And LaHood is there with the quotables:
I said to him, ‘You’re the only one who can resolve this thing,’ ” said Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), recounting a conversation he had with Hastert last week. “He knows that. He knows it is in his lap.”
LaHood said he also told a senior Hastert aide: “You have to pivot, you have to eat some crow, you’ve got to get it behind you.”
Hastert, however, is expected to face some resistance today when, aides said, he plans to put his proposal before his GOP colleagues at their weekly strategy session.
But he’s not done. The Journal Star got to him
LaHood said many Republican lawmakers were frustrated at the prospect of being asked ? for the second time this year ? to roll back a vote that had proved politically unpopular.
“People fell on their sword” when they rescinded the rule in January concerning possible indictments of GOP leaders, LaHood said. “Now it’s the same thing.”
He and others are concerned about negative publicity that the rule changes involving the ethics committee have generated, LaHood said.
“My hometown [newspaper] in Peoria has written three editorials about this ? every editorial writer in the country is writing about this,” he said.
To which, one must ask, who the hell didn’t think this was going to happen? I mean really? You have a Majority Leader who is ethically challenged and you change the rules concerning how an investigation starts? Besides it just being a bad idea in the first place–doing it under these circumstances was just stupid.
I would like to be a fly on the wall when someone tells LaHood that all the ethics bruhaha over DeLay is because he’s the most effective Republican in the House and that this all the fault of the Democrats……….
Lahood’s always been like this–even in 1994 when he first ran, he refused to sign the Contract for America.
In terms of DeLay–uh, I’m not sure blaming Democrats for Jack Abramoff paying for trips and other things is going to count as only because DeLay is effective. Right now, he’s the most ineffective Republican around.