NRCC’s Reynolds hangs Hastert out to dry

September 30, 2006

Roll Call has the scoop:

National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (N.Y.) issued a statement Saturday in which he said that he had informed Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) of allegations of improper contacts between then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) and at least one former male page, contradicting earlier statements from Hastert.

GOP sources said Reynolds told Hastert earlier in 2006, shortly after the February GOP leadership elections. Hastert’s response to Reynolds’ warning remains unclear.

Hastert’s staff insisted Friday night that he was not told of the Foley allegations and are scrambling to respond to Reynolds’ statement.

One of the things that makes this ongoing story interesting is that the Speaker’s office can’t keep its story straight. Hastert knew, then he didn’t, then his office knew. Now, straight from the NRCC chairman, he did know — but apparently didn’t do anything.

Indeed, it’s a bit of a tangent, but it’s worth noting that it’s odd that the NRCC was notified in the first place.

As Josh Marshall put it:

Rep. Alexander (R-LA), the first member of Congress to be alerted to the problem, says he contacted the NRCC. That’s the House Republicans’ election committee, a political organization entirely separate from the House bureaucracy and the Congress. (The head of the NRCC this cycle is Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY).) That is, to put it mildly, not in the disciplinary and administrative chain of command of the House of Representatives. Considering that the issue involved a minor, it seems highly inappropriate to discuss the matter with anyone not charged with policing the House.

More to the point, however, you tell the head of the NRCC because you see the matter as a political problem. Reynolds is the one in charge of making sure Republican House seats get held. If an incumbent might have drop out or be kicked out you want him to know so that he can line up someone to replace him. You at least want to keep him abreast of the situation if you think a problem might develop. I cannot see any innocent explanation for notifying the head of the NRCC while not information the full membership of the page board.

Agreed. There’s no legitimate explanation for the NRCC being notified if this controversy were being handled appropriately. Given what we’ve learned, it seems the GOP House leadership considered politics first, the well-being of teenaged pages second.

Either way, it seems Hastert is being hung out to dry. Stay tuned.

I think Americablog reports that Reynold’s chief of staff had previously worked for Foley. So maybe Alexander was trying to have it both ways; reporting to someone who would protect Foley, but preserving the claim that he had in fact reported to someone.

I’ll start listening to the GOP on the GWOT when they start protecting House pages instead of their home grown predators.

  • It doesn’t surprise me that they’re letting Hastert hang out to dry. Hastert is DeLay’s boy and DeLay is gone. It was only a matter of time before someone challenged Hastert. I would have thought that they would have waited until after the election, but sometimes you have to take an opportunity when it presents itself.

  • “NRCC’s Reynolds hangs Hastert out to dry”

    Looks like Hastert…
    like Foley…
    might just have to throw in the towel too:

    Xxxxxxxxx (7:57:24 PM): i dont use lotion…takes too much time to clean up
    Xxxxxxxxx (7:57:37 PM): with a towel you can just wipe off….and go

    “Family Values” Foley (7:57:38 PM): lol
    “Family Values” Foley (7:57:45 PM): where do you throw the towel

    Xxxxxxxxx (7:57:48 PM): but you cant work it too hard….or its not good
    Xxxxxxxxx (7:57:51 PM): in the laundry

  • PS:

    Yeah I am irate.

    I know most of you are hip to the fact that the above is actual Congressional Republican dialog:

    graphic IM exchanges

    And now we find out the repugs covered for this perv for months?

    Guantanamo!
    Guantanamo!
    Guantanamo!
    Guantanamo!

  • Agreed. There’s no legitimate explanation for the NRCC being notified if this controversy were being handled appropriately. Given what we’ve learned, it seems the GOP House leadership considered politics first, the well-being of teenaged pages second.

    It fits another theme for the Republicans, just as they are ethically-challenged as a rule, so they always put politics before everything else. That’s why Karl Rove is in charge of Bush’s policy apparatus (I believe that was mentioned in a post here a long time ago.)

  • Hastert was just the warm body pushed into the speakership when Newt and Livingstone imploded. He was the acceptable public face of Tom DeLay.

    He’s toast, but not until after the elections.

  • I don’t think they are hanging Hastert out to dry. I think they are refusing to lie for him.

    It sounds like Hastert knew some time ago. The question he doesn’t want to answer is why didn’t he do something about it.

    The people who told Hastert some time ago have to fess up because the people that told them will come forward.

    Forced to tell the truth. That must really hurt.

  • It is so amazing how little restraint politicians have. Risk their careers for a few thousand dollars or some titillation. You don’t even have to be moral to figure out that’s a bad bargain, you just have to be semi-intelligent.

    Q: How is the House of Representatives like the Catholic Church?

    A: Covering up for molesters.

    The religious right is getting an earful out of their politicos these days.

  • Funny how 3 little questions never lose their import:

    1. What did you know?

    2. When did you learn about it?

    3. What did you do about it?

    I think all our congressmen and senators should be held to this standard on a variety of issues.

