Call It A Comeback
Democrats might want Hastert to resign, but it isn’t for political reasons.
“No,” Hastert said. “I think that resignation is exactly what our opponents would like to have happen, that I’d fold my tent and others would fold our tent and they would sweep the House.”
Politically, Hastert is gold for Democrats so when he gets defiant, Dems cheer. He’s a walking campaign commercial that’s free right now.
I think you might find this disturbing given your comments about John Kerry and your daughter.
The rumors are pretty fast and furious and most of them are absolute crap, but Ray LaHood mentioned to the press that there’s more to come.
I mean, there really is no winning way to answer the questions, but this is hysterical
Roskam said he believes Hastert when he says he does not remember hearing anything before last week about the Foley email exchange with a 16-year-old former page from Louisiana, in which Foley asked the boy to send a picture of himself. U.S. Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) discussed the email with Foley, who convinced him it was purely innocent and that he was simply expressing concern for a young man who had just weathered Hurricane Katrina.
It’s a little hard to tell what Roskam ‘believes’ as Denny, Boehner, Reynolds, and Shimkus all seem to have ever changing stories. However, the one clear thing—Hastert new about the first batch several months ago.
IOW, while Denny’s stories change, at different points in this process he has lied. Roskam just stuck his neck out for Denny’s honesty when one of the few clear things is that Hastert has been lying.
That’s talent folks.
David McSweeney, the Republican candidate in Illinois’ other hot congressional race, is also standing by Hastert.
McSweeney, an investment banker from Barrington Hills, said he also believes that Hastert didn’t know about the messages — either the strange Katrina email or the explicit instant messages that came out later.
“I believe the speaker is a man of integrity,” said McSweeney, who has also been high on Hastert’s priority list in recent months. “I’ve known him for a number of years. If that’s what he says, I believe him.”
The problem with this? Boehner and Reynolds have pretty much contradicted Hastert on several occasions now.
I believe we’ll see lots of Solitaire being played by the campaign staff for McSweeney for the next five weeks.
am shaking my head today. Maybe I’m loyal to a fault. But come on, who hasn’t been in position where you couldn’t win like Denny Hastert is today?
I’m shocked at the number of conservative Republicans who are so eager to dump their friends when they get into trouble. It’s rather troubling, actually. . . How do these people stay married to the same spouses for years and years? Haven’t they ever seen a undeserving friend through a storm in his or her life? Isn’t anyone ever deserving of weathering difficulties?
You can’t prove guilt unless you have the evidence in hand. Hastert — who has a million things on his mind at any one time — was presented a while back with some of the email message evidence, but not all. With what he had in hand, he made a call to reprimand and “speak to” Foley through the head of the page board, downstate Illinois’ own Congressman John Shimkus.
NW Burbs and Greg Blankenship write two especially good response to this so read the comments. Cats. Dogs. Living Together.
There’s another angle that makes the above bizarre to me. It’s not about loyalty to a politician, it should be about loyalty to teenagers who already grow up in an oversexed culture. How are social conservatives (and many are) not incredibly offended by this? A High School Coach of 14 years knows what the hell is going on when he reads even the initial set of less offensive e-mails and Denny covered it up. I can say that even in dealing with adult students, but students where there is an age and power difference even if less so, I have never brought up how hot another student is or asked for pictures. Being friendly isn’t being icky. And being icky is a sign of a problem.
We give Congress a special responsibility with this program–a historic program. It’s not to just go gee whiz willickers, he sent some naughty e-mails so we’ll talk to him. It’s the fucking asshole is making suggestive remarks to kids–get him the hell out of the situation now and then check and see if it goes any further and make sure the kids are protected. If it doesn’t go further, all contact with kids is cut off through the job and if it does go further–go after him with the law.
No one gets hurt if Foley had just been a little creepy and kept away from pages while an investigation went on. There’s no downside. There is a tremendous upside to investigating and keeping Foley away from kids that is pretty obvious today
SPEAKER HASTERT: There were two pieces of paper out there, one that we knew about and we acted on; one that happened in 2003 we didn?t know about, but somebody had it, and, you know, they?re trying ? and they drop it the last day of the session, you know, before we adjourn on an election year. Now, we took care of Mr. Foley. We found out about it, asked him to resign. He did resign. He?s gone. We asked for an investigation. We?ve done that. We?re trying to build better protections for these page programs.
