That was the first sentence of a letter to the editor I just fired off to several of the major newspapers in this district. The rest of it follows:
I was around 10 years old in the spring of 1973 when Senator Howard Baker (R-Tenn.) famously thundered "What did the president know and when did he know it?"Here we are, a generation later. Another corrupt Republican in the White House, but that's not what I'm furious about. This time it's the third man on the totem pole who should be getting raked over the coals in the media: and eventually in the courts, if prosecutors can find sufficient evidence.
If you go online to Mr. Hastert's 14th District web page (www.house.gov/hastert), you will see, featured very prominently in the upper right corner (where else?), an announcement about an event held a month ago in Saint Charles: a community meeting on the topic of "Keeping Kids Safe in Cyberspace." But let's look at that meeting in the context of some more recent events, events which are not featured on Mr. Hastert's web page--but which have been plastered all over the internet and the nightly news.
Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) abruptly resigned from the House of Representatives today. Although no reason for his speedy exit from Congress was given, it is widely believed to be related to a series of scandalous e-mail and internet message exchanges between Rep. Foley (52) and a 16-year-old former Congressional page.
According to news sources, the page in question was interviewed--last November--on the subject of these e-mails. According to an Associated Press report today, Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.), the sponsor of the 16-year-old former page, "learned of the e-mails from a reporter some months ago." Instead of calling the police, Rep. Alexander "passed on the information to Rep. Thomas Reynolds, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Republican campaign organization." A spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee said that Rep. Reynolds had indeed learned of the matter from Rep. Alexander. Rep. Reynolds did not call the police, either. Instead, he reported the incident to the House Page Board: three congressional representatives and two House officials who oversee the page corps. The AP report then states "It is unclear what the officials did."
Here are the facts: A 52-year-old Republican congressman was sending sexually explicit e-mail messages to a 16-year-old former page. Several Republican members of Congress were aware of the situation nearly a year ago. Not one of them called the police. Nor was any attempt made to discipline Rep. Foley, or to remove him from his leadership post as chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus. No one in the Republican leadership pressured Rep. Foley to resign from Congress. In other words, while the speaker was in Saint Charles trying to look like he cared about the safety of children in cyberspace, a member of his own Republican caucus was trying to cover up having sent sexually explicit e-mails to a 16-year-old high school student.
So my question is this: What did Speaker Hastert know about this, and when did he know it? I think the good people of the 14th District deserve truthful, unequivocal answers to those questions. And if we don't get them, Mr. Hastert had better do what President Nixon did a generation ago and resign--unless the voters of this district hand him his pink slip first.
According to the New York Times story, posted after I'd already written and sent my letter off, several pages received e-mails and internet messages, ranging from suggestive to sexually explicit, from Rep. Foley. By his own admission, Rep. Rodney Alexander knew about it 10-11 months ago--and his first thought was to cover the GOP's ass, politically speaking. Not to protect the pages. To protect the party.
So fuck the investigations. Dennis Hastert should resign in disgrace just like Mark Foley did. Bad enough this had to happen to one young man who only wanted to serve his country. That the Republican leadership knowingly allowed Mark Foley to continue serving on a congressional committee tasked with protecting exploited children--even as he was exploiting children himself--is beyond shameful. I simply haven't the words--and as regular readers of this space know, that's saying something.
The Republican Party likes to paint itself as the sole possessor of virtue, the arbiter of morality, and the protector of the innocent. The actions of Rep. Foley and the rest of the Republican leadership in Congress have exploded those myths for the lies they were all along. The only thing the Rubber-Stamp Republicans care about is power. Power for themselves, power for their party. And they don't care what they have to do to get it or to keep it.
If we can't trust them to take care of the teen-aged children we send to work in our nation's capital, how on earth can we trust them to secure our borders, or uphold our Constitution as they all swore to do when they first set foot in the Well of the House? Run the rats out of town--starting with the biggest and the fattest rat of all, J. Dennis Hastert. Here's a start: support John Laesch, Hastert's Democratic opponent in the 14th District. Donate or volunteer your time.
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