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.
Shimkus is a complete pile. How can anybody buy his crap?
This is simple: Shimkus pimped kids for $100,000 campaign donations from the Foley war chest.
Congratulations So-Ill, you got a real winner. But I’ll bet dollars to donuts you’ll re-elect him come November.
Long time no-see AP.