FOLEY HASTERT MEHLMAN FRIDAY EVENING WRAP-UP

There sure is a lot of aggressive screaming from the extreme right of the GOP that Hastert is being framed. They are running hither and thither, especially on Hate Talk Radio, but on TV too, anywhere that has access to a live mike, to kick up as much sand as possible, even if they know few people will believe them. Now it's all about sowing confusion so that voters will just thrown their hands up in confusion.

The latest batch of lies features another closeted gay Republican, hysterical RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, insisting that Hastert dealt with everything promptly, efficiently and effectively. "The fact is," according to Mehlman, "what Denny Hastert did is something that we haven't seen done in thirty years in this town in Washington DC, and that is he said to a member of congress, either you go or we're going to make you go. That happened the moment that Denny Hastert found out about this." Sounds good, but, like almost everything that comes out of Mehlman's mouth, it's a lie. Problem with closeted homosexuals like Mehlman is that they are forced to live a lie and often become very adapt at lying about anything and everything. Mehlman apparently doesn't know the truth from a lie. His entire existence is based on deceitfulfulness.

Mehlman's whole story is a fabrication manufactured out of nothing by... Karl Rove. All the right wing hacks, from Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) to Ed Gillespie (Mehlman's predecessor at the RNC) were hitting the airwaves today to repeat the same talking points. But anyone following the time line knows it's a craven lie because by the time ABC News made public the sexually explicit e-mails (last Friday at 6 PM)-- which the Rove puppets say triggered Hastert and the galliant Republicans to take action (on something many of them were perfectly aware had been brewing since 1995)-- Foley had already resigned (last Friday at 3 PM). So this whole talking point about "resign or be expelled" is just another GOP talking point.

Granted it is better than the other talking point that almost made me vomit when I heard it on the radio today-- that the boys were eager for advancement, being "pushed by stage mom parents" and that they entrapped poor Congressman Foley. It's hard to believe-- since we are, after all, talking about the sons of prominent and generous Republican donors-- that the Republican propaganda machine would smear the victims themselves. It's an old and disgusting trick, but one that the public recognizes. Of course when you talk about low, really, really low-- like another lifeform whose existence on earth defies Darwinism-- you find who kicked this line of attack off a day or two again, the Republican smearmeister himself, Pus Limbaugh.

Do far John Q Public isn't buying any of it. According to a SUSA Poll released today only 27% of respondents thought Hastert should remain Speaker. 63% think he should resign from the Speakership (which includes the 43% of people who thing he should also resign from Congress).

John's got an interesting take on Hastert's compulsive lying at Crooks and Liars where John Laesch, Hastert's Democratic opponent (a former U.S. Intelligence Officer with a great memory) points out that on page 186 of Hastert's autobiography he brags that he listens to everything and remembers all. This hardly jibes with Hastert's bizarre story that he didn't remember Tom Reynolds or John Boehner or various aides warning him about Foley after it was apparent to anyone who didn't have his head up his ass that Foley was a dangerous child predator and a severe danger to the congressional page program.

And it isn't only the public and Democrats not buying Hastert's lies and Rove's mad spinning. Even Tom Kean, a Republican running for office in New Jersey, which severe credibility issues himself, called for Hastert to resign today. Even so un-stellar a candidate as Shelley Sekula Gibbs, the hack they have running as a write-in candidate to replace DeLay, has publicly declined to accept Hastert’s offer to travel to Texas and help her raise money for her very uphill race against former Congressman Nick Lampson.

And if Foley didn't have enough problems at the moment, national sex abuse victims' groups demanded he give police the name of the clergyman who allegedly abused him when he was 13. The Catholic diocese of Palm Beach agrees. "He should absolutely report the perpetrator, living or dead," said David Clohessy, national director of the 5,000-member Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "He should do it now, not when his civil lawyer says it is convenient. Every day that a molester walks free is a day when he can hurt other kids." It is widely believed that this whole story about being abused by a priest was manufactured by Foley and his shyster lawyer, another example of Republicans never being able to do anything about taking personal responsibility-- except to preach about it to others.


UPDATE-- AND SPEAKING OF LIARS...

There are few people in public life as craven and disgustingly deceitful as Satan's very own representative on earth, James Dobson. Late breaking entry from this vile defender of sex predators (as long as they are Republican sex predators): "As it turns out, Mr. Foley has had illicit sex with no one that we know of, and the whole thing turned out to be what some people are now saying was a-- sort of a joke by the boy and some of the other pages." Let's see how many lies we can count in that sentence. Foley certainly did have illicit sex with many of the boys, although as far as we know he may have waited until after they turned 18, just grooming them for sex in their younger years, the way Dobson and his ilk prey on youngsters and turn them into bloodsucking Republicans when they get older (you saw Jesus Camp, right?) "Some people," the ones who are calling it a joke, the other defenders of child predators, are Republican hack propagandists like Dobson himself. They all figure if they repeat it enough, at least the mentally impaired will start to believe them. And... the big lie in Dobson's sentence: "sort of a joke." So Dobson wants this faithful to believe Foley resigned because of a joke? Or maybe thinks teenage boys being molested by a 52 year old drunken Republican predator is somehow humorous. James Dobson is a cancer on our national conscience.


UPDATE: NEW YORK TIMES SPILLS THE BEANS ON ROVE'S PROPAGANDA MACHINE

My friend Pachacutec called my attention to a seemingly innocent Adam Nagourney story in today's Times about how the Republicans stand to lose control of the House in 4 weeks. Well and good, but the interesting part of the story in tangential to Nagourney's theme. As the entire country turns against Republican arrogance, corruption and... well just the overall disgustingness represented by Party Boss Dennis Hastert, Rove has a plan:

Republicans and their allies, including conservative talk radio hosts, have responded by rallying around Mr. Hastert and blaming Democrats and the news media for the frenzy.
Talk radio hosts, working off a list of talking points distributed by Republican Party officials, recounted how two decades ago, House Democrats stood behind Representative Gerry E. Studds, Democrat of Massachusetts, after he engaged in sex with a male page.

I wonder if he just noticed.