(AP) House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other GOP leaders are dismissing suggestions that they should have done more to investigate an e-mail from Rep. Mark Foley to a former teenage page that had raised a "red flag" with the boy's parents and his congressional sponsor.
Hastert rejected a call by a leading conservative newspaper that he resign, a spokesman said Tuesday.
"The speaker has and will lead the Republican conference to another majority in the 110th Congress," said Hastert spokesman Ron Bonjean....
http://news.yahoo.com/...
Commentary in extended.
This whole affair has been like a train wreck, in that I am totally horrified by Foley and his "leaders" but am completely unable to turn away from the story. I am on the lookout for every new piece of news, for every new opinion letter or editorial, and with every new revelation, I become more and more disgusted and revolted.
I am struck by the utter lack of human decency of the Republican leadership (which is pretty much par for the course, for people who rape the environment, refuse to help the most vulnerable, and instead give big tax cuts to the rich and maintain subsidies to oil companies during a time of windfall profits...but I digress) in this matter, and the utter lack of care and sympathy for Foley's multiple victims.
What kind of tone-deaf, power-hungry wretch actually strikes a DEFIANT posture in response to revelations that he did not do ANYTHING when confronted with information that his CO-CHAIR of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children was having ultra-creepy conversations with minors?
"The speaker has and will lead the Republican conference to another majority in the 110th Congress." THAT'S his reply to calls by CONSERVATIVES that he resign? What arrogance. What entitlement. It's all about power, which feeds naturally into the undoubtedly accurate frame that turning a blind eye to Foley was all about maintaining a deathgrip on GOP power.
The GOP didn't care if they were turning a blind eye toward a pedophile within their own ranks. All they cared about was keeping one more seat, and hey, if the guy wants to donate some hush money to other GOP pols so they can better hold onto THEIR seats, so much the better.
This sense of entitlement, this arrogance, this complete lack of moral values and human decency, is what will lead the GOP to an electoral rout come next month. Ordinary people -- those who are paying attention, anyway -- are having the appropriate response to this scandal, which is disgust and revulsion. We can't imagine any decent person having any OTHER reaction.
ANY attempt by pols who dropped the ball on Foley to dissemble, deflect or defend will be utterly rejected, and I have faith that that fact will emerge clearly in November. That Hastert is being so defiant makes me wonder whether he just doesn't get it at all, or whether he does get it but just doesn't care in his desperate quest to retain power.
By responding with self-righteous rejection rather than remorse, Hastert is angering -- and in some cases infuriating -- a whole bunch of ordinary Americans. And angry people vote, even if they might not vote typically. This isn't just a question of depressing the GOP base any more. Mark my words, it's becoming a question of generating even more of an emotional groundswell (as if we didn't already have enough, with Iraq and the general GOP incompetence...but I digress again) of ANGER against the arrogant, immoral, tone-deaf GOP who has an unhealthy and unseemly entitlement about their own power.
Quotes like the above make people angry. And that anger will carry through to November, I have little doubt.
DTH