Posted on 10/02/2006 5:42:54 PM PDT by Dane
Conservatives Call on Hastert to Resign
by Robert B. Bluey
House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R.-Ill.) is coming under fire from conservatives for his failing to take action against disgraced Rep. Mark Foley (R.-Fla.), who resigned last week for inappropriate communications with teenage pages.
“Speaker Hastert had knowledge of Congressman Foley’s inappropriate behavior and chose to protect a potential pedophile and powerful colleague over a congressional page,” said David Bossie, president of conservative advocacy group Citizens United.
Joining Bossie’s call for Hastert to resign was nationally syndicated radio show host Michael Reagan.
“Any member of Congress who was aware of the sexual emails and protected the congressman should also resign effective immediately,” Reagan said. “I was sexually abused by a day camp counselor at age eight and also made to be part of child pornography.”
Hastert said in a news conference Monday that neither he nor other Republican leaders knew about the lurid exchanges between Foley and the teenage pages dating back to 2003. “As a parent and speaker of the House, I am disgusted,” Hastert said.
However, that didn’t blunt the criticism from Bossie and Reagan. Bossie’s group, which is best known for producing the movies “Celsius 41.11” in 2004 and the just-released “Border War,” said Hastert had failed in his duty to investigate the matter “before it became a public relations problem.” Bossie said the problem may cost Republicans control of the House in November as a result.
“This inaction demonstrates a lack of leadership on Speaker Hastert’s part, and calls into question both his judgment and character,” Bossie said. “If Speaker Hastert was willing to sacrifice a child to protect Rep. Foley’s seat and his own leadership position, then he surely does not share our American and conservative values.”
Repubs always eat their own....this is why they are called the Stupid Party.........everyone should relax, stop listening to CNN and wait for an investigation...
Apparently they have fallen for the Dem's & media's strategy which is to meld the 'overly friendly' emails & the recently revealed (from an unknown source) 'sexual IMs'......in an attempt to destroy Hastert & the GOP leadership!
October 02, 2006
Foley: The Democratic Playbook
It may not be as smooth as the Republicans' Stirling engine, but the Democrats' party committees are hitting on all cylinders today. They want candidates in each and every House and Senate race to push the Foley scandal to its hilt.
(Sample DSCC release: “Foley Sex Scandal Hits DeWine.” Sample WI Dem party release: “Foley Scandal: What Did Green Know and When Did He Know it?”)
Here's Dems' playbook:
1. Pay no heed to the distinction between the e-mails and IMs. There's no evidence (yet) that any Republican leaders knew about Foley's cybersex IMs. There's plenty of evidence that they knew how uncomfortable the "overly friendly" e-mails made at least one page. So the Dems will press the GOP on what they knew about the former and will constantly, in their press releases, refer to the "GOP's knowledge of the sexually explicit e-mails."
2. Enlarge the wedge between House leaders. The tension this weekend between Speaker Dennis Hastert and NRCC chair Tom Reynolds was thick. Dems want it to suffocate the party and throw the Republicans even further off their game.
3. Be aggressive about how Dems will -- and are -- protecting children. Dems want to keep the issue poisonous in a way that's clear and direct to middle America. (In other words: this ain't earmarks.)
4. Choose unimpeachable spokespeople to be their public face. The DCCC has enlisted Patty Wetterling, its candidate for MN 06, to call for "a thorough investigation" of the House leadership over Foley. Wetterling's son, Jacob, was kidnapped in 1989.
5. Deride the Republicans for incompetence. How can you possibly trust them with national security if you can't trust them with your own children?
6. Bring up Terri Schiavo's case and compare the heated GOP attention back then to their allegedly lax attention to the welfare of their pages.
7. Compare what the GOP leadership says about Foley with what Republicans said about Jack Abramoff.
8. Use the Foley cash. Already, the DSCC wonders why George Allen didn't immediately return the Foley. The quotable Phil Singer: “It is more than a little disturbing that Allen apparently sees nothing wrong with holding on to contributions he got from an adult who has been caught sending sexually explicit email to children." Allen and Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) will return the cash. But the NRCC already spent the $550K and won't.