  • CB wrote:

    For Republicans, all of this has to be embarrassing.

    I don’t know. But you always could email or call up your Congressmen and ask them when they’re going to be on C-SPAN, in front of the House / the Senate, demanding a full review of the procedures in place for protecting pages, ethical standards for the Congressmen interacting with them, and a full investigation into the matter.

    Holding forth on the comments section of blogs day in and day out isn’t exactly the kind of courage the times are especially demanding, but instead it might be that they call for some to do things requiring them to leave their comfort zone sometimes– like stepping up to demand that kids aren’t victimized by Congressmen they do work for.

  • Once again the Republicans have done a better job screwing themselves than any one could hope for. Note that none of the Democrats on this committee were informed. I’m sure the “logic” behind this inexcusable failure was: We can’t tell them that, they might insist we follow the rules and censure him or something.

    Now they have to scramble to find a warm body to take Foley’s place, explain why the fuck they didn’t take the appropriate actions when this first became an issue, answer such awkward questions as “Don’t you think it’s kind of messed up to let someone like this have anything to do with missing and exploited children?” And there’s no real way to dodge or spin without making themselves look uglier. I suppose they could say the kid “asked for it,” but that might not go down well with all of the parents who vote.

    Of course, if the Cans thought the rules applied to them, this country wouldn’t be in such a fucking mess and I wouldn’t feel the urge to spit on cars with Erlich or W bumper stickers.

    Keep up the good work lads, there’s plenty of space in the black prisons of Romania!

  • #11 above:

    >I suppose they could say the kid “asked for it,”

    Wow, I try to imagine how the power-elite think sometimes, but I never imagined that response. Those in power must really scramble now to see what they can do and say to retain power by any means.

    I pray for deliverance from Bush and his fellow non-Christians in November. I believe that earnestly moral, spiritual, and Christ-centered people must be feeling that they’ve had enough of this gang by now.

    PS #11 — great screen name

  • How many rich Republican donors have sent their teenage sons to be pages in the last year, never even imagining that they weren’t safe? Now those potentially irate fathers find out that their leaders knew there was a gay sexual predator in the caucus and did nothing about it. If I were Hastert, I would be thinking about getting extra security right about now.

  • I just want to let all you people who think the country is going to get better know that you are really on the wrong track. Think back to five years ago, and then think of all the things that have happened since then. How many of those things did you expect would happen, five years ago? Do you really think that over the next five years, the same kinds of things are not going to keep happening, and at the same kind of pace? Well, at least it’s a possibility.

    Some people are probably thinking that the powerful people in a country can’t ruin it without a Bierhall Pusch or something as overt. But maybe Republican majorities will just return to the House and the Senate, and a Republican president will return to the Whitehouse over the next ten years. Then, after ten years, maybe things will start to get really weird. And maybe Republicans aren’t even thinking of it now. But once they have enough power, there won’t be anything to stop any individual Republican office-holder from ordering or enacting any stupid whim that comes into their head at a moment’s notice– isn’t that right? Believe me, I’ve known a lot of stupid people in my life, and this is exactly what they’ll do.

    The only thing that’s going to change things for the Democrats now is a really fundamental and decided change in how we all talk to most ordinary voters, in how we approach the moderate voters. We have to think of how the conservatives are probably talking to the people about a given issue before we decide what to say ourselves. By the time years have passed the only thing that will keep Republicans from doing whatever they want is the degree to which they can keep those things from being noticed.

  • What did Hastert know and when did he know it? Seems like we ought to be able to detain someone and torture them until they confess to something that we can throw them in jail for. Be a shame not to try out all those lovely new Republican laws before they get declared unconstitutional.

  • Mind if I snap that towel again?

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Male Page (7:54:31 PM): well i dont use my hand…i use the bed itself

    Family values Foley (7:54:31 PM): where do you unload it

    Male Page(7:54:36 PM): towel

    Family values Foley (7:54:43 PM): really Maf54 (7:55:02 PM): completely naked?

    Male Page (7:55:12 PM): well ya Maf54 (7:55:21 PM): very nice

    Male Page (7:55:24 PM): lol

    Family values Foley (7:55:51 PM): cute butt bouncing in the air

  • “How many rich Republican donors have sent their teenage sons to be pages in the last year, never even imagining that they weren’t safe? Now those potentially irate fathers find out that their leaders knew there was a gay sexual predator in the caucus and did nothing about it.” – Shalimar

    Reminds me of some sick 80’s TV crime show where some kid is sent to jail for jacking his uncle’s car and runs into the worse types inside. But the real sick individual is not the homosexual rapist who homes in on him, but the homosexual’s straight friend who smiles and watches it happen.

    Hastert, he’s like the straight friend in Jail who smiles and watches it happen. Same type of power relationships too.

  • Hmmm…let me try and play this one out….

