It’s certainly possible that House Speaker [tag]Dennis Hastert[/tag] will survive the fallout of the [tag]Mark Foley[/tag] sex [tag]scandal[/tag], but it won’t be easy. Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said, “Inattention to a sick, sick, sick activity is not something someone wants in a [tag]speaker[/tag]. I’ll be surprised if he lasts the week.”
That seems to be a relatively common sentiment. I noted yesterday that some high-profile Republicans appear to have the proverbial long-knives out, aiming them in the direction of the Speaker’s office, and that’s only gotten worse over the last 24 hours. Even the National Review has found Hastert and his team guilty of “serious sins of omission,” while the magazine’s Larry Kudlow joined the mutiny and called Hastert “an ineffective leader.”
The NYT reports today that the Republican caucus is, at a minimum, weighing its options.
Backed by measured words of support from President Bush, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert opened an intense drive on Tuesday to hold on to his post, but behind the scenes senior Republicans weighed whether he could survive the scandal surrounding former Representative Mark Foley.
Among the options being considered by senior Republicans is for Mr. Hastert to announce that he will stay on as speaker through this year but not seek re-election to the post assuming Republicans retain control of the House, said people on and off Capitol Hill who were involved in the discussions. They said the advantage of such a step would be to postpone a disruptive leadership fight until after Election Day.
Mr. Hastert, who stayed on as speaker after 2004 at the urging of Mr. Bush, has been involved in some of the discussions about how to proceed, but it was not clear how seriously he was considering not seeking the speakership next year, said the Republicans, who asked not to be named because they were discussing internal deliberations. Mr. Hastert returned home to Illinois on Tuesday.
I’m not privy to those internal discussions, of course, but when GOP leaders start plotting a strategy for replacing Hastert, and leaking it to the New York Times, it’s fairly serious.
Indeed, as if those deliberations weren’t clear enough, U.S. News & World Report said the clock is ticking on Hastert’s job.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, under fire for his handling of the Foley page scandal, may have just one or two days to turn the affair around — or quiet it — or face being forced to step aside, say senior GOP House and party officials.
“The next 24 to 48 hours will be critical for Hastert and the House leadership,” said a Republican political strategist. He said that if the leadership can contain the issue fast, Hastert would not be in trouble. But there are indications that the affair will continue to expand as Democrats take advantage of the situation, possibly leading conservative Republican members to go public with their dissatisfaction with Hastert and demand his [tag]resign[/tag]ation.
Time magazine added that a number of House Republicans are “shifting blame upwards, and Hastert is as far up as they can go.” (The magazine also quoted one GOP lawmaker saying the scandal has become “Exhibit 10 or 12 about our inability to govern effectively.”)
On the other hand, Harold Meyerson makes a compelling case that Hastert’s resignation alone is not a real solution to the Republicans’ problem.
One thing is certain: Just dumping Denny Hastert as speaker, as many conservatives are demanding, won’t clean up the Republican act. House Majority Leader John Boehner — No. 2 in the House GOP hierarchy to Hastert’s No. 1 — now says that the failure to do anything about Foley since his e-mails first became known to the Republican leadership is Hastert’s responsibility.
But we also know that Boehner and colleagues Tom Reynolds of New York, who heads the National Republican Congressional Committee; John Shimkus of Illinois, who heads the panel that oversees the page program; and Rodney Alexander of Louisiana, who received the first complaints about Foley, had the same information Hastert had, and presumably they noticed that Mark Foley still walked among them as a member of Congress.
We know that Shimkus neglected to bring up the Foley issue with Michigan’s Dale Kildee, the one Democrat on the committee that oversees the page program. We know that all of them put their concern for avoiding a scandal that might damage their party’s prospects over whatever fears they may (and should) have entertained about Foley’s interactions with the Capitol’s cadre of teenagers.
Very true. Dennis Hastert should resign — and it should be the first in a series of resignations.