Here are the e-mails that Congressman Foley sent to a congressional page back in 2005 (as reported by the Stop Sex Predators blog). These are the mails that Dennis Hastert alledgedly saw and didn't react strongly enough to.

I gotta say, the text of these seems so innocuous as to suggest that there must be more, otherwise why would the Republicans be warning pages to stay away from Foley? The closest thing to inappropriate is "How are you weathering the hurricane? Are you safe? Send me a pic of you as well..." and that's only creepy because "send me a picture" is read through the "child molester" lens. Absent other information, I can easily see how this could be read as "You had a hurricane in your hometown - send me a picture so I can see the damage/make sure you're OK." Not a particularly normal thing to ask for, but certainly not worthy of decisive action, right?

If this is really all there was a year ago, I can see why Hastert is refusing to step down. The Democrats are pushing the "he knew about it a year ago" line, and letting people assume "it" is the talk of masturbation, removing clothing, etc. that's included in the instant messages, when really "it" is "what do you want for your birthday?" and "send me a picture."

As I say, the fact that Hastert went as far as contacting the boy's parents (who asked that it be kept quiet) and had other pages warned to watch out for Foley is the real smoking gun here, suggesting that there are either more e-mails, or that Hastert had other ways of knowing what a creep Foley was. 'Cause the e-mails on their own just ain't cutting it (at least not for me...)