Massa the next Foley?

Rather than waiting for the end of his term, New York Congressman Eric Massa has decided to resign on Monday.  This sounded very similar to the whole Mark Foley thing to me, with a married Congressman being caught doing something immoral, texting sexual messages to pages in Foley's case, and sexually harrassing a male staffer in Massa's case.  Also, in both cases, the Congressman was from the party currently in power, right before a huge election where many Americans were mad about the way things were going.  As for 2006, Mark Foley may have lost several extra seats for Republicans, and Democrats knew of this.  They knew about the sexting of pages, but they wanted to wait until it would do the most damage.  Then they acted as if Mark Foley embodied the corruption of the Republican party and claimed to be the solution.

To quote House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer back in 2006, immediately after the election, "In the new Democratically-controlled Congress, which convenes in January, we will – and we must – restore vitality to our ethics process and ensure public confidence in this institution".  Politics clearly had a lot to do with it then.  The Republicans were corrupt, and the Democrats were going to fix the problems.  But what has happened with the case involving Eric Massa?  Rather than accept the obvious truth that this might impact Democrats negatively, Steny Hoyer said last week, "I don't think it helps anybody in the institution -- any one of us on either side of aisle. It certainly didn't help Mr. Foley. When there were allegations about Mr. Foley or others, I think the institution suffers." 

So back in 2006, Mark Foley was merely a single example of the massive corrpution of the Republican party, with the ethical Democrats being the solution.  But now, in 2010, Eric Massa is hurting the entire institution, affecting both parties equally, and the Republicans will not gain anything from this.  I find it amazing how much history can change in a mere 4 years.