What is the matter with people? Tonight’s Dateline NBC was another run at their ongoing sting operation to out men who troll for sex online. Some of the excuses are pathetic:
Police officer:Why did you come to the house today?
Vestal: I was bored at home.
[About his wife] Uson: She’s so demanding too. That’s why I have so many problems. My wife and me—you know—have some argument. That’s why I did this stupid thing or else I wouldn’t do it.
And then the headlines — shocking headlines, actually — about Rep Mark Foley’s resignation after the discovery that he had sent suggestive and explicit text messages to a 16-year old page.
Of course, MSNBC has a large section on their lead page about MySpace and parental monitoring. It’s worth noting that neither of these instances of older men trolling for teenage girls and boys had anything to do with MySpace — the MSNBC cases happened via AIM; and Foley evidently used email and AIM for his attempts.
It seems to me that the ones who need monitoring are the ADULTS, not the kids. What are these grown men thinking? (And by the way, it would be very interesting to see if a parallel sting operation aimed at women would yield similar predatory behavior).
My kids have AIM discovery turned off — that means that if you want to be chatting with them via AIM, they have to have your buddy name and add you to their buddy list before you can chat with them. They’re also not to post their buddy name online — that’s my rule and I do check up on it. I made that rule because of virus issues, not predators, but it is a fairly simple way to head off obvious intrusions at the pass.
The ultimate and most pathetic irony of all is that Rep. Foley…
…chaired the House caucus on missing and exploited children and was credited with writing the sexual-predator provisions of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, which Bush signed in July. A photo on the White House Web site shows Foley among those attending the signing ceremony.
It looks like it takes one to know one.
Update: Hastert knew for a year? Take the politics out of this: How can anyone morally justify NOT dealing with a colleague that they know is soliciting (or seducing) sex from an underage kid?
Technorati Tags: sexual predators, Mark Foley, resignation, MSNBC
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