Here's what the Democrats hope to accomplish:
1. Republicans will flinch before they try and use "values" as a cudgel. Can this NRCC ad against Brad Ellsworth be run in this environment?
2. Democrats now have a new way to respond to the Republicans when they go negative: "They're just trying to distract you from the scandal."
3. GOP candidates will be thrown on the defensive, generally.
4. Link House candidates -- and not just Reynolds -- to the sense that that the GOP was hesitant to investigate or even poke around into Foley's life because they didn't want to jeopardize their majority. That is, they craved power to the point where they ignored or suppressed warnings.
Posted at 04:00 PM
http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2006/10/now_dems_try_to.html
Libs have ZERO common sense, so their opinion is irrelevant
HASTERT: Anyone who had knowledge of these instant messages should have turned them over to authorities immediately so that kids could be protected. I repeat again, the Republican leaders of the House did not have them. We have all said so and on the record. But SOMEONE DID HAVE THEM.
RUSH: That's right.
HASTERT: And the ethics committee, the justice department, the news media, and anyone who can should help us find out.
RUSH: News media. Ha-ha.
HASTERT: Yesterday I sent a letter to the attorney general requesting that he investigate to what extent any federal laws were violated by Congressman Foley and also to find out who might have known about the sexually explicit instant messages. I was pleased to read in the newspaper this morning that the FBI has begun to investigate.
Bossie better watch out, he can lose his place real easy. Just a few of us get a little angry and the money stops flowing in to him. He'll find himself washing dishes for a living.
We have common sense and so we are capable of thinking about enabling a Foley versus enabling a BJ Clinton.
I don't know what the GOP House Leadership knew, but it is troubling what they might have known.
Before we eat our own, lets gather the facts together. Not what dems say are the facts. We know they are liars...liars from the beginning.
Human events seems to always be the ones bashing all the other Republicans and calling everyone RINOS. It seems everytime I read them online they think the party leadership is a bunch of sellouts. Rarely anything positive in it. I have just quit reading it my self.
So I think they have a stake in this since they are the voice for the so called "conservative" oppressed. I also sometimes thing they want to be in the minority so can sell more papers to be honest.
The emails weren't dirty; the IMs were.
Things I didn't know about some members of Congress;
-36 have been accused of spousal abuse.
-7 have been arrested for fraud.
-19 have been accused of writing bad checks.
-117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses.
- 3 have done time for assault.
- 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit.
-14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
- 8 have been arrested for shoplifting.
- 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits.
- 84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year.
"Hannity and Reagan are demanding to know the names of EVERY Republican who knew about this before it became public and didn't do anything to save "the Churldren."
Gee. That's wierd. I listened to all of Hannity's show today and that's not what I heard AT ALL. His BIG problem with all of this is the timing and he wants the names of EVERY person who knew of these IM's and held them until now to spring it out into the open a month before the elections.
Very very different than what you've said.
Let me list some of my favorite Congressmen. Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, the DemocRAT former sheriff, "Beam Me Up!" guy with the Yeti hairdo, Fighter ace, Randy Cunningham, Foley and J.D. Hayworth. Hayworth is the next head for the 'RATS' chopping block. In Arizona they are already running ads of J.D. getting the most money from "the disgraced" Abramoff. Anybody see a pattern here?
The Washington Times thinks Hastert should resign also, according to a red alert on the Drudge Report.
No suprise here, BJ. DC= Hollywood East.
That can go for Democrats as well as Republicans.
Short-sighted self-important clowns and ignoramuses. All of them.
I've been thinking the same thing...and being as our local rag is the Palm Springs Desert Sun (Palm Springs now has as high a "gay" ratio as San Francisco), I've already begun thinking about what their editorials will have to say.
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