Welcome: Welcome Hugh Hewitt and Townhall readers. For those interested in this subject I have compiled a Timeline of Events that has been developed from many bloggers following this story. All my posts on Foleygate can be found here. End

It’s about time. Once again the blogosphere is doing the detailed analysis and the antique media is playing catch up. Today the WaPo finally realizes there is more to the story than has been reported, and much is coming from the media themselves:

But there are indications that Democrats spent months circulating five less insidious Foley e-mails to news organizations before they were finally published by ABC News late last month, which prompted the leaking of the more salacious instant messages. Harper’s Magazine said yesterday that it obtained the five e-mails from a Democratic Party operative, albeit in May, long before the election season.

And they sat on them. As did the St Petersburg Times and many other media outlets. All the while none alerted the House leadership or law enforcement. And we are to believe all these media outlets and the democrat operative shopping them were concerned about the Pages?

But new information suggests that the story of the release of Foley’s communications with male ex-pages is more complicated than either side asserts.

The most sexually explicit material — the instant messages that forced Foley’s abrupt resignation on Sept. 29 and turned his actions into a full-fledged scandal — appears to be disconnected from politics. The two former pages who revealed the correspondence to ABC News and The Washington Post, however, may never have come forward had Democratic operatives not divulged the five more benign e-mails that Foley had sent to a Louisiana boy.

Again, more confirmation from WaPo that (a) a Democrat operative was the source of the less salacious emails and (b) this story was shopped from November 2005 to August 2006. And even then the WaPo is somehow working off an erroneous timeline. The very first Foley email is the one where he asks “Do I have the right email?” and is dated July 29, 2005 – not 2004 as the post ‘reports’. It is this kind of simple misreporting which has been the hallmark of this entire scandal. The WaPo is trying to claim their Dem Operative source is not the same earlier source, based on more misreporting on the custody of the emails coming from a Rep congressional office to the democrat operative(s):

Silverstein said his source was a “Democratic operative,” the same source that had provided the e-mail exchanges to the St. Petersburg Times in November 2005. Both the magazine and the paper declined to publish a story. But the source “was not working in concert with the national Democratic Party,” Silverstein added. “This person was genuinely disgusted by Foley’s behavior, amazed that other publications had declined to publish stories about the emails, and concerned that Foley might still be seeking contact with pages.”

A second source emerged, however, just last month, peddling the e-mails to several other publications, including The Post. And Ross of ABC News has stressed that his initial source was a Republican.

By my count that makes 2 Democrat operatives peddling this story, and not notifying authorities who could take action to protect the Pages. But the WaPo has to admit their source was intent on harming Reps – so why did they not report this fact sooner?

Two of the primary sources who delivered the instant messages came forward this week to clarify their motives. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear that exposure would leave them open to harassment, especially from bloggers.

One of ABC News’s sources, a former page, said he went public with his knowledge of the instant messages on Sept. 29 only after the network, the day before, published the questionable e-mails that Foley had sent to the Louisiana boy. The former page and current college student stressed that he is a “staunch Republican” who “wouldn’t vote for a Democrat ever.” He also said that he is not calling for the resignation of Hastert or any other Republican leader.

“I in no way knew or intended to have all the brouhaha about what the GOP leadership knew and when they knew it,” he said in a detailed e-mail to The Post. “Truthfully, I am very troubled about what it seems has gone on behind the scenes, but that in no way affects my wish to have a continued GOP control of Congress. There are bad apples everywhere.”

The Post subsequently received the instant messages from a Democratic college student who had served as a page with the two teenagers who had corresponded with Foley and had shared their instant messages.

Unlike the ABC News source, The Post’s source conceded that he would like to see the Democrats seize control of the House in November, but when approached by a Post reporter about the instant messages, he was reluctant to provide them. Days later, he did so.

The only reason the WaPo would report on the problems with their sources is to head off some pending news. They are desperately trying to get out in front of some damaging news. Interestingly, the Rep Page decided to come forward to protect the kids, unlike his Democrat counterpart:

The two sources said they had conferred about the instant messages, which they had known about for months.

The Republican former page said he had decided it was up to the victims to come forward with them, but once ABC News published the e-mails, “I knew everything I had already known about Foley was finally going to come out. His attraction to young men. His sexual conversations with them, etc.”

What other evidence do we need other than the admissions by Harpers and the WaPo that they dealt with democrat operatives and used democrat sources bent on impacting the coming elections?