MORE FALLOUT FROM THE FOLEY COVER-UP-- LOOKIN' BAD FOR HASTERT AND REYNOLDS; BLUNT LURKING OMINOUSLY

Hastert's position seems to have further weakened as his #2 and 3-- Majority Leader John Boehner and Republican Whip Roy Blunt-- signal they've abandoned him to his fate. Actually, the smoother Boehner is just abandoning; the... errr... blunter Blunt is pushing. Boehner's position is best summed up in a radio interview he did: "I believe I talked to the speaker and he told me it had been taken care of. My position is it's in his corner, it's his responsibility." Hastert is fuming and says Boehner is full of crap. According Larry Margasak, reporting for AP, Blunt was a little more "pointed" in his remarks. "I think I could have given some good advice here, which is, you have to be curious, you have to ask all the questions you can think of," Blunt said. "You absolutely can't decide not to look into activities because one individual's parents don't want you to."

The upper echelons of the House Republican Caucus has always been a bit of a shark tank, but Blunt is already running around campaigning for Hastert's job, claiming the party leadership needs someone with a record of total intolerance towards gays (like himself).

Now I've been writing for over a year about why I thought Hastert was unfit to serve in any public office, primarily due to bribes and his leadership role in the pervasive Republican Culture of Corruption. The arrogance of power which led to the cover-up of the Mark Foley case has also led Hastert and people like him, including both Blunt and Boehner, to literally think they could get away with all kinds of criminal activities. All three took their mentor Tom DeLay's infamous statement, "I am the government," rather too seriously. Today Lukery over at Wot Is It Good 4 beautifully lays out the pre-Foley case against Hastert. It isn't a case either Blunt or Boehner is likely to rally around.

Yesterday Hastert told a mob of right-wingers baying for his blood that he'd resign if it would help Republican chances in November. The caveat here is that he knows that virtually nothing will help Republican chances in November at this point. Far right loon "Paul Weyrich said Hastert has rejected calls for his resignation because he believes it would prompt 'a feeding frenzy' that ultimately would lead to the downfall of other GOP leaders as well... 'He said he thought his resignation would just lead to a feeding frenzy where they would go after (Majority Leader John A.) Boehner, then (Rep. Thomas M.) Reynolds, then (Rep. John) Shimkus,' Weyrich added. 'And he said we would have the story running right up to the election'"


Although Hastert is likely to be forced to resign in disgrace even before the November elections, the Republican leader in the weakest position electorally is NCRR Chairman Tom Reynolds of NY, who was already looking like a potential loser even before Foley's escapades with the underage pages became known outside the tight little circle known as the Republican House Leadership. It was Reynolds who urged Foley to run for re-election even after it became known he was-- at minimum-- sending sexually explicit e-mails to underage pages. And it was Reynolds who lent Foley his chief of staff, the now fired Kirk Fordham, to organize the cover-up. Now AP is reporting that Reynolds denies knowing why he sent Fordham to help Foley! "I didn't give him permission to have any conversations that he's had at any time with Mark Foley, either as his friend or as his former employer," said Reynolds. That Reynolds, as Fordham's boss, knew nothing about his top aide's actions before the resignation, stood in stark contrast to the policy Reynolds said he followed when he found out about Foley's e-mails to a page. At a news conference Monday, Reynolds said: "I did what most people would do in a workplace. I heard something. I took it to my supervisor.”