    ***Rep. Alexander (R-LA), the first member of Congress to be alerted to the problem, says he contacted the NRCC. That’s the House Republicans’ election committee, a political organization entirely separate from the House bureaucracy and the Congress.***

    Seems to me that Alexander saw how the word “disaster-in-the-making” was written all over this thing—and wanted to make sure that it got taken care of. Yeah—maybe I’m just a crazy, philosophizing pedagogue on this one, but follow along with me for a few more moments,,,,

    ***More to the point, however, you tell the head of the NRCC because you see the matter as a political problem. Reynolds is the one in charge of making sure Republican House seats get held.***

    Anyone with even a smidgen of common sense would know that this is a career-killer for a politician. They’d also know that something like this, coupled with even the remotest of possibilities of a coverup, could be the equivalent of the GOP smashing into the Titanic’s iceberg—and once again, there’s going to be a REALLY BIG BUNCH of passengers who don’t make it into the lifeboats. In other words—it needed to be dealt with immediately, to prevent a lot of residual GOP defeats on election day. Alexander saw this; Hastert did not.

    To-date—regardless of how this thing plays out—this does two things. First, it portrays Alexander as being independent from the “culture of corruption” in the House GOP. Second—and this is what’s going to literally dismantle the House GOP in the coming weeks—that “culture of corruption” now includes such “niceties” as FELONY child abuse…FELONY child endangerment…FELONY sexual predation.

    Oh…by the way…did I mention the word “Felony?”

    Anyone who was involved in the coverup—anyone who knew, and projected the ideal that “the majority” was more important than doing the right thing—is subject to eventual criminal prosecution, and imminent political defeat, on November 7th….

  • The only way the handling of this by the House GOP (in an election year!) makes any sense is that stuff like this is not out of the ordinary and that there were established ways of “dealing with it” that have worked in the past, but did not this time.

    That would mean, of course, that there is a subculture of deeply closeted, self-loathing gay men who hold positions of great power in the GOP. Crazy idea, I know.

  • “That would mean, of course, that there is a subculture of deeply closeted, self-loathing gay men who hold positions of great power in the GOP.”

    Naaaa, you think? Seriously though, I don’t think folks like Foley (if he is gay and not a plain old pedophile) and others of his ilk (West, Schrock) are gay. For folks like this it is a power fetish exactly like the racist who has sex with African-Americans or the Nazi who had sex with Jewish women.

    The person they screw (in several senses of the word) is already sub-human in the fetishist’s eyes. They’re immoral, they don’t have feelings. It is OK to use them for pleasure because they’re all sex maniacs any way, right? And for the polititian there’s even more fun in their little game because right after they’re done with the sex object they can go off and pass laws that will deny the sex object rights that “real” people are entitled to (West, for example, made a career out of pushing excessively homophobic legislation). This of course reinforces the fetishist’s idea that the sex object is stupid and doesn’t care who fucks it as long as it gets fucked. And finally there is the thrill of knowing that he’s tricking his admiring constituents and they would be shocked if they knew what he got up to last night. Everyone is stupid except with the guy with the all powerful dick.

    Sorry to go on about this but this is (that I remember) the third “gay” scandal to hit the GOP in the last few years. I hate to see these guys get even a shred of sympathy as somehow being “confused,” or “repressed,” or “victims.” They know exactly what they’re doing. They like a system where gays are mistreated because it would take the fun out of their fetish if they didn’t have to sneak. The day gays and lesbians have all the rights they deserve is the day we’ll need to lock up the pets and livestock because there will be a bunch of power-mad fuck beasts on the loose looking for a new thrill.

  • I read thru the transcript and I got very creeped out by the IM conversation.

    I think #21 got it right about these predators. Being gay or straight has nothing to do with it.

    But as for the Group Orgy Party? It’s very hard to keep on the high road when all your pillars have collapsed on you.

    1) National Security (That little Iraq thing… Army and Marines are wearing out-equipment and personel)
    2) Fiscal Responsibility (The US is China’s fiscal bitch!)
    3) Run Gub like a Bidnez (they thought they would run it like GE, but the reality was Enron.)
    4) Morals and Integrity (Kiddie Diddler Foley, Duke Cunningham, Tom Delay, Santorum, Abramhoff, Norquist etc etc etc…)
    5) Running all three branches of the government. When the GOP was gloating about that after 2004, I had the feeling that this was going to come back and bite’em on the ass. Oh boy did it!

  • I will be deeply surprised if there is indeed any sort of criminal prosecution. After all, it has been amply demonstrated over the past six years that prominent Repubs do not suffer from prosecution (Cunningham notwithstanding–he confessed). I cannot wait to see how O’Reilly and Hannity deal with this, if they deal at all. O’Reilly especially loves to climb high on his perch of moral superiority and rant about predators; will he rant about a Repub predator?

    Certainly the most telling and disgusting aspect to the House Repubs’ (non)response to this is to treat it as a POLITICAL problem.

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