The cases of Larry Craig and Mark Foley are fundamentally different.

Writing last fall about the "Foley Mess" (within the context of the then-coming election of 2006), I asserted:

"A case of perversion and arrogance. I had never heard of Mark Foley before Friday night, but he was an important person in the GOP hierarchy. And he was also a sexual (homosexual) predator whom the GOP leadership allowed to roam the halls of Congress and solicit underage pages unchecked. Once again, the party of morality faces a moral crisis."

Back then, I was disgusted and demoralized. And I was mad. I was angry at Republican leadership. Foley's bent toward sexually harassing and pursuing young men was an open secret on Capitol Hill. The passivity of GOP leadership in the face of such egregious conduct equaled complicity, and that was shameful.

I was especially infuriated at Dennis Hastert, whom I greatly admired prior to the Foley revelation. In truth, I have yet to fully forgive the former-Speaker for allowing Mark Foley to hustle teenagers entrusted to the United States Congress, presumably under the protection of the hulking, grand-fatherly, former wrestling coach and history teacher.

For me, the Foley revelation was the moral nadir of the modern Republican Party.

I do not feel the same way about Larry Craig. Although it looks increasingly likely the friendless senator from Idaho is finished politically (evidently, a tearful resignation is imminent), I feel only sympathy for him as a human being.

Unlike Foley, who evidently flaunted his sexuality within the circles of Washington power, Craig took great pains to conceal his secret desires from his colleagues, his family, and, perhaps most pitiably, himself.

The Senator's tortured protestations of innocence, "I am not gay; I have never been gay," strike me as ardently hopeful exclamations from a troubled soul. That is, while me thinks he protests too much, I cannot shake the sense that his toughest and principal audience is his own conscience.

The double standard among the Republicans is embarrassing. The GOP readily forgave David Vitter's heterosexual peccadilloes--but they are united in their disgust for Craig's "disgusting behavior" (which, according to the police report, was cryptically signaling his interest in an undercover officer of the same sex in a bathroom stall in an airport in Minneapolis).

The shame of Republican leadership in this instance is not that they allowed a "pervert" in their midst; rather, the moral failing of the GOP leadership in the matter of Larry Craig is the rush to abandon a troubled friend in need.

Still to Come in a Future Post: The worst hypocrisy exhibited in this whole sordid affair actually comes from the Democrats and the shock troops of "tolerance."