The State Journal-Register’s editorial board met with Congressman John Shimkus yesterday and was not impressed with his arguments that he did everything he possibly could to prevent a sexual predator from preying on children.

We can’t help but wonder why such a stern warning - cease contact with all pages - would be issued if the evidence was as innocuous as Shimkus describes it. Even if Shimkus merely had a gut feeling that something serious was wrong, why would he not probe further? We now know that had he bothered to question former pages, he likely would have heard plenty about Foley’s inappropriate behavior. […]

Shimkus acknowledges feeling bad about the situation, but he becomes angry when questioned whether he should have done more. “I don’t know of a single thing I would have done differently,” he said. Shimkus seems more interested in raising the specter of Democratic dirty tricks than of second guessing his own actions. He repeated to the editorial board what appear to be Republican talking points, questioning why the salacious e-mails were leaked to ABC so close to the election. […]

It is clear one thing could and should have been done differently - the protection of the pages should have been placed above the protection of the Republican Party. To not do so was shameful.

Shimkus’ angry contention that this is all a Democratic plot to undermine the Republicans right before an important election has been undermined since he spoke to the SJ-R by this blockbuster story in today’s edition of The Hill.

The source who in July gave news media Rep. Mark Foley’s (R-Fla.) suspect e-mails to a former House page says the documents came to him from a House GOP aide.

That aide has been a registered Republican since becoming eligible to vote, said the source, who showed The Hill public records supporting his claim. […]

The source bolstered the claim by sharing un-redacted e-mails in which the former page first alerted his congressional sponsor’s office of Foley’s attentions. The copies of these e-mails, now available to the public, have the names of senders and recipients blotted out.

These revelations mean that Republicans who are calling for probes to discover what Democratic leaders and staff knew about Foley’s improper exchanges with under-age pages will likely be unable to show that the opposition party orchestrated the scandal now roiling the GOP just a month away from the midterm elections.

Shimkus also had this to say to the Tribune.

“The thing that’s frustrating to me is that I’m not the bad guy here,” Shimkus said. “Leadership’s not the bad guy. The bad guy is whoever had these explicit instant messages that were done in 2003 and held them. That’s the bad guy . . . because those instant messages are what put these kids at risk.”

He didn’t explain how he knew that the IMs were “held” until now by a nefarious third party, however.

Also still unanswered is why his spokesman told reporters when the story first broke that Shimkus had not seen any e-mails from Congressman Foley last year even though Shimkus now admits to seeing them.

Meanwhile, the Daily Herald reports on what it claims is the Republicans’ greatest electoral fear.

The biggest worry among the GOP, political observers say, is that conservatives won’t vote Nov. 7, fed up with a perception that House Republican leaders covered up the inappropriate sexual electronic messages between former Florida Rep. Mark Foley and young House pages.

It’s more than just the conservatives, however. It could be across the board if the bleeding isn’t stopped soon.

And the Sun-Times tracked down Topinka, but didn’t hear much.

Republican gubernatorial hopeful Judy Baar Topinka conceded Wednesday that “obviously there were problems” with how congressional leaders dealt with reports of Rep. Mark Foley’s lurid e-mails to teenage House pages.

But Topinka declined to offer a specific opinion on the role of a fellow Illinois Republican, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, one of the leaders who has come under fire in the scandal.

Topinka has a lot of connections to both Hastert and Shimkus. As if she didn’t have enough problems.

Also, I have a new video in the YouTube vlog from this morning’s NBC5 report on the scandal. The station reported that Speaker Hastert has not emerged from his home in more than 24 hours.