The [tag]Washington Times[/tag] exists, by its own admission, to promote a conservative spin on the news. As far as objectivity is concerned, the Times is slightly to the right of Fox News — and it’s proud of it.
And as of today, the paper’s far-right editorial believes House Speaker [tag]Dennis Hastert[/tag] needs to resign his leadership post over his failures to respond to the [tag]Mark Foley[/tag] sex scandal.
House Speaker Dennis [tag]Hastert[/tag] must do the only right thing, and resign his speakership at once. Either he was grossly negligent for not taking the red flags fully into account and ordering a swift investigation, for not even remembering the order of events leading up to last week’s revelations — or he deliberately looked the other way in hopes that a brewing scandal would simply blow away. He gave phony answers Friday to the old and ever-relevant questions of what did he know and when did he know it?
Mr. Hastert has forfeited the confidence of the public and his party, and he cannot preside over the necessary coming investigation, an investigation that must examine his own inept performance.
The Times actually raises a good point. Given what we know Hastert either intentionally helped cover up the misdeeds of a sexual predator in his caucus, or he was so incompetent, he managed to ignore warnings from his own leadership team. Either way, the Speaker is in a tough spot.
Just as importantly, it’s not just the Washington Times that thinks so.
* A growing number of House Republicans are expressing concern about their leadership’s failures. Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) said he is “disgusted” by his leaders’ response. In a written statement, Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) said the Republican leadership needs to be shaken up. “If they knew or should have known the extent of this problem, they should not serve in leadership,” he said.
* Conservative über-activist Paul Weyrich, who participated in a conference call with other far-right leaders yesterday, said conservatives everywhere “are outraged by how Hastert handled this.”
* Conservative talk show host Michael Reagan and Citizens United President David Bossie have called on Hastert to resign immediately over his role in covering up [tag]Foley[/tag]’s inappropriate behavior.
* The far-right blogs are turning on Hastert, too.
* Bay Buchanan is piling on.
* Cliff Kincaid, editor of the conservative Accuracy in Media Report, wrote in an editorial circulated by the pro-Republican Web site GOPUSA.com, “It’s one of the worst congressional scandals ever.”
It’s worth noting that the heat on Hastert isn’t just because of his failures to take the Foley matter seriously when he should have — it’s also because of the Speaker’s failures since Friday. As Josh Marshall noted:
My take is that Hastert cooked his own goose in the first half dozen or so hours of this scandal…. [W]hen this thing broke, most of the key House leaders were in some sense or another saying, ‘Yeah, I heard about it. I did X. Clearly that wasn’t enough.’ Denny Hastert was the only guy, as this thing exploded Friday night, who was obviously lying.
Pretty much everybody in the leadership knew something about it. And most of them remembered telling Hastert. But he’d never heard about it. He was out of the loop. John Boehner just made up remembering telling him. Rodney Alexander contacting Hastert’s office. He never heard. Tom Reynolds was lying too, until it was clear Reynolds wouldn’t eat his words like Boehner.
The scandal — to the extent we are talking not about Foley as an individual but the leadership’s role in enabling him — is about accountability. And at the gut check moment, Hastert lied to duck responsibility.
Especially over the last six years, the first page of the Republican playbook has said, “When dealing with a political crisis, wait for the storm to blow over.” In general, it’s worked. Reporters move on to other stories, the public gets distracted, and time may not heal the wound, but it does cause the political world to forget about it.
I seriously doubt that will work this time. When Republican call this play, it’s usually in the context of rallying the troops and keeping the GOP together. In this case, Hastert has no real allies, only competitors who a) want to avoid blame themselves; and b) may want his job for themselves.
How many high-profile Republicans or conservatives have you seen/heard in the last 72 hours praise Hastert? Exactly; I can’t think of any either.