JORDAN EDMUND IS NOT GAY

(Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Edmund just pretended to be gay when IMing with a member of Congress.

Oh, those wacky congressional pages! What pranksters!

Still, the precious children on the Hill need to be protected from the wolves in Congress.

Speaker Dennis Hastert apologized for what happened. It was NOT a non-apology apology, not your average lib expression of regret. It was a sincere apology.

Hastert also announced measures to revamp the page program.

The legislative branch of the United States government is such a dangerous environment for children that a tip-line to report abuses has even been established.

(We could have used one of those to monitor the executive branch when Bill Clinton was in the Oval Office.)

I'm sorry -- you know, when you talk about the page issue and what's happened in the Congress, I'm deeply sorry that this has happened.

And the bottom line is that we're taking responsibility, because ultimately, as someone has said in Washington before: The buck stops here.

For something like this to occur, our system obviously isn't designed for the electronic age of Instant Messages.

When the Congress found out about the explicit messages, Republicans dealt with it immediately and the culprit was gone. We are now trying to correct the problem.

We've asked the Ethics Committee to look into this matter and we asked for criminal investigations to be opened by the Justice Department, the FBI and the State of Florida.

We have a toll-free number where people can confidently call. And we've reached out to experts around the country to put a system in place to make sure this never happens again.

The tip number is 1-866-384-0481.

We will do everything possible to make the program safe for the kids while they're in our care in Washington, D.C.

And we will make sure that we can be a resource for their parents once they return home.

We're looking for a person of high caliber to advise us on the page program. I reached out to the Democrat leader and shared with her some of the ideas and we hope to resolve this soon.

Final point: Our children need to be protected. And we're going to do everything we can to protect them.

The drooling Dems were hoping Hastert would make a different announcement at his news conference this afternoon. The fantasy was that Hastert would resign.

Didn't happen.

Certainly, AT THIS POINT, it shouldn't have happened.

Drudge has a WORLD EXCLUSIVE related to the Foley scandal.

According to two people close to former congressional page Jordan Edmund, the now famous lurid AOL Instant Message exchanges that led to the resignation of Mark Foley were part of an online prank that by mistake got into the hands of enemy political operatives, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal.

According to one Oklahoma source who knows the former page very well, Edmund, a conservative Republican, goaded an unwitting Foley to type embarrassing comments that were then shared with a small group of young Hill politicos. The prank went awry when the saved IM sessions got into the hands of political operatives favorable to Democrats.

The primary source, an ally of Edmund, adamantly proclaims that the former page is not a homosexual. The prank scenario was confirmed by a second associate of Edmund. Both are fearful that their political careers will be affected if they are publicly brought into the investigation.

The prank scenario only applies to the Edmund IM sessions and does not necessarily apply to any other exchanges between the former congressman and others.

Poor Jordan Edmund.

People all over the world think he's gay and he's not.

Can we believe that Edmund isn't gay?

I'd believe it if I saw some heterosexual cyber-sex IM chats involving Edmund. Will those be circulated soon? Will Brian Ross foam at the mouth over those, if they exist?

Will Edmund's girlfriends (if they exist) issue statements vouching that Edmund is not gay?

There's always the possibility that dissatisfied former girlfriends (if they exist) may issue statements questioning Edmund's sexual identity.

Who knows?

This entire thing has spun out of control.

It appears that ABC and Brian Ross are working in tandem with Dem operatives.

That's so... What's the term? Dan Ratherish? New York Timesian? Washington Postesque?

Prank or no prank, that doesn't change what Foley did. That doesn't alter his disgusting online activities with the innocent little pages.

It is sort of ironic though that Edmund's prank came back to bite him.

The "victim" was victimizing.

Funny how this stuff plays out.

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Note: I mistakenly titled this post "John Edmund is not gay."

I have corrected it. My apologies to any John Edmund I may have offended.