Hastert had a press conference, allegedly to announce an investigation of something or other in regards to the page situation (maybe this investigation will be more fruitful than previous investigations, and we will earn that Mark Foley was the WMD), but basically to let everyone know he doesn’t plan on going anywhere. He also wants to look into the page program- perhaps he should ask his former colleague, Mark Foley. He looked into the page program pretty thoroughly.
Hastert also ‘took responsibility’ for the mess (even though he won’t tell us for sure what the mess is and that is being investigated), and he did so in a true Washington fashion, stating that “The buck stops here” and then refusing to accept any of the blame and then stating that he didn’t do anything wrong. He is sorry, though, although for what, I am not sure. And he said he is responsible.
The buck apparently got lost in the shuffle.
Pb
Check his pockets.
Keith
Taking responsibility should mean one would accept what consequences come. But something tells me there’s some more whine to come.
ThymeZone
Hastert took responsibility … for “getting rid” of the problem (Foley). He didn’t know there was a big problem until last Friday.
I think we should all get off his back and let him focus on the taking of more responsibility, because that’s his responsibility.
RSA
Hastert was condensing one of Foley’s IMs: “If u know of any strapping young bucks, they can stop here overnite”
Steve
The ultimate remedy is political.
Please, Dennis Hastert, don’t give an inch. Let everyone see exactly how much responsibility you take.
ThymeZone
After watching Hastert, I am feeling a little horny right about now.
Par R
ThymeZone says:
Hmm. Never figured you for a chubby chaser…
ThymeZone
Power is such an aphrodisiac. Seeing a really powerful man take charge, take control and exercise his power and be powerful, and take responsibility like that …. whew!
I think we all got a little steamy there for a minute.
Tsulagi
Gotta love the grownups who take full responsibility for their actions and welcome accountability.
Just like Foley when through his attorney he said he made no excuses for his actions. Then the attorney followed that with Foley now seeking alcohol rehabilitation, may seek counseling for being abused by clergy, oh, and by the way, he’s gay.
Wow, a new Republican triple toe loop on the buck when it gets in sight. Maybe Hastert can top that when he goes.
Keith
Definitely need to add “I take responsibility” to the popcorn-fart pantheon of meaningless acts of faux-humility, right up there with “I apologize if people misunderstood what I said”
I’d probably weep if I saw a reporter ask a followup of “So what does that really mean, anyway?”
jg
This non-apology apology thing worked for Jason Giambi. Why not a congressman?
Steve
Oh, come on, Giambi was in a class by himself, which a clown like Hastert cannot even hope to achieve. When people asked Giambi “what are you apologizing FOR?” his response was “I can’t tell you!”
If nothing else, the trophy for this sort of thing should be permanently named after him. Best meaningless apology ever!
Paul L.
Yeah that means alot.
Janet Reno took responsibility for Waco.
Steve
Man, if I find myself 13 years from now defending some stupid Democrat by saying “Bush did that too!” I hope someone will have the good sense to kick me for it.
RSA
I think that the general Republican role model is George W. Bush, which means that there’s basically no script to follow for admitting mistakes. Or, rather, there is a script, but the first ten pages are repetitions of denial, obfuscation, and blaming one’s subordinates (with gays, minorities, feminists, and liberals in general receiving blame opportunistically, in context).
Richard 23
What does Janet Reno have to do with Hastert’s press conference? Can we get some real conservatives or decent trolls please?
“Truman did it.”
“Harding did it.”
“Darrell did it.”
STFU!
I, for one, stand behind Speaker Hastert. I think he should stand his ground for another week or two at least. All the way to election day if he must. Giving in will just make things worse.
Andrew
It’s okay. If you do something that batshit stupid, you can always hold a press conference, reveal that you’re gay and were molested by a priest, and check yourself into rehab.
I hear you can get out of anything that way.
Vladi G
The Republicans could really use a blame czar.
Bombadil
New feature at Balloon Juice — Friday Whine Blogging!
Par R
This extended quote came from the Cold Fury blog, and includes a statement near the latter portion contrasting the current Speaker’s actions with those of a former Speaker.
“In 1983, Democratic congressman Gerry Studds was found to have sexually propositioned House pages and actually buggered a 17-year-old male page whom he took on a trip to Portugal. The 46-year-old Studds indignantly attacked those who criticized him for what he called a “mutually voluntary, private relationship between adults.”
“When the House censured Studds for his sex romp with a male page, Studds — not one to be shy about presenting his backside to a large group of men — defiantly turned his back on the House during the vote. He ran for re-election and was happily returned to office SIX more times by liberal Democratic voters in his Martha’s Vineyard district. (They really liked his campaign slogan: “It’s the outfit, stupid.”)
“Washington Post columnist Colman McCarthy referred to Studds’ affair with a teenage page as “a brief consenting homosexual relationship” and denounced Studds’ detractors for engaging in a “witch hunt” against gays: “New England witch trials belong to the past, or so it is thought. This summer on Cape Cod, the reputation of Rep Gerry Studds was burned at the stake by a large number of his constituents determined to torch the congressman for his private life.”
“Meanwhile, Foley is hiding in a hole someplace.
“No one demanded to know why the Democrat Speaker of the House, Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, took one full decade to figure out that Studds was propositioning male pages.
“But now, the same Democrats who are incensed that Bush’s National Security Agency was listening in on al-Qaida phone calls are incensed that Republicans were not reading a gay congressman’s instant messages.”
