybe it'll go away; it was the same strategy the Republicans employed in the opening days of the fallout.

Now, a party that frequently espouses its distaste for the “blame game” is pulling muscles trying to point the fastest fingers. The blame is being passed like a hot potato around the halls of power, all the way up to House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

According to former Foley staffer Kirk Fordham, Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, was notified of Foley's questionable behavior before 2004. Mr. Palmer, though concerned, denies the allegation, as does his boss. Hastert did roll his bloated form out at a press conference to declare he would take responsibility for the scandal, but wouldn't step down. His reluctance to do so might put the last nail into the Republican coffin.

The polls show that the Republicans might actually have done something to enrage Middle America to the point of turning Democrat. The war, the wiretaps, the black site prisons, the secret torture—those issues were all dreadfully dull, and mostly impacted brown people. But child molestation? Sex sells, and the topic of underage sex gives every redneck from the Mississippi west a chance to reach for the gun rack and get all angry about an issue that finally matters.

The Republicans have become so used to lackadaisically shrugging off any bad press with a sprinkle of spin control that, when something surfaces that the entire nation can get behind, they trip over their own feet. The correct strategy was fairly obvious for a situation as heinous as this. Get the fuck away. Period.

Foley should have been publicly shunned, and there should have been no attempt to spin his “naughty emails” (White House Press Secretary Tony Snow) or “way too friendly” IMs (Kirk Fordham). Hastert should have gone to the chopping block immediately as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. Bush should have taken a stand and come to his party's aid instead of simply saying he's “shocked” before resuming his terror rhetoric. All this should have happened the day after Foley resigned.

Our leaders seem to think that any scandal can be “rode out” or “spun positive,” but you cannot control a happening like this. No one is in favor of child molestation, and you'll find very few voters who sympathize with those who try to cover Foley. The war was over on September 29, but they continue to fight the battle.

Then again, when you're in power like the Republicans are for as long as they have been, doing the right thing often falls second to doing the easy thing. But everyone still loves a scandal. Especially voters.