Whale In The Water

Yesterday, Denny Hastert jumped the shark with his George Soros conspiracy theory. shortly thereafter the GOP pushed him back into the water and now the sharks are eyeing a Shamoo sandwich. From the Chicago Tribune:

Comments that Hastert made in a Tribune interview suggesting the scandal had been orchestrated by ABC News, Democratic political operatives aligned with the Clinton White House and liberal activist George Soros were considered a serious misstep in national Republican circles, an official said. Senior Republican officials contacted Hastert's office before his news conference Thursday to urge that he not repeat the charges, and he backed away from them in his news conference.

"The Chicago Tribune interview last night--the George Soros defense--was viewed as incredibly inept," a national Republican official said. "It could have been written by [comedian] Jon Stewart."

Democrats ridiculed assertions that party operatives arranged the scandal.

If Denny wasn't done, this would have never ended up in the paper. It's pure damage control not of the Foley scandal, but of the buffoonery of Hastert himself. What Hastert doesn't seem to understand is that an aging rock star who can no longer pack the big venues, he himself is done, and the GOP doesn't have the guts to cancel the rest of the tour. Luckily for us, Hastert won't be going anywhere before the election.

Hastert Goes To Ground

Denny Hastert seems to be trying to employ a new tactic to keep his Speaker position. It's the tried and true "If I don't go to work, they can't fire me" method. Hastert has holed up in his house for at least the last 24 hour according to TPM Muckraker. Apparently, there is a rather large press contingent waiting for him when he finally does emerge.

A hint for any reporters on the stakeout, if you see Denny's wife pull out of the garage and the rear bumper is dragging the ground with the springs looking like they're ready to give out, he's in the trunk.

Kirk Fordham Shown The Door

Well, it wasn't long after Kirk Fordham, the chief of staff for republican Congressman Tom Reynolds, went blabbing to the press that he was shown the door by Reynolds. The republican smear machine also started annoynomously telling ABC that Fordham in fact begged republican leaders not to tell the page board about Mark Foley's dalliances. Fordham's people told ABC that he is being used as a scapegoat.

There is something smelly about this chapter of the scandal and it is pretty difficult to get a read on it. One of two possibilities is probably the truth.

Perhaps the smearers are right. Kirk Fordham was a long time advisor to Foley and would have been in the perfect position to know of his former boss' predilections. Following his tenure with Foley's office, he left to take a chief of staff job for the head of the page board, Tom Reynolds. It is the perfect position to protect his former boss from, if he still held allegiance to Foley, which he apparently did as it has been reported that Fordham advised Foley over the last weekend.

On the other hand, Fordham is possibly telling the truth and would have been in the best position to get resolution to the matter and possibly told Reynolds and other republican leadership to do something about it which they did not.

It is however, irrelevant to the overall matter at hand, because whichever account is correct, both agree that Fordham told the republican leadership which did nothing about it. Whether Fordham pleaded or prodded does nothing to allow Denny Hastert to escape culpability on the matter as a whole. In fact, I'm not sure which version makes Hastert look worse.

One Simple Question

Who told John Boehner about Mark Foley's dalliances? In everything I've seen Boehner say regarding this matter, Boehner gives the impression that he went to Denny Hastert to see about it. How did Boehner come to know about it? Someone should ask him the question.

Translating Denny

I'd like to translate Denny Hastert's answer to this question into plain English. From TPM:

Q Mr. Speaker, on that question, I mean is it sufficient that they just went and asked Foley, hey, we have this e-mail that has set off some worries with the parents, is this a problem or not? And he says no. So should it have stopped there?

Mr. Hastert. Well, let me say this, and again I want to refer you to the report, but what I want to say is that the parents didn't want to -- I mean, first of all, there was nothing explicit in this e-mail that I understood. And the parents didn't even want -- I don't even know if they showed the e-mail -- actual e-mail to Mr. Shimkus. I don't know. But his parents were protective of this thing, and what they wanted was Mr. Foley, and my understanding was, Mr. Foley to stop contacting their son. I think that is what the purpose of it was and I think the reports that I got back recently is that is what happened.

Look, the kid and his parents were willing to play ball and shut up. As for protecting the rest of the pages from Mark Foley's dalliances, Foley pushes a lot of coin into GOP coffers. In fact, Foley has given $100,000 to the NRCC just this cycle. Do you think the rest of the page corps could have raised that kind of money?

By the way the NRCC is still trying to get its grimy hands on the last $2.7 million of perv money in Foley's now dead campaign account.

Bye John, Bye Denny

ABC news has just put up this exchange between Mark Foley and one of the teenage House pages that he had inappropriate contact with. From ABC News:

Maf54: I miss you lots since san diego.
Teen: ya I cant wait til dc
Maf54: :)
Teen: did you pick a night for dinner
Maf54: not yet…but likely Friday
Teen: ok…ill plan for Friday then
Maf54: that will be fun

The messages also show the teen is, at times, uncomfortable with Foley's aggressive approach.

Maf54: I want to see you
Teen: Like I said not til feb…then we will go to dinner
Maf54: and then what happens
Teen: we eat…we drink…who knows…hang out…late into the night
Maf54: and
Teen: I dunno
Maf54: dunno what
Teen: hmmm I have the feeling that you are fishing here…im not sure what I would be comfortable with…well see

I don't know about you, but that sounds exactly like a man soliciting sex from a minor to me, and Hastert and Boehner covered up for this guy. They might not have known the depths of his depravity at that time, although I'm guessing that they did given the very short amount of time it took Boehner to try to throw Hastert under the bus.

It doesn't matter, they are both toast. They may stumble through re-election, but they have no shot whatsoever of returning to the republican leadership and as I wrote about Tom Delay, once you're on top, nobody goes back to being a lowly member of Congress. Only chumps do that.