2006

Speaking of Not Being Fit to Be a Dogcatcher

Jerry Weller jumps in with both feet:

Fuller said the congressman also wants an investigation into who leaked the e-mails to the news media.

“The bigger question for my boss is, who sat on these messages for three years,” and leaked them just weeks before the Nov. 7 election, Fuller said. Particularly, he said, Weller wants to know “who put them up” to releasing the damaging information, and suspects Democratic sources. “He thinks it needs to be looked into.”

Weller’s stance was, in tone and substance, close to that of House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. Boehner, second in command to Hastert, also questioned the source of the revelations in a letter to the conservative Washington Times that responded to its call Monday that Hastert resign.

“We also need to know why these messages surfaced only last week, on the final day of legislative business before the November elections,” Boehner said, according to Congressional Quarterly.
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Who sat on the information? It sure looks like some young Pages who were harassed by a Member of Congress sat on it and given their age and the attacks on them by the right wing media outlets, I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t have come forward before…not to mention how difficult it is for young people of that age to deal with their sexuality.

Strangely, the evidence and by that I mean the very clear statements by ABC contradict this bullshit. It’s a hysterical failed attempt at jijutsu to try and say the Democrats must have been sitting on evidence of wrong doing when Republicans themselves refused to tell Democrats about the initial concerns.

Will the press do their job?

There are many Republicans who have taken responsible positions–I can point to below with McSweeney who I think is giving Hastert a pass, but is taking the story very seriously and wants a full report on it by election day. He even has some ideas about reforming the ethics committee that are interesting. What he and other decent human beings aren’t doing—trying to create fictional stories or blame the victims.

This didn’t need to be highly partisan. On Friday the 29th, a simple admissions that they screwed up would have killed the story by now. Perhaps a little bit of discussion about why Democrats weren’t included in the discussions 3 years ago, but not much else.

It’s no longer a hole being dug

It’s far more massive than that.

Note to the Illinois press who haven’t figured it out–Hastert’s lying and it’s up to you to make this crystal clear. Fornek had the better of the articles in the Sun-Times on Friday with a very simple point

The GOP leader also lashed out at the Democrats, suggesting that they orchestrated release of the political bombshell to impact the November mid-term elections.

“Our friends on the other side of the aisle really don’t have a story to tell, and maybe they’re resolving to another way to, to, to — another political tactic,” he said.

Hastert ended the news conference without offering any evidence that Democrats were involved.

I have to admit I’ve bought into the Denny is decent guy bit, but I think we can see what DC has done to him. It should have been clear when he claimed Soros was behind drug cartels. It is crystal clear now that Hastert believes he can say anything as crazy as he wants and not have to support it or be held accountable. It’s Soros! It’s the Clintons! It’s ABC! It’s Rahm! It’s the fucking tooth fairy!

Fornek and Rosek wrote a straight article that put the simple facts out there-some others, not so much.

You have a situation where a guy gets slapped on the wrist after multiple complaints and the information kept from other members of the relevant committee–both Democratic and Republican members and the House Leadership decides the way to defend themselves is to say the Democrats knew too and waited for the point of maximum impact to release the information.

There is no evidence of this at all. It’s not even smooth how they’ve tried to get this out there. On Hardball Kingston kept saying “he’s just asking questions about what Rahm knew and when”. Mathews almost burst the veins in his head it was so pathetic and unbelievable.

Even if there was even a shred of evidence the logic of it is bizarre–the Dems withheld information for a shorter period of time than the Republicans and so they are to blame…

Wait, no you see Rahm was letting these poor kids be at risk so he could release it right before the election and the Republicans are the victims of big mean Rahm because he released a true story that led to the very public scandal. So Rahm is really the one using the kids—never mind no one has any claims that Rahm did know, but several claims indicate Hastert and the leadership knew much more.

Wait, no you see Rahm and Pelosi really were part of a massive conspiracy in which Foley was a political Manchurian Candidate.

If the members of the press don’t call bullshit on all of this, they need new lines of work. Read what Hastert said yesterday. He didn’t take responsibility for anything and has continued to blame any handy Democrat for being at fault in this scandal. That’s either a gross lie or evidence that Denny is not mentally capable of being a dogcatcher let alone 3rd in line to the Presidency.

Update on McSweeney and Hastert

As I said the other day, I tend to think McSweeney is a decent guy, just a decent guy I don’t want near Congress. He contacted me about this post to fill in his whole position and I respect that.

My point was (admittedly snarky) point that backing Hastert right now when there were contradictory claims running around and putting your neck out there isn’t good politically. To his credit, his actual position is pretty decent in relation to how to deal with it–get an investigation out there and have preliminary findings before the election.

Politically, I think he’s making a mistake, but I have to admit he seems to be responding authentically and I think like many parents, he’s pretty angry about the whole deal. More in a bit, but while I think the political position is bad politics, he seems serious about what he thinks and he wants it to be investigated quickly instead of just shuffled off until after the election.

It’s like out of the Catholic Church’s playbook

And because this is sensitive, I’m not talking about the Catholic faith, but the institution of the Catholic Church as a bureaucracy.

Repubicans are on a witch hunt for the Gays.

ou may know that Kirk Fordham was ousted today as Tom Reynolds’s chief of staff after allegations that he tried to cover for Mark Foley’s inappropriate behavior. (In fact Fordham insists he sounded the alarm.) Fordham, as I think the Plank was first to point out, is also a former chief of staff to Foley. Today ABC News notes, in passing, that Fordham is “openly gay.” (I had heard this several times myself but chose not to publish it until now.) Why is this significant? Because it’s becoming clear that some people on Capitol Hill are promoting a storyline that involves gay Republican staffers–apparently led by Fordham–covering up for Mark Foley. Gloria Borger hinted at this on CBS News last night, saying:

Trying to solve the probem by making it about gays misses the entire problem–there was a serious breakdown in oversight of the program. It could have been heterosexual Members hitting on women in the program. And in fact, in the past that did happen.

That list is going to make this very, very ugly and every staffer on it or who has a friend on it will be bitter and angry and they know a lot about what has been going on in this and other scandals. This can only end badly for Republican pursuing this strategy.

It’s not about the Adults

It’s not about you:

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.

I’m somewhat surprised by Shimkus’ response more than many others. He was a teacher. He should understand the problem here. It’s not about the political consequences here–though he’s creating huge ones. It’s that he screwed up and left kids vulnerable. I can be pretty forgiving for that if someone owns up to it. This scandal could have largely gone away on Friday with Hastert and Shimkus saying—we screwed up and feel horrible about it and we are going to try and fix it with all of our colleagues. It’s not about the Republicans or Shimkus, it’s about high school kids.

As we now know, it wasn’t Democrats, but even if it was, so what? They protected a guy who is a pedophile. Perhaps they didn’t get that he was a pedophile, but two high school teachers should have thought about that possibility immediately when the original issue came up. If a Democrat had sent the information out–good. Someone needed to do that to protect kids. Saying it’s a dirty trick suggests this isn’t a real issue. It is and every parent not involved in the scandal knows that. That’s why Shimkus’ colleagues on the Republican side are largely mad at Hastert. If it had been there kid….

Dirty tricks are dishonest. Pointing out a problem isn’t a dirty trick.