But, you know, this is a political issue in itself, too, and what we?ve tried to do as the Republican Party is make a better economy, protect this country against terrorism ? and we?ve worked at it ever since 9/11, worked with the president on it ? and there are some people that try to tear us down. We are the insulation to protect this country, and if they get to me it looks like they could affect our election as well.
I’ll even give Hastert a bit of leeway given his penchant for saying things the wrong way–such as bringing up what to do in the long term for New Orleans while people were still being pulled from their houses. Let’s assume he’s not cruel enough to be blaming the kids as being some part of the conspiracy.
However, the incredibly unbelievable part of this is:
We?re trying to build better protections for these page programs.
On the surface there is no need to increase the institutional protection other than to replace the people who didn’t do their jobs. Now, perhaps there are more cases and then we do have some serious issues to look at the program, but in this case the institution would have been fine if someone had investigated. Shimkus didn’t tell the other Republican member of the committee or the Democratic member. He didn’t even tell them about the initial incident. You get a report of icky behavior and you investigate and the icky behavior is enough to ban the Member from any contact with pages even if there isn’t more.
Now, Denny has decided to try and solve the problem without including Democrats even though the committee overseeing the page program includes a Democrat. I think it’s safe to say both parties care about kids not being propositioned by Members and both can see that either party could, and has, had this problem in the past. What is it about this case that makes the process of looking at it partisan?
Seriously, this is largely a non-issue if it was dealt with when the initial information came out.
Turn to your favorite right wing web site and there’s your guy being pals with the most toxic person in politics for the day and with no apparent connection to the scandal.
It didn’t take long for the Clenis to get invoked for his supposed pardon on Mel Reynolds. Only problem–it wasn’t a pardon, but a commutation. Reynolds served all five years on the criminal sexual assault and other state charges. He was serving 6 1/2 years in Federal Prison for violations related to campaign finance. Clinton’s commutation still required him to serve the last two years in a halfway house as the Fed sentence was concurrent to the state sentence.
The primary reason cited for the worthiness of the case was that Reynold’s family needed him out to support him. I don’t buy that as many a convict had worse situations, but it was even supported by some Republicans. I don’t have it handy, but I believe Bob Michels wrote to support commutation as well as the primary sponsor, Jesse Jackson. The story isn’t one of just some random political supporter getting a break, but the club protecting one of its own.
All that said, let’s make something clear–Mark Foley wasn’t just let off early, he was let off and allowed to remain in the position he could exploit.
For those who think this is some sort of serious argument, keep it up. It’ll just reinforce how clueless the Republican leadership is if this is the counterattack. What’s stunning is that the leadership doesn’t seem to get how angry the rank and file are amongst Republicans.
Lots of scandals are hard to understand or complicated or easy to ignore because everybody does it. Buggering, or even trying to bugger a kid isn’t any of those things.
Bean-McSweeney dust-up on abortion
But it was the issue of abortion rights that evoked the most passionate exchange between McSweeney and Bean, who accused her challenger of moderating his conservative views in an attempt to take away votes from her.
Citing the “Public Affairs” cable television program that airs in the 8th District, Bean said McSweeney had said he would support anti-abortion legislation without an exemption to protect the life of the mother.
In the last few months, however, Bean said that McSweeney had moderated his view by telling voters he would not support such a bill.
“I don’t think I ever want to hear the word ‘flip-flop’ from this man again,” Bean said, referring to McSweeney’s assertions that the incumbent lawmaker has changed her view on various positions since she took office.
McSweeney said Bean had taken his remarks on the cable program out of context, an assertion that the program’s host, Jeff Berkowitz, agreed with Monday.
“What I said is I would always favor the exception for the life of the mother, and ideally for rape and incest,” McSweeney said later Monday. “My record is very clear on that issue.”
And to give Jeff credit (I’ll link to the post Jeff if you send me the url), McSweeney gave the answer after Jeff pinned him down. But let’s make one point clear, McSweeney would vote for a ban on abortion without those ‘exceptions’.
Also, to be fair, if it’s legit to go after Kerry for he was for it before he was against it—it’s fair here.
I must confess, I think McSweeney is the most likeable of the Republican candidates for Congress in Illinois, but part of the reason for that is he’s probably a bit to forthecoming on such questions. And let me make doubly clear, he’s very, very conservative and I wouldn’t support him.
Ahhh..the irony, Jeff Berkowitz helps bury Republican candidate for Congress….(for those not getting the joke, Jeff loves to revel in being tough on candidates from both parties)
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