House of scandal

The Mark Foley fallout just gets more and more interesting.

WASHINGTON - The top aide to powerful New York Rep. Tom Reynolds was at the heart of efforts to quash the ugliest details of the page-boy sex chat scandal.
After ABC News reported a worrisome e-mail exchange between heavy breathing ex-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) and an ex-page in Louisiana, Reynolds' chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, asked the network to quash racier instant messages, the Daily News confirmed yesterday.

In return, he offered investigative correspondent Brian Ross an exclusive on Foley's resignation.

"We said we can't do that," Ross said. "I didn't know at the time he was working for Reynolds."

Fordham - who was Foley's chief of staff for a decade - told The Associated Press he didn't try to suppress the story, and Carl Forti, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee that Reynolds heads, told The News that Fordham's efforts were "mischaracterized."

"Not true," said Ross, who said he and producers talked with Fordham.

Abramoff...whatever...too complicated. This is a scandal Americans can wrap their head around.

And it seems as though there's been a whole mess of Republican man/boy love going on in the House (caution: ick).