Excuses, Excuses

Weekly commentary by Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer.

How you doing on excuses in the Mark Foley Congressional Page scandal?

Remember when the story first broke? Congressional excusers who apparently knew of this, first described the e-mails that Foley sent to a 16-year old page as "overly friendly," not explicitly obscene.

My first thought was that great line from Robin Williams' new movie when a presidential character denied wrongdoing: "I did not have sex with that woman...I wanted to."

Then we heard that whatever he had done, Foley had checked into alcohol rehab — the obligatory stop for national celebrities caught in scandal

Question: does getting drunk make it OK for a grown man to prey on 16-year-olds or for congressional leaders to cover it up?

From Chapter Two of the excuse manual came word that as a child Foley was abused by a priest, but was now cooperating with authorities — naming names.

Which brought a 69-year-old man from under a rock somewhere with an excuse to gag a buzzard.

It's always dangerous to say we know enough, but haven't most of us with an IQ higher than our age figured out two things here: that Foley is a creep who should be kept away from kids and that Congressional leaders knew that — how could they not have known — yet chose to ignore it?

I have a request. My barf bag is at the ready, but spare me any more detail.

I know all I need to know on this one.