WASHINGTON TIMES ON TUESDAY WILL CALL FOR SPEAKER HASTERT'S RESIGNATION, NEWSROOM SOURCES TELL DRUDGE... DEVELOPING... Editorial titled: 'Resign, Mr. Speaker': 'House Speaker Dennis Hastert must do the only right thing, and resign his speakership at once... 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'... -- Washington Times, October 3, 2006...
Forgive me if I think this seems a bit unfair. We don't know yet exactly what Hastert knew and when he knew it. There is an investigation underway, and we will find out. Can we wait until then to start calling for the guy's head? From what we know so far, it sounds as if Hastert knew about the existence of "overly friendly" e-mails, not the more explicit IMs.
You know what this feels like to me? This is a classic McCain Move on the part of the Times. Get a jump on the moral high ground, condemn someone in the severest terms before the evidence necessarily justifies it. Result? You end up looking like an unassailable saint and you get a whole lotta press out of the deal. Sweet.
Update: Lest anyone thinks I'm going easy on child sexual predators, here's my other post on the controversy. The first one is linked above. There's nothing to be said for Foley, but I just think Hastert is getting a bad deal, here, before all the evidence is out.
Allah makes this find, in the Democratic playbook. The Times must have gotten the same memo, which has, like, never, ever happened before:
Update: The Democratic playbook — literally:
1. Pay no heed to the distinction between the e-mails and IMs. There’s no evidence (yet) that any Republican leaders knew about Foley’s cybersex IMs. There’s plenty of evidence that they knew how uncomfortable the “overly friendly” e-mails made at least one page. So the Dems will press the GOP on what they knew about the former and will constantly, in their press releases, refer to the “GOP’s knowledge of the sexually explicit e-mails.”
Update: Here's the link to the editorial. They suggest replacing Hastert with Henry Hyde. I still disagree that Hastert should go, though I'll concede that I like Hyde.