From John Aravosis at
AMERICAblog again, this pretty much sums up the current state of affairs:
FACT: GOP staff, working for Republican Speaker Denny Hastert, warned the page class of 2001-2002 to stay away from Foley - five years ago.
FACT: Former chief of staff to GOP Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY), Kirk Fordham, says he warned Hastert's chief of staff of Foley's behavior three years ago. Whether or not you believe Fordham, his testimony is consistent with the other facts showing that the Republicans knew about Foley's behavior long before last week.
FACT: Both Reps. John Boehner, the Republican House Majority Leader, and Tom Reynolds both say they told Dennis Hastert personally about the Foley issue months ago. Hastert says Boehner is lying. So one of the two most powerful Republicans in the House is lying about an investigation into a child sex predator. That deserves a separate investigation right there.
FACT: Hastert's staff was informed of the Foley emails a year ago, but Hastert would like us to believe his staff simply never told him that a member of Congress, a member of his leadership team, was under investigation for preying sexually on young children - children who Hastert was responsible for.
Dennis Hastert, of course, has many theories on why he, his staff, Tom Reynolds, his staff, and a host of other Republicans took absolutely no action when they each heard multiple times, over the course of a year, about Foley's behavior. Hastert's primary theory is that it was the fault of the young victims, Bill Clinton, Democrats, and The Gays; however, he's apparently now modified it to also blame Jewish investment bankers, a move sure to ring true to his more Klan-supporting base members, but which left the entire rest of the media and political establishments shaking their heads (or trying to suppress laughter.) He's also asserted that Foley's victims are against the war on terrorism, which is pretty much the exact moment, for future reference, when Hastert jumped the shark, becoming mere cartoon-like parody of himself.
As an aside, I'm beginning to realize that having the Republican leadership bolting to the Rush Limbaugh show or (when they need to slum it down a bit) Hugh Hewitt is actually finally becoming a pretty good thing, for Democrats. Rush makes them comfortable, and the mark (er, guest) comes out with right-wing, nutcase statements that then get broadcast around the country, by the press, to audiences distinctly less inclined to hear their leaders acting like race-baiters, or imbeciles, or blaming those soft, supple high school children for being so damn attractive and sexually arousing.
There's been talk of what might be good or bad for the Republican Party, but let's be honest here. Dennis Hastert is in this fight for exactly one man: Dennis Hastert. What the Republican Party wants or doesn't want doesn't enter into it. What the Democrats could or couldn't make hay with doesn't enter into it. Hastert has been receiving far more criticism from conservatives then from Democrats.
But this isn't about any lofty conservative principles, or constituents, or any of the rest of that drivel -- this is about power. This is about the willpower of a self-sustaining corruption, surviving only because of uncomplicated Republican agreements that the House will no longer investigate the House.
Hastert's actions in this cover-up, after all, are consistent with his entire history as House leader. Along with DeLay's moblike attention to patronages and retributions before him, Hastert's own "leadership" behavior represents the core corruption problem of the House. Hastert's the one who gutted the House Ethics committee in the first place, in an effort to protect DeLay from the mounting inquiries and investigations. After the indicted DeLay himself, Hastert's the poster child.
From the position of a partisan Democrat who wants to punish these people deeply for their incompetence, cronyism, corruption, and general malevolence, I'll admit it's a lot better for Democrats if Hastert sticks around. This allows him to be used as the election-time story device for retelling every act of Republican corruption that has happened, in the last few years, and his role in protecting it or helping to prevent its investigation. That's a lot of fodder, over the next month, and Hastert has now made the complexities of those stories a lot easier to tell, by virtue of this story, which is itself very easy to tell.
From the rather more noble position of what's best for America, on the other hand, I think we all recognize that America as a whole would be best served if a corrupted and incompetent leader took a long hike, and in days, not weeks. There are some things that should result in the end of a career, politics aside, and if this isn't one of them, at long last, I'm not sure what would be.
Dennis Hastert is, more than any other single man, responsible for the GOP code of omerta surrounding DeLay, Burns, Ney, Abramoff, and every other Republican indicted conspirator, co-conspirator, felon and, now, predator. He is responsible for the very culture that prevented this investigation, like he prevented all the others. Reynolds assisted him. Boehner assisted him. His entire party, until that one match that burned too hot, assisted him.
Despite Hastert's red-faced bluster, that's not the Democrats' fault. That's not the fault of a Jewish banker, or those oh-too-attractive-for-a-congressman-to-leave-alone young high school students. Hastert could have taken care of this and every other GOP scandal that has rocked the house at any time. He didn't, by House and Republican design. Now it's a campaign issue. He blew it, not some cabal of hidden enemies with the audacity to be outraged at it all. Reynolds can hide behind all the preadolescent kids he wants, and Hastert can continue to swat at imaginary enemies circling his head like pixies, but nobody's buying it. They look like chumps because they are chumps.
Enough. When you've got not just the scary, scary Democrats, but everyone from Bay Buchanan to Richard Viguerie to Michael Reagan to Tony Blankley to National Review contributors to nearly every non-Fox-affiliated media commenter calling the behavior of the GOP leadership an embarrassment and a fiasco, that pretty much by definition counts as a national consensus.
Just, enough.
