Nation-Building >> What next was he supposed to do? | return to front page

I have been astounded and deeply disappointed to see the tack that RedState has taken in terms of spinning the Foley-page sex scandal. The worst offender is Erick, who seems to have become a sort of Majority Whip for his fellow Editors. First he tried to blame the media. Then he tried to blame the victims. Now he's trying to blame the Democrats. Weren't Republicans once the "Daddy party" of personal responsibility? Apparently no longer, now they are one-trick ponies interested solely in power for its own sake.

Let us be clear. It doesn't matter even the slightest if the House GOP leadership knew of the sexually explicit IM messages prior to this past weekend. The truth is that they knew that there were questions about Representative Foley's behavior as far back as 2001, and chose to do nothing rather than investigate. In essence:

Here’s how one senior Democratic aide summed up the Foley situation this morning for The Note: “The R’s desperately want this to be about whether or not they knew of the sexually explicit e-mails/I.M.’s.

“Most parents we talked to over the weekend (including my own conservative R mom) feel the issue is that the R’s were given and ignored a huge warning with the first set of e-mails.”

“Had there been an investigation at that time, the sexually explicit emails may have been uncovered. But, Members lost that opportunity when the R’s chose to protect Foley instead of those kids.”

Yesterday, no less a conservative bastion than the editorial page of the Washington Times called for Speaker Hastert to resign. As a result, Erick grudgingly concedes that yes maybe Hastert should indeed resign, but only after the elections. As one commentator puts it,

What value are we compromising by letting Hastert finish out this Congress?

Gerry Daly's comment about what Hastert should have done provides some much needed moral clarity, which has been sorely lacking at RedState of late.

How about 1) refer the matter to the committee charged with oversight of the Page program, and 2) perform due diligence by asking other Pages what they knew-- points made in the Washington Times editorial.

The biggest problem for Hastert is that, after the William Jefferson kerfuffle broke, he took a position that looked like he was all for protecting Congressmen from accountability. With the Foley fiasco, that is now looking like it may be a pattern.

Moral leadership, due diligence, and protecting young teenagers entrusted to the care of the House from ANY potential threat. Those are the values that have been compromised.

Incidentally, it also seems that Condoleeza Rice lied to the 9-11 Commission. She is really very bad at lying. This actually angers me more than the Foley issue, but we can deal with Rice later.