Because the fun just never stops (emphasis added):
Staffer Cites Earlier Role by Hastert's Office
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's chief of staff confronted then-Rep. Mark Foley about his inappropriate social contact with male pages well before the speaker said aides in his office took any action, a current congressional staff member with personal knowledge of Foley and his behavior with pages said yesterday.
The staff member said Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, met with the Florida Republican at the Capitol to discuss complaints about Foley's behavior toward pages. The alleged meeting occurred long before Hastert says aides in his office dispatched Rep. John M. Shimkus (R-Ill.) and the clerk of the House in November 2005 to confront Foley about troubling e-mails he had sent to a Louisiana boy.
The staff member's account buttresses the position of Foley's onetime chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, who said earlier this week that he had appealed to Palmer in 2003 or earlier to intervene, after Fordham's own efforts to stop Foley's behavior had failed.
Whew, that's pretty heady stuff. Hey, Jonathan, got anything you'd like to share in your capacity as mindlessly loyal, right-wing stenographer?
Press Release from Roy Blunt, GOP Majority Whip
BLUNT APPLAUDS SPEAKER'S ANNOUNCEMENT,
EXPRESSES FULL CONFIDENCE IN HASTERT
LINCOLN, NE-House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) today issued the following reaction to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's statement regarding the House Page system:
"The Speaker has led the House and has helped lead the country wisely and well. He is an effective leader of unquestioned integrity, and his statement today is proof of his commitment to protecting those who serve in the House Page Program.
"Mark Foley's actions were despicable, and he deceived us all. I know that if the Speaker had known what we know now about Foley's disgusting activities, he would have personally moved to have Foley expelled from the House of Representatives.
"We all now realize that this terrible situation could have been handled differently. We are all upset; we are all horrified; but we all stand together with our Speaker.
"Those who are trying to create the appearance of disunity between myself and the Speaker should know: There is not, and has not been, any daylight between the Speaker and me."
The Strong Conservative: When you need a useful idiot, and Olaf is nowhere to be found.
OH, HELL, WHY STOP NOW? What, there's more? Of course.
Looks like Denny Hastert's Chief of Staff, Scott Palmer, is in a heap of trouble.
Remember that Kirk Fordham, one-time Chief of Staff to Mark Foley (R-FL), resigned Wednesday as Rep. Tom Reynolds' (R-NY) Chief of Staff and promptly announced that he had warned Hastert's staff about Foley's page problem as far back and 2003. Specifically, he said he repeatedly asked Hastert's Chief of Staff, Scott Palmer, to take action to deal with Foley.
Palmer promptly denied it.
Now, according to the Post, another congressional staffer has come forward to say that Fordham is telling the truth and Palmer is lying.
Your thoughts on all of this, Jonathan? Ah, yes:
Republicans and conservatives have nothing to apologize for on Foley (so far). Unless they covered anything up, they handle the situation well.
Y'all let me know when this stops having entertainment value, y'hear?
UPDATE: Still entertaining.
4 comments:
I like how quickly the GOP gets its talking points in order. Notice how both Mehlman and Gillespie emphasize how this hasn't happened "in thirty years." What are the chances of two people independently deciding to make that point?
I don't think this is going to stop being entertaining for a while.
I think folks are losing sight of the real issue here. Foley is a slug who sucks on the blood of the helpless. Hastert and others protected him - doesn't matter what politics they espouse- although it appears that this seems more prevalent in certain loudly fundamental religious readings of the Xian scriptures. I wonder what their espoused god - Jesus - would say about this mess. I wonder if the perpetrators of the original crime and the subsequent coverup would ever care what Jesus had to say. I wonder what Jesus' father would have to say?
I wonder why the so called Xian's are more concerned with saving the Republican/CPC/Blair party than they are with discovering the truth and taking care of the true victims.
the second anonymous writes:
"I think folks are losing sight of the real issue here."
Au contraire, the purpose of immediately and savagely dispelling these hideously dishonest GOP talking points is to make sure that we don't lose sight of the real issue.
All of these right-wing apologetics are designed to confuse and distract. Note how quickly, after the sex scandal came out, we were presented fairy tales that Foley was an alcoholic, followed quickly by how he had been abused as a child by a member of the clergy.
The quicker you deal with nonsense like this and refute the lies in it, the quicker you drag everyone's attention back to what matters.
Maybe the Reps were blindsided but they're playing this for all it's worth. This seems to be all the news, all the time. Meanwhile what are Bush&Co up to?
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