Unacceptable!
By Keith Boykin, in politics
Thursday, October 5 2006, 2:59PM
U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert said today that he was "deeply sorry" but knew nothing of the inappropriate emails sent by Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) to congressional pages. Foley resigned his seat last week after the media learned that he had sent sexually explicit emails to teenage pages. But since Foley left office, the story has focused on Speaker Hastert, who according to many reports was warned at least months in advance about Foley's behavior.
Hastert's response today shows he still doesn't get it. He tried to look like he was taking responsibility when he announced that investigations are underway. But Foley spent a good deal of the press conference pointing fingers at the Democrats instead of fully taking responsibility for what the Republicans (who actually run the Congress) did and did not do.
From beginning to end, Hastert spent the 10 minutes of his press conference deflecting criticism from himself and placing it elsewhere.
"When Congress found out about the explicit messages, Republicans dealt with this immediately and the culprit was gone," said Hastert, in his opening statement. "We are now trying to correct the problem. Notice the emphasis he put on the term "explicit," a carefully designed attempt to distinguish the most recently published messages from the messages that Hastert acknowledges he heard about perhaps a year ago.
He ended his press conference just as he began it, by politicizing the issue. "We have a great economy," he said. "It's because of Republican tax cuts and Republican handling of the economy...We have addressed the war on terror...So we have a good story to tell. Our friends on the other side of the aisle really don't have a story to tell. Maybe they're resolving to another political tactic." And with that final cheap shot, he said "thank you" and left the press conference.
Hastert Covers Up Foley Connection
The irony of the situation is that Mark Foley played a key role for Republicans in fighting for "child protection" laws. Foley was in the front row this summer when President George Bush signed the Child Protection Act at the White House.
Hastert spoke about the issue on July 25 of this year as the House passed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. “At home, we put the security of our children first and Republicans are doing just that in our nation’s House," Hastert said then. "We’ve all seen the disturbing headlines about sex offenders and crimes against children. These crimes cannot persist. Protecting our children from Internet predators and child exploitation enterprises are just as high a priority as securing our border from terrorists."
Since Rep. Foley resigned last week amid an Internet scandal with House pages, Speaker Hastert seems to have removed the images of himself and Foley from his own web site.
When the bill was in Congress, Hastert proudly posed at a press conference with Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL). But since Rep. Foley resigned last week amid an Internet scandal with House pages, Speaker Hastert seems to have removed the images of himself and Foley from his own web site. Fortunately, Google's files still store a copy of the photo, but when you click on the image you get the following message from Hastert's site: "The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable."
The GOP Blame Game
You gotta hand it to those Republicans. When they get in trouble, they lie their asses off and erase all the evidence to the contrary. Even more amazing, they have mastered the art of finger pointing. To listen to the GOP talking heads the past week, you would think (a) Foley was a Democrat, (b) the Democrats were responsible for withholding the news about Foley, and (c) the Democrats secretly plotted to release the damning information just a few weeks before the November elections.
It's the classic GOP blame game. Blame the Democrats for dirty tricks. Blame the media for reporting about the scandal. Blame the gays for being gay. And blame anybody but themselves. I'm surprised they couldn't figure out a way to blame Bill Clinton for this one. They seem to blame him for everything else that they've done wrong.
The reality is that the Democrats don't have the balls, the coordination or the killer instincts to have leaked this story to the media as an "October surprise." If they had, I would have much more respect for the Dems, to be honest. But even if the Democrats somehow managed to get their act together long enough to leak this story to ABC News last week, that wouldn't change the fact that the Republican leadership knew about the Foley emails, sat on this information for years, and did almost nothing to protect the pages in the program. That's because they were more interested in protecting their jobs than protecting the pages.
Comments conceal
Seahawk
October 5 2006, 3:23PM
(1) Hastert's presence will make him the poster boy for this scandal until election day. Surely the Republicans should realize that if they dumped him now, they would have at least a shot of retaining the House. His fat face will now be synonymous with corruption, perversion and coverup.
(2) Republicans almost NEVER give up power. No one has yet been fired or quit as a result of 9-11 or the Iraq War. For Foley to have quit must mean there is much, much more to the story.
(3) I would be fascinated to see what Foley and Hastert said about Janet Jackson or Howard Stern in the past. Their moral posturing has always been empty and hypocritical, except, I guess, for people who live in the Red States, for people who swallow their brand of poison.
RichyLA
October 5 2006, 3:40PM
That's unbelievable! This guy knew what happened with Foley...and this pig doesn't quit? Shame on him!!!
The Captain
October 5 2006, 3:48PM
Yes, this is an ugly mess. Just as Republicans have issues, so do the Democrats.
jason
October 5 2006, 5:10PM
I was a page in the House during the summer of 1994. Every time I read something about this, I get so frustrated because it is clear that this is all about politics. As pages, we are mere messengers in the House. I only met the Member who sponsored me one time! Apart from the fact that even in 1994, we had training about inappropriate interactions with Members, even then, the idea that a Member would even e-mail a page should strike every person familiar with the program as bizarre behavior. An intimate level of interaction like that should have, and no doubt did, send up red flags. It would be as if your 5th grade child received an e-mail from the Superintendent of your local school district! We just did not interact with Members that way and the only way it could have happened is if the Member was preying on the page. Noticeably absent from this is any page saying they e-mailed regularly with members. Ask Hastert how many pages he e-mails!
sabi
October 5 2006, 5:16PM
I hate that the Republicans are trying to act as though this is a smear campaign by the Democrats. Even if they were doing this on purpose to win the election, it wouldn't change the fact that Foley is a pervert! That's the issue here. It doesn't matter who's talking about it; unless they're trying to say he didn't do it (and nobody leaves office that quickly if they ain't do somethin'!), this is a completely ridiculous argument.
Leniere
October 5 2006, 5:21PM
This proves that human nature will always supersede logic, good intentions, “morals” and even the law.
The Democrats need to jump all over this. And tap dance. This is outrageous and the country should be reacting as such.
We’ll see if young men are as important and protected as young girls. Let’s see if they bring the hammer down….or don’t because young men “handle it better”.
What’s really unfortunate is that even though this is case of misconduct with minors, the jokes and all the commentary around this make fun of Rep. Foley’s perceived /admitted homosexuality. Somehow it’s about us again.
This reeks.
cmoney
October 5 2006, 9:27PM
Hastert is a former wrestler and wrestling coach, so it wouldn't surprise me if he hasn't taken advantage of a few youngin's himself. Could there be some skeletons out there that made him look the other way (other than the $100,000.00 that Mark Foley "donated" the the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee after he was chastised for contacting the pages last year)? As reprehensible as Hastert is, I love it when he keeps spinning this story. He's just digging a bigger hole and making people even madder at the GOP. So keep on spinnin' fat boy! The Dems need all the help they can get.
Steve
October 5 2006, 11:35PM
I love watching the Republi-can'ts roll in this hypocrisy because hypocrisy is always discovered. And the best thing for our nation is for a big fat discovery. It's here baby, and it's just the tip of the iceberg.
Ed Vince
October 6 2006, 1:14AM
The FBI, America's organized criminal organization should also clean house at ABC for withholding the information. The psychology of taking a white man's power away is very telling. Hassert who has become a bit thick over the past few years is on his knees. The white elite of DC under threat. I seem to wonder if Foley was a black congressman how would ABC and other outlets spin this one. What is more telling is the rumour that 2 other closeted congressmen also were courting teenage pagers. Now I wonder if the FBI will bring them out of the closet. Most of American teens are sexually active at 16, so I don't understand this argument about pedophilia. Foley is just a gay man with a fetish for young boys,
saint james
October 6 2006, 12:32PM
Did anyone ever consider that the Republicans themselves may have offered up this scandal as a smokescreen to deter attention away from Bob Woodward's new book about the Iraq war? President Bush's blind and senseless devotion to his "mission" despite real evidence that the US is not making the impact predicted. This scandal is certainly secondary in the broad scheme of things that Woodward's book!
Comment Preview