What did Rep. Jim Kolbe Know?

James Taranto makes a point about Mark Foley's inappropriate Internet exchanges that I thought interesting. Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) confirmed that a former page showed the him Internet messages that had made the youth feel uncomfortable. Kolbe is the only GOP House member to acknowledee that he is gay.

When we first read those emails, we found them odd and a bit creepy. But it occurs to us that if a 50-year-old man sent a 16-year-old girl an email asking her to send a picture of herself, that would have set off loud alarm bells and brightly flashing lights. We know how the mind of a heterosexual man works, being in possession of one, and when a guy asks a gal he barely knows for a picture, it means that he has a sexual or romantic interest in her. When a guy asks another guy for a picture, what does it mean?

When reading the messenges I thought that they were the normal locker room stuff that boy and men usually say. I've sat in on some of the "good old boy's" disscusions and boy, they often get really raunchy.

When we stop to think about it, probably the same thing, but it wasn't obvious to us because it simply isn't part of our experience. We suspect the same was true of Hastert and other House leaders. Kolbe, on the other hand, because he is gay, probably understood better what Foley was up to and that it wasn't good.

That is good possibility. If that is so, then Kolbe should have taken the time to educate Hastert and other House leaders on how preditory homosexuals work.