Memo to Republican Leadership

They're trying to roll you. And Mealy-mouthed Marty Meehan, Dem from Massachusetts was a perfect example of how this morning on Fox News Sunday.

When I saw it initially this morning, it made me downright angry. Only upon a repeat viewing in the afternoon did I note that Meehan starts to overstep at the exact same time my ears were turning red this morning and finishes the job at the close of his segment.

To the transcript. In response to fellow guest Jack Kingston's (R-GA) comment, Meehan gives us this:

MEEHAN: Yes, because if there's any evidence that you need that the values in Washington have turned upside-down, you could just hear what Jack had to say. Only in Washington, D.C., can you take a group of people in charge of the House and basically have evidence that they've been looking the other way while a predator has been predating and going after 15- and 16-year-old pages, can they somehow turn that into a-have the audacity to turn that into a political attack against Democrats, saying, "Well, they must have known about it so somehow they're responsible."

If there's a professional investigation, anyone who has any information obviously will be called in to testify under oath. But the fact of the matter is and what the facts suggest here is, as soon as the speaker found out about it, rather than going to the committee that was established to overlook the pages, they went to one member of the committee, one Republican member. They didn't let the Democrat on the committee know about it, because they wanted to keep it secret.

So the evidence is overwhelming here.

Kingston had just finished raising questions that many others have started to ask about the timing of all this breaking news in an attempt to understand why this has only come to light recently when it apparently hasn't been much of a secret, at least to some, for years now. Kingston specifically called on Democratic leadership to testify to what they may have known about these emails and other messages under oath.

Chris Wallace then asks Meehan directly about the ethics of it all and Meehan gives us this courageous response:

WALLACE: Wait, wait, Congressman Meehan, I want to follow up with you. A former colleague of yours, a Massachusetts congressman who now has passed away, Gerry Studds, was in fact censured by the House in 1983 for not sending messages to male pages but for having sex with a 17-year-old.

Don't Democrats, because the Democrats were in power then, have to answer for the fact that they left Gerry Studds in power, they didn't expel him?

MEEHAN: Well, first of all, there was Republican Congressman Crane and Congressman Studds who were involved in activities. Frankly, when the activities took place in the Studds case, I was a sophomore in high school. But, in any event, that doesn't excuse what's happened here.

That's integrity boy. Don't bother defending the actions of your party, toss out a non-sequitur about how you were a 15-year old in High School at the time. Or maybe it's just that the historical significance and difference between his party's response and what the Republicans did with Mark Foley escapes him. Regardless, as I saw that live I wanted to throw my remote through the screen on the off chance it might hit him in the head.

When I went back and saw the complete segment later I did catch the close, where I'm convinced that Meehan completed the overreach begun when he said the "evidence is overwhelming" of Republican shenanigans when it is not:

KINGSTON: There's no evidence that Denny Hastert knew anything about Foley. There's absolutely no...

MEEHAN: Yes, there is. In 2002...

KINGSTON: No, there's not. The only e-mails...

MEEHAN: Jack...

KINGSTON: ... that were exchanged were these weird, friendly e- mails, which the parents said, "We thank you for investigating that. In the name of our son's privacy, don't go any further. We are satisfied." And those were all friendly e-mails. No one knew about the X-rated stuff. As I said, if Denny Hastert or anybody in the Republican ranks knew about it, we would have gotten rid of the guy, which Denny did immediately last...

MEEHAN: Jack, these e-mails...

KINGSTON: ... when he did find out.

MEEHAN: ... they're not friendly e-mails. They're predatory e- mails. And anyone who's ever been involved in a child abuse case...

WALLACE: Gentlemen, we'll set up a phone line for you to continue this conversation, but we're going to have to end it here.

Those "predatory" emails did not draw further interest from the FBI who knew about them, they did not draw further interest from Florida papers who knew about them, nor did they draw further interest from ABC's Ross who ultimately broke the story until they were coupled with the explicit IM's.

Meehan and Minnesota's Wetterling are overreaching here.