On the October 1 broadcast of ABC's This Week, host George Stephanopoulos asked White House counselor Dan Bartlett whether he agreed with a Washington Post editorial from the same day that called for an independent investigation into the scandal surrounding former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL), who abruptly resigned from Congress on September 29 amid allegations he sent sexually explicit emails and instant messages to underage former congressional pages. Bartlett responded: “The members of the House of Representatives, the leadership, appear to be very aggressive in pursuing this investigation, and I think that's the best place, is for the leadership to determine the way forward.”

Stephanopoulos, however, failed to challenge Bartlett's response by noting that the House Republican leadership reportedly knew about Foley's alleged misconduct for months and did little about it. Indeed, Stephanopoulos was clearly aware of these reports, as the Post editorial cited by Stephanopoulos called for “an outside investigator to do the fact-finding” for that precise reason, and he later asked Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA) to respond to reports that “five members of the Republican leadership ... were informed of these allegations, in some level, earlier this year.”

Also, Time magazine still has yet to do its own reporting on allegations of a Republican cover-up of the Foley scandal. Media Matters for America noted that Time's September 30 online report on Foley made no mention of the significance of the action or inaction of the current House leadership. Time.com, however, did link to an article on CNN.com that addresses the conduct of the House GOP leadership.

From the October 1 broadcast of This Week:

STEPHANOPOULOS: One final quick question on this Mark Foley situation in the House. Number one, was the president aware of any these allegations? Number two, The Washington Post is calling for an independent investigation. Do you think that's appropriate?

BARTLETT: The president was not aware of this. It is a shocking revelation to see this type of allegation. The members of the House of Representatives, the leadership, appear to be very aggressive in pursuing this investigation, and I think that's the best place, is for the leadership to determine the way forward.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Dan Bartlett, thanks very much.

From the October 1 Post editorial, which Stephanopoulos cited:

[I]nitial reports about the institutional response to questions about Mr. Foley's behavior are extremely troubling -- suggestive of a self-protective desire to sweep the problem under the rug rather than to put the well-being of pages paramount.

[...]

Mr. Boehner has punted the controversy to the House ethics committee. But that panel has too often been a black hole of inaction riven by partisan divisions. This isn't a matter of judging whether an individual member complied with ethics rules so much as of assessing the House's institutional response to a problem in its midst. The better course would be to appoint an outside investigator to do the fact-finding. Meanwhile, lawmakers, from the speaker on down, should divulge, fully and quickly, their conduct in this affair.

Later, Stephanopoulos asked Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) to respond to reports that “five members of the Republican leadership, members of Congress, were informed of these allegations, in some level, earlier this year,” and asked Murtha whether he agreed with Bartlett's claim that the GOP leadership should conduct the investigation:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me turn to this issue of Congressman Mark Foley's resignation. It now turns out that five members of the Republican leadership, members of Congress, were informed of these allegations, in some level, earlier this year. Do you think they handled it appropriately?

MURTHA: George, they did not. And you were there in the Congress working for [former Rep. Richard] Gephardt [D-MO] when some of these other things happened. Let me tell you something, that -- we have an obligation to protect these young pages. It's outrageous if they knew any extent at all of what happened. I just can not believe that they allowed this to happen and just told him, “OK, stay away from this kid.” I don't know what they saw, but it really makes me nervous that they look like they tried to cover it up. This is what the investigation has to be all about. It has to be a very quick investigation. We have to protect these young people who come up there and try to learn what's going on with the government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: It's being handled by the ethics committee. You just saw Dan Bartlett say he thought that was appropriate. The Washington Post says no, you need an independent investigation. What do you think?