Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Ex-Foley-ate
I received an e-mail from a DC-based Republican that underscores the real trouble that the House GOP leadership -- and by extension, the congressional majority -- faces. This Republican is a Capitol Hill veteran who stays in touch with old associates:
UPDATE: The Washington Times recognizes the stakes -- and urges Dennis Hastert to do the right thing. The fact that the editorial page editor of the Times was once press secretary to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (indeed, the man who hired me for the job writing in the office), Tony Blankley is significant. No, it doesn't mean that Tony is doing Newt's bidding via the editorial pages (indeed, Newt's response on Sunday was remarkably forgiving of the leadership's decisions -- though he may not have had all the information at hand).
Tony is very well-connected on Capitol Hill himself and is friends with many GOP members. If anything, this editorial signals that Hastert has lost the support of the Washington Republican establishment. The only thing that can stop a complete Republican train wreck in November is the departure of a real heavyweight. That means Mr. Hastert must go.
UPDATE II: Americablog is, of course, very liberal and is clearly no fan of Republicans. Still, they make some good points about the culpability of the GOP leadership in this sordid story, beyond Hastert:
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It [troubles] me that [GOP defenders] kept referring back to Gerry Studs. While Studds is disturbing and the Democratic response was even more so, that was 24 years ago. The pages in question now were not even a twinkle in their parents eye at that point.That's the problem -- of the sort that can turn a close election into a blow out: On the one hand, an opposition party that is fired up to motivate their base and the other party's base is completely demoralized. That was a fear well before the Foley crisis, but this could be the straw that broke the Republican majority's back.
[At] lunch with some friends on the Hill today...they [were] pretty livid with the leadership. Everyone I have talked to agrees that this is 100 times worse than Abramoff or Cunningham - people expect Congressmen to be corrupt, they do not expect them to be pedophiles. Also, no one is buying the "well, what we saw did not seem so bad and we did not see the IM" bit.
UPDATE: The Washington Times recognizes the stakes -- and urges Dennis Hastert to do the right thing. The fact that the editorial page editor of the Times was once press secretary to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (indeed, the man who hired me for the job writing in the office), Tony Blankley is significant. No, it doesn't mean that Tony is doing Newt's bidding via the editorial pages (indeed, Newt's response on Sunday was remarkably forgiving of the leadership's decisions -- though he may not have had all the information at hand).
Tony is very well-connected on Capitol Hill himself and is friends with many GOP members. If anything, this editorial signals that Hastert has lost the support of the Washington Republican establishment. The only thing that can stop a complete Republican train wreck in November is the departure of a real heavyweight. That means Mr. Hastert must go.
UPDATE II: Americablog is, of course, very liberal and is clearly no fan of Republicans. Still, they make some good points about the culpability of the GOP leadership in this sordid story, beyond Hastert:
But this is absurd.
- Congressman Reynolds' office had a direct role in covering up this scandal.
- Shimkus was the one who took the predator's word for it, and who didn't tell the Democrat or the other Republican on the Page Board about the scandal.
- Alexander, who claims neither his staff nor the leadership ever told him that a page who was his own constituent was sexually harassed by a member of Congress, thinks the House GOP leadership handled this scandal just swell - he just told CNN that simply telling the predator to stop was sufficient.
- Boehner - who knew about the emails, he knew that the decision was made to let Foley stay in their leadership, let him stay as chair of the missing and exploited children caucus. Boehner did nothing.
- And finally, every single GOP member of Congress needs to answer the question as to whether they were the only people on the Hill who didn't know of Foley's youthful indiscretions. It seems it wasn't that a big secret - the pages were warned about Foley in 2001. So who amongst the Republicans knew about Foley and did nothing to stop him.
Technorati Tags: Mark_Foley, Republicans, corruption, Dennis Hastert