Pb
Parrots like pie? Who knew!
Steve
It’s just astounding to me that so many wingnuts seem to think a story from 20 years ago is some kind of monster zinger.
Either the Talking-Point-O-Matic is on the fritz this week, or they truly have nothing else.
Vladi G
No one except for House ethics committee, which conducted an investigation.
Par, have you ever written a post where didn’t lie about something? Is that in the Republican DNA or something?
Tsulagi
The clear thinking Par…
A Dem once buggered a page….Why can’t we?
Bad guys torture….Why can’t we?
Saddam fucked up Iraq….Why can’t we?
Crying the other guy once had a toy you now want to claim as your own? Face it, Par, the side you have chosen sucks big ass.
chopper
see, its okay that bush lied up and down about iraq, because johnson lied about vietnam.
Jay C
Fine, Par: so if Colman McCarthy is still around, why don’t you email him and get his take on the Foley matter? As if it means shit 23 years later?
Does the phrase “learning from one’s mistakes” ring a bell?
* * *
Didn’t think so.
p.lukasiak
I, for one, stand behind Speaker Hastert.
why do you want to hide?
Richard 23
Come back when you can write something in your own words and slightly on topic. If I want to know what Cold Furry has to say about something that happened a quarter century ago, I’ll go there. Jesus Christ. Try to keep within the current century, the current millenium even.
mrmobi
Par, don’t you get it?
We had a sexual predator in the House of Representatives, the Republican leadership, including the Speaker, knew about it, but didn’t do anything, because they didn’t want to lose the seat, or the money.
They didn’t need to “listen in” on Foley, they were told by his staffer, and they didn’t fucking do anything to stop him. Nice false argument though. You should practice lying more, because you’re going to have to do it a lot more defending this shitstain of a political party.
You can’t have it both ways. When blowjobs between adults rise to the level of an impeachable offense, how does allowing someone to prey on kids under the age of consent rate a free pass? Explain it to me, please.
RSA
It’s worse than you think: the quoted material is actually from Ann Coulter. I wonder why conservatives bring up Studds but never mention Crane, a Republican who was identified as being part of the same scandal?
Rusty Shackleford
I’ll take “Because They’re Desperate Hypocrites” for $100, Alex.
Beej
One more time for the benefit of Par R and Paul L:
Oh Lord, here we go again! “There were Dems who went after underage pages, too, so you can’t possibly say anything about Foley’s actions or Hastert’s coverup because that would be hypocritical.” Isn’t that, in essence, what you are telling us? I am so tired of this lame old argument that I could hurl!
Nixon apologists: Johnson taped conversations and went after political enemies too.
Reagan apologists: Kennedy made a deal to keep missles out of Turkey if the USSR would take the missles out of Cuba, so you can’t blame Reagan for trying to make a deal with Iran.
George W. Bush apologists: Lincoln suspended habeus corpus and FDR interned Japanese Americans, so you can’t criticize Bush for torturing prisoners at Gitmo.
Logic and Rhetoric 101-If the first action was wrong (and by referring to it, you are assuming that it was), you can’t use it to excuse the second action which is also wrong.
Please don’t make me read or hear this type of argument again. I have a sensitive stomach.
Added note: Please, I beg you. My digestive system can’t take much more of this.
capelza
It was 1973! It’s obvious everyone’s getting their info from that wiki article! Which has hopefully been corrected.
If we are bringing up bad shit from 1973…I go one word for you…Nixon.
Pb
capelza,
1983 Congressional page sex scandal:
The scandal was in 1983, Crane’s relationship was in 1980, and Studds’s relationship was in 1973.
And… ultimately, the voters decided.
capelza
Oh okay….thanks. That makes more sense.
scarshapedstar
I don’t think Republicans fully understand what “responsible” means. “I am responsible for the molestation of a child” generally means, from a legal standpoint, “I molested a child.” Which means, from a practical standpoint, “I’m going to jail now.”
RSA
Wikipedia also mentions that the first case handled by the ethics committee wasn’t until 1978, which surprised me. That may be relevant in understanding why Studds’s actions of 1973 weren’t addressed until much later.
Darrell
Are you suggesting that Congress had no way to deal with unethical House members before the formation of the ethics committee?
Sorry, but there’s no getting around the fact that Studds had sex with a teenage male congressional page, was defiant about it, and then afterward, was re-elected to office by Dem voters. By all accounts, Foley did less, and was run out of office. I agree Foley should have stepped down. But it’s entirely fair to point out the double standards in play with regards to a worse situation involving a Democrat.
John S.
Gee, I guess Studds’ Republican opponents were just that fucking pathetic then, eh? Or are you suggesting that the electorate from his district consisted of entirely Democrat voters?
Wait, on second thought…what the hell do I care. You’re Darrell.
Bruce Moomaw
He did even better than that. Quoting the New Republic’s “Plank” blog: “A key part of Hastert’s press conference was his announcement of a new toll-free page program tip line. Naturally, marble mouth read the number wrong and reversed two of the digits.”
Actually, I still feel a very faint tinge of honest-to-God sympathy for Hastert. As the New Republic pointed out earlier, Tom Delay decided not to try for the official Speaker’s post himself because he was “too toxic” for that post, so instead he selected Hastert as his amiable sock puppet. Then after Delay left, poor Hastert found himