The Pathology Of Conservatism Goes To The Bathroom With Denny Hastert And Mark Foley

When Florida Republican Mark Foley was caught molesting underage male pages, the establishment circled the wagons around their likable colleague and made sure he wasn't charged with years of raping underage boys but just with sending naughty electronic messages. For their own reasons, Rahm Emanuel, John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, John Shimkus and Denny Hastert, all conspired to make sure Foley would never be tried for rape-- and, please keep in mind, that these weren't ancient cases beyond the statute of limitations, but cases in which young boys were still complaining about pain when they sat down.

If there was one part of the Foley sex scandal I found funny, it was that most of the boys he was banging were the sons of wealthy Republican campaign contributors who were honored by having their young sons given places in the congressional page program where GOP perverts like Jim Kolbe (AZ) and Mark Foley had easy sexual access to them. Although the rumors about Republicans using the page program as a dating service had been circulating around Capitol Hill for years-- at least since 1997-- and everyone knew about Foley's lust for boy-men, it wasn't until a 16 year old in Monroe, Louisiana complained to his wealthy father in 2005 about a pain in his ass that the Foley scandal started to publicly unravel. The father went to Rodney Alexander, a Louisiana congressman who got the young son into the page program in return for a steady flow of contributions.

Kolbe (AZ) was best known for years for paying underage Latino boys to perform oral sex on them. I'm betting most of these Tucson boys were from Democratic families. I thought it more appropriate-- a poor choice of words-- that Foley was thrusting himself on rich Republican white boys. And so was Denny Hastert. Yesterday Hastert was given 15 months in prison for... well, for a financial fraud scandal that flowed out of decades and decades of sexually molesting young Republican boys, including at least one brother of a GOP colleague of his.

Although U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin called Hastert a "serial child molester," he said he was giving Hastert a much lighter sentence that he deserved because of Hastert's age and physical infirmities. The Republican establishment had united to get Hastert off the hook with a fine-- as they do with any rich, powerful person caught breaking any law-- but at least Hastert got some punishment for his unspeakable criminal behavior. Child molesters usually fare poorly in prisons, but Foley isn't going to an actual prison but to supervised hospital lockup.

He showed no outward reaction to the sentence. As the dozens of spectators filed from the courtroom, Hastert remained motionless with his mouth downturned, not speaking to anyone.

Shortly before learning his sentence, Hastert had admitted for the first time that he sexually abused boys decades ago when he was the wrestling coach for Yorkville High School.

Hastert approached the microphone in court and apologized to those he victimized, saying he "mistreated athletes." Durkin then pressed for details, asking directly if Hastert sexually abused the victims.

"Yes," Hastert finally said.

Hastert said he did not recall molesting Scott Cross, who had previously been identified as Individual D, one of Hastert's victims, before he took the witness stand Wednesday and testified about the abuse. "But I accept his statement," Hastert said.

Asked by the judge about another alleged victim, Stephen Reinboldt, Hastert called it "a different situation" before finally acknowledging it.

"What I did was wrong and I regret it," Hastert said. "They looked to me, and I took advantage of them."

An emotional Cross, 53, a younger brother of former Illinois House Republican leader Tom Cross, said he decided to go public so that his children and others would know there's an alternative to staying silent. As painful as his decision was, he said, "staying silent was worse."

Cross' brother, a former Kendall County lawmaker who considered Hastert a political mentor, accompanied his brother to the sentencing.

Hastert, 74, is expected to surrender to a medical facility in the federal penitentiary system at an undetermined date.

Hastert's defense had sought a sentence of probation, a punishment Durkin said would not be appropriate in a case of this magnitude.

In lengthy remarks, the judge made much of the fact that when the FBI confronted Hastert about hundreds of thousands of cash withdrawals from banks, he tried to blame another sex abuse victim, identified only as Individual A, claiming he was blackmailing him.

... [T]he judge noted, "I can't sentence you for being a child molester," pointing out that the statue of limitations had long passed.

While Durkin said he was taking Hastert's age and health into account, he noted that much of the former speaker's lying had taken place after he turned 70. More than 4,600 inmates in federal prisons are older than 65, the judge noted.

Still, he said he did not intend for Hastert's punishment to be "a death sentence."

...Cross said the alleged abuse took place on one occasion when Cross was alone with Hastert in a wrestling room.

"He told me he could help me lose weight by giving me a massage," he testified. "I trusted what he was saying and took him at his word."

His voice shaking, Cross said Hastert told him to lie face down. The massage started, but after a few minutes, Hastert asked him to roll over.

Hastert then grabbed his penis and began rubbing it, Cross said.

"I was stunned by what he was doing-- I jumped up," he said.

Cross also told the courtroom about the reclining chair Hastert allegedly put up near the boys' shower, saying he came to accept it because he trusted Hastert. Years later he felt pain and guilt and sought professional help. He just told his parents last year of the abuse, Cross said.

On Wednesday, Cross' brother, a longtime former state legislator, released a statement on behalf of the family.

"We are very proud of Scott for having the courage to relive this very painful part of his life in order to ensure that justice is done today," the statement said. "We hope his testimony will provide courage and strength to other victims of other cases of abuse to speak out and advocate for themselves. With his testimony concluded, we ask now that you respect Scott's privacy and that of our family."

Hastert continued having sex with underage boys and young men for decades while he served in Congress, often paying male prostitutes for sex at night and then waddling into the office the next day to vote against equality and even humanity for LGBT families who refused to live the gay life in the Republican style-- a life of shame, filled with self-loathing and in the closet, conditions which almost inevitably lead to the kind of perversion that gay Republicans always get involved with. Now they don't want to let trasngender women use women's bathrooms, but it's always Republican closet cases who prey on people in bathrooms, not transgender women. There are no cases in history of transgender women bothering anyone in a ladies room but there are few gay Republicans in Congress who don't eventually wind up on their hands and knees in a public toilet annoying innocent men who just want to pee in peace. It's part of the pathology of being a conservative.