Republicans have finally found the causes and culprits of Foleygate: political correctness and George Soros.

First, political correctness. On Tuesday the Arlington Group, a coalition of over seventy religious right organizations, issued a letter responding to Rep. Foley’s conduct.

“We are very concerned that the early warnings of Mr. Foley’s odd behavior toward young male pages may have been overlooked or treated with deference, fearing a backlash from the radical gay rights movement because of Mr, Foley’s sexual orientation,” the letter stated. “It appears that the integrity of the conservative majority has given way to political correctness, trading the virtues of decency and respect for that of tolerance and diversity. No one should be surprised at the results ofsuch a tragic exchange.”

In other words, gays and liberals are to blame.

But it doesn’t stop there. The new conservative talking point is that Soros-funded organizations, particularly Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) leaked the emails and IMs between Foley and the underage pages to help Democrats regain control of Congress. “The people who want to see this thing blow up are ABC News and a lot of Democratic operatives, people funded by George Soros,” still-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert told the Chicago Tribune yesterday as part of a desperate attempt to keep his job.

Last I heard, ABC News is not funded by Soros. And CREW, which filed an ethics complaint against Foley and passed on some of his emails to the FBI, targets Democrats as well as Republicans and receives only a small percentage of its budget from Soros personally.

And the source who originally gave ABC News the emails was a House GOP aide. Let me repeat: a Republican. Not someone presumably funded by the “radical gay rights movement” or George Soros.