A Utah politician found himself mired in the Mark Foley scandal last week.

U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon, commenting on reports that Foley, a Florida Republican, sent sexually explicit e-mails and instant messages to teenage House pages, said that the young men may bear responsibility for the scandal that cost Foley his seat and could bring an end to the GOP's 12-year control of the House.

"These kids are actually precocious kids," Cannon told interviewers on KSL. "It looks like maybe this one e-mail is a prank where he had a bunch of kids sitting around, egging this guy on."

The idea is not original to Cannon -- it was mentioned on a conservative Weblog -- but the fact that Cannon would give it credence by repeating it is surprising. He also suggested that the pages' parents needed to assume responsibility for teaching their kids how to properly use the Internet.

Cannon explained the next day that he was only trying to emphasize that information technology makes it easier for sexual predators to reach out and touch unsuspecting young people. Rather than dancing, however, it would have been better for Cannon to take a clear stand against Foley's behavior. Protecting the Republican Party takes a back seat to ethics.

One irony in the saga is that Foley was a sponsor of legislation that would crack down on sexual predators. But Cannon heaped on a little more. He was one of the House managers who prosecuted President Bill Clinton in impeachment proceedings for lying about the Monica Lewinsky affair.

If Clinton and his defenders had suggested back in 1998 that Monica Lewinsky had induced the president to misbehave, Cannon would have been among the first to denounce them. Yet he seems to be making just such a suggestion in the Foley case.

One may argue that the president of the United States holds such power over a White House intern that any sexual overture constitutes a form of coercion. But at least Lewinsky was 21 years old, a full-fledged adult capable of legal consent. Foley, by contrast, was making advances on teenage boys.

Even if the teens did egg Foley on (we wouldn't put it past enterprising youths who might think it amusing to reel in a big fish), Foley should have been mature enough at age 52 to steer clear. Even if one e-mail was a prank, as Cannon suggested, it doesn't let Foley off the hook. The sleazy creep took the bait.

We recognize, of course, that age and high position are no guarantee of wisdom, nor is evidence of bad behavior always followed up properly. Remember Clarence Thomas and his alleged taste for pornographyfi The U.S. Senate wasn't much interested in pursuing this, and Thomas is now an associate justice of the Supreme Court after securing the votes of 41 Republican senators and 11 Democrats.

Cannon's defense of Foley tends to fall into the same class: brushing off what ought to be recognized as a serious problem. There is plenty of evidence now that Foley's indecent forays were known for a long time by leading House Republicans, yet those leaders kept silent, hoping to protect the status quo.

While Cannon is right when he says that parents should tell their children how to avoid predators on the Internet, it is also true that sexual lizards caught slithering through the halls of Congress should be eradicated, even if it means a loss of party power.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A6.