I would have outed the bastard and sent his case to the house ethics committee. The rest of your post pretty much boils down to political calculations explaining why it made sense for Hastert to cover up Foley's actitivities instead of doing the right thing and outing him. Guess what, even if it was politically expedient - it was still a cover-up, that's exactly what Hastert and the republicans are accused of in this scandal.Quote from AAAintheBeltway:
If you were Hastert, how exactly would you have gone about this?
What Foley did was probably not a crime in legal sense, Hastert therefore did not cover up a crime, he covered up and became an accomplice in a gross moral misconduct.