Monday, October 02, 2006
House Repub Leadership Spinning to Deflect Foley Responsibility
Speaker of the House Denny Hastert and Rep. John Shimkus, who is in charge of the Congressional Page Program, just held a press conference to say they just found out Friday about Republican Rep. Foley's sexually explicit Instant Message exchanges with a 16-year-old boy. Hastert expressed outrage and disgust and said that if Foley had not resigned he would have demanded his expulsion from the House.
It was a grand performance, meant to confuse people in to thinking Republican House leadership knew nothing of Foley's pattern of innappropriate activities with underage pages. Naturally, they refused to take questions and left imediately.
But the fact is that Hastert did know about Foley's improper exchanges with the 16-year-old.
He is splitting hairs here by focusing on the Instant Messages.
He did not mention the fact that he knew about e-mail exchanges between Foley and a page. And Shimkus knew and Republican Majority Leader John Boehner knew and Republican Rep. Tom Reynolds, head of the Republican Congressional Compaign Committee, knew.
And so did others.
America deserves better. Let's work to restore Democratic majorities.
It was a grand performance, meant to confuse people in to thinking Republican House leadership knew nothing of Foley's pattern of innappropriate activities with underage pages. Naturally, they refused to take questions and left imediately.
But the fact is that Hastert did know about Foley's improper exchanges with the 16-year-old.
He is splitting hairs here by focusing on the Instant Messages.
He did not mention the fact that he knew about e-mail exchanges between Foley and a page. And Shimkus knew and Republican Majority Leader John Boehner knew and Republican Rep. Tom Reynolds, head of the Republican Congressional Compaign Committee, knew.
And so did others.
America deserves better. Let's work to restore Democratic majorities.
