Commentary

Hastert House

The investigative horses are on the track. Late last week, Doc Hastings (R-Wa.), chairman of the house ethics committee, pledged that the investigation by his
newly formed subcommittee would follow the evidence in the unfolding
teenage-page sex scandal with the fervor of rats seeking lifeboats on a sinking
ship of state- OK , a little creative license was taken here.

Since this is to be a vigorous inquiry, the big man at the top of this poisoned
food chain, Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert, may be wheezing more
heavily than usual. He has directed his attorney, J. Randolph Evans, to offer
the committee full cooperation, and he thundered on about the need for the
expulsion of anyone found guilty of improper sexual advances or conduct with
congressional pages.

Well, there are a two problems with the Speaker’s current course. The first of which is the fact that the deviant in question, Mark Foley(R-Fla.), has already resigned, so making a statement declaring your support for removal of the offender amounts to nothing more than a release of trapped air.

He did add that a criminal investigation would be opened, and that a toll-free
number has been established to receive tips on inappropriate man-page conduct.
But the criminal investigation is standard procedure, and the hotline a joke.

The troubling issues arise from the differing accounts of the events leading up
to the release of this story. This exposes the second problem with Hastert
and his conduct to date. After the ABC News report that sent Rep. Foley
scurrying south prematurely for the winter, the Speaker said that he only recently
(as in the day Foley fled) learned of the “overly-friendly” e-mails sent to the
Louisiana page.

This contradicts the accounts of John Boehner(R-Oh.), House majority leader,
and Thomas Reynolds(R-NY), who have stated that they both discussed the
matter with Hastert this spring. The Speaker can’t seem to recall the conversation, but has no reason to dispute the matter. In addition, Kirk Fordham, former aid to Reynolds and chief of staff for Foley until January 2004, said he had approached senior staff of the House leadership many times in 2003 about his boss’ troubling behavior. He would not mention the names of the Hastert aides he approached about Foley, and Hastert’s chief of staff denied Fordham’s account.

The office of Rodney Alexander(R-La), for whom the page worked, contacted the
staff of Hastert’s office in late 2005, and they referred the matter to John Shimkus(R-Ill.), who is chairman of the House Page Board. At that time, the correspondence only qualified as disturbing, so Foley was told only to cease contact with the page.The board could have sought an ethics inquiry or a called the Capitol police.

Just when Speaker Hastert went through the trouble to amend the scandal’s timeline, implying that the first to know were Rep. Shimkus and Rep. Alexander in the fall of 2005, the fiasco now goes further back with the revelation that Jim Kolbe(R-Ariz.) was aware of Foley’s indecent e-mails six years ago. Kolbe confronted Foley about his conduct, but nothing was done to remove him from the House, and criminal investigations were never part of even the wildest of intentions.

This is all getting very confusing; but it points to many congressmen having
full knowledge of Foley’s misdeeds over a period of six years, as well as an
ineffective House Page Board. With shifting timelines, and sugar-coated labels
placed on the correspondence of a sexual predator, what is America to think?

The blame for this cover-up will surely touch many more of Foley’s colleagues
as the days progress, but the ultimate responsibility lies with the Speaker. It seems that not only was his staff informed, but that he was most likely made
aware of Rep. Foley’s actions as well.

Hastert is maintaining that he was blissfully unaware of the deviant in the midst,
and besides, the Republican’s have a swell story to tell. The stock market, as
measured by the Dow (excluding adjustments for inflation), is at an all time
high, the economy is still creating jobs (at an anemic pace), tax cuts for
yacht owning caviar-junkies have reached ten commandment status, and the war
on terror is keeping America comfortably paranoid. I guess he is developing a
good story to tell about his own role in the latest scandal to hit the Republican
controlled House; so we need not be concerned as long as he has a story to sell.

The party elders have decided to stand with the Speaker, and change the focus to the myriad of narrowly focused benefits they have provided at great expense to the bulk of US citizens. Ken Mehlman, chairman of the RNC and master
of obfuscation, believes that American’s will not buy the notion that Hastert
concealed his actions. Maybe that’s because he presumes Americans will purchase whatever Republicans have on offer, and they do not have a Hastert cover-up for sale today.

In addition, the Republicans have gone on the offensive, attacking Democrats,
the party of toothless wonders, for the sudden appearance of these naughty e-mails. This is so rich. The Democrats have been sidelined to mute status after years of Republican House rules manipulation. This legislative body has been a one party apparatus for years. Another disturbing aspect to this line of attack is the complete disregard for the welfare of the pages who were subjected to Foley’s disturbing advances.

After the Jack Abramoff (super-lobbyist) scandal, the resignation of several House members due to the involvement in bribery schemes, and the indictment of Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader, the public may be thinking there is more to this beneath the swirl of spin. A recent Newsweek poll showed that 52 percent of Americans believe that Hastert was aware of Foley’s salacious e-mails to underage staffers and attempted to cover it up. It’s just one poll, but when congressional approval ratings were already below the president’s, maybe the Speaker and the party’s grand wizards should rethink their strategy.

Greg Strid

© 2006 Splendid Marbles.