THE REPUBLICANS' HUGE "GAY" PROBLEM COMES BACK TO BITE THEM IN THE ASS

Hastert's angrily denying he ever knew anything about Foley molesting pages or even writing them mash notes. He's lying his ass off. And he's threatening to fire his top aides, some of whom are gay to deflect the responsibility he claims to have accepted last week. NRCC Chairman Tom Reynolds (R-NY) already fired his chief of staff, Kirk Fordham. When I woke up yesterday morning Fordham was talking calmly with CNN. He's says he has some information. He sure does-- and his information could not just sink the SS "Planet Denny" Hastert if he decided to talk about it, but the entire Republican Party. Fordham is gay. He knows a lot about who is and who isn't. Tom Reynolds isn't. Reynolds is just incompetent and Machiavellian-- forcing, along with Rove, Foley to stay put and hold the House seat for the bad guys. (Foley wanted to go get rich on K-Street and the irresponsible powermongering Republicans threatened that if he left the House, he wouldn't get any lobbying business-- even after they knew he was a child molester!)

Now, the House Ethics Committee is interested in a number of top Capitol Hill staffers besides Fordham, including Hastert's Chief Counsel Ted Van Der Meid (gay), Mike Stokke, the Deputy Chief of Staff and the all important "roommate"/Chief of Staff, Scott Palmer. The Post says the 3 "have formed a palace guard around Hastert (R-Ill.) for years, attaining great degrees of power and unusual autonomy to deal with matters of politics, policy and House operations. They are also remarkably close. Palmer and Stokke have been with Hastert for decades. They live together in a Capitol Hill townhouse and commute back to Illinois on weekends."

Fordham and ex-House Clerk Jeff Trandahl-- another gay man-- will testify that they told Palmer what's up and Palmer may be willing to take the bullet for his... roomie. But no one would believe him. "'It would be very hard to believe if Palmer knew that kind of detail, he wouldn't have acted upon it, and it's hard to imagine Scott Palmer would have spared the speaker that knowledge,' said one former Republican leadership aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of jeopardizing his lobbying contacts." More likely they'll make Van Der Meid the scapegoat, a real kapo type and former DeLay ass-kisser.

Six years ago Foley was already trying-- in some cases successfully-- to get his hands on the pages. Trahdahl and Fordham tried-- quite unsuccessfully-- to keep him under control. This went on for at least 6 years. "In 2003, Trandahl placed another call to Fordham, according to the source. But this time, it was because Foley was seen drunk outside the pages' dormitory after the 10 p.m. curfew, trying to get in. Exasperated, Fordham reputedly told Trandahl, 'I don't know if my saying something [to Foley] would make any difference.'" They decided they had to get Palmer involved and, according to Fordham, Palmer later told him he spoke to both Foley and Hastert. Palmer denies it all.

Fordham has already spent 4 hours under oath in front of the House Ethics Committee (an Ethics Committee specifically designed by Tom DeLay to prevent any more damaging censures against... Tom DeLay and his cronies in the House). The Ethics Committee also examined another Republicrook, Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), another Page Committee Republican who did nothing to protect the boys; she says she didn't know. Uh huh... like Bush didn't know al-Qaeda was going to attack America.

And speaking of Bush, his praise for Hastert is sounding as effusive as it was for Brownie just before they made him the official Katrina sacrificial pig. I don't know if Bush is drunk again or just stupid-- or, God forbid, has heard from Diebold that it's all in the bag (again) but last night he told a crowd of Republican fat cats in Chicago that he's "proud to be standing with the current speaker of the House who is going to be the future speaker of the House." I bet there's not another politician on the entire United States who would say that (and pass a lie detector test). May I take a moment out here to ask you to dig a little deeper for our man John Laesch?

The Post has a fluffy piece today about the foibles of some Republican congressmen (Ferguson, Sherwood, Porter, Sweeney...) but they left out all the insider gossip that hasn't already been printed and they barely touched on the most serious examples of the Republican Culture of Corruption, exemplified by criminal chieftains like Jerry Lewis and Dirty Dick Pombo. Although... credit where credit is due... James Grimaldi and Susan Schmidt did do an update on the festering Abramoff/Norquist scandals.

This particular chapter of shame involves the Frist/Santorum/DeLay specialty of using nonprofits to illegally fund the Republican Party and GOP operatives. "Five conservative nonprofit organizations, including one run by prominent Republican Grover Norquist, 'appear to have perpetrated a fraud' on taxpayers by selling their clout to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Senate investigators said in a report issued yesterday." Oh dear. And another story in Tuesday's Post showed Dirty Dick Pombo to have lied, quite boldly, about not taking bribes from Abramoff when he clearly did.

And the Republican response to this cascade of bad news? (I mean besides blaming Bill Clinton.) Well, they're hoping to go on an anti-gay jihad and purge all the gays from their party. That should be fun-- especially since the "little guys" know which of the closeted big fish like to fool around. And behind door #2, according to Dan Balz ad Jim VandeHei, they're continuing to pull out of more and more congressional races they're giving up as hopeless. They've stopped advertising against Democratic incumbents in West Virginia, South Carolina and Ohio and are desperately trying to sure up faltering incumbents like Mike DeWine, David Reichert and Felix Macacawitz. The Repugs had previously written off Foley's seat in Florida and Kolbe's seat in Arizona.