Focus on Foley

Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family has spent a great deal of time over the last few days talking about disgraced ex-Sen. Mark Foley, who resigned after it was discovered he had been flirting, through e-mail and text messages, with teenage pages.

First, V.P. of Public Policy Tom Minnery said Foley should be "prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." Then, Oct. 6, FofF founder James Dobson dedicated his daily radio show to the matter, calling Foley's actions "excusable, reprehensible and morally depraved."

Unfortunately for Focus, Dobson also repeated a rumor that the pages may have set up the whole thing as a sort of "joke." Some Internet neighborhoods picked up on the comment and began to make a pretty big stink over it. So yesterday, Dobson and Minnery devoted another radio program to the issue, stressing again that Foley was WAY out of line. And, they added, so are the Focus critics who took this "joke" thing out of context.

"People are trying to do you in," Minnery said to Dobson.