Whoa!

You know, I had bookmarked this story yesterday when it just seemed "creepy" instead of "criminal," but I did not expect this:

WASHINGTON - Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., resigned from Congress on Friday, effective immediately, in the wake of questions about e-mails he wrote a former male page.

"I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent," he said in a statement issued by his office.

The two-sentence statement did not refer to the e-mails and gave no reason for Foley's decision to abruptly abandon a flourishing career in Congress.

Foley, 52, had been a shoo-in for a new term until the e-mail correspondence surfaced in recent days.

His resignation comes less than six weeks before the elections. It was not clear how Republicans would fill his spot on the November ballot.

He was writing some creepy emails to a page (the page was SIXTEEN), but obviously there was more coming down the pike. Other stories have suggested that there are emails out there that are sexually explicit.

MyDD has been trying to see what this means for the Congressional seat. Apparently Foley's name would still be on the ballot, and I don't know how someone with possible child molestation charges coming could win a race. And write-ins are tricky.

Tim Mahoney has a bit of money in his coffers too. You know, the Democrats only need 15 seats. FL-16 now looks like a lock (though I'm sure Jeb! will try something to get Foley off the ballot). TX-22, where DeLay's on the ballot, looks like a lock.

This made it that much harder for the GOP to keep the House.

UPDATE: Not to be that crass and political, because this guy sounds like a sex offender and if it turns out to be true then he needs to go to jail. But this really puts the Republicans off their game at a time where they were just ramping up the fall campaign. The cable nets, lovers of sensationalism that they are, will go all-Foley for a few days. This is really bad news for Republicans.