Hastert Unhinged
by Hunter Daily Kos
Fri Oct 06, 2006 at 01:51:05 AM PDT
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.



Tags: FL-16, Mark Foley, PredatorGate, Dennis Hastert, Tom Reynolds, John
Boehner, House, Republican corruption, Republican sex scandals, Republican
family values (all tags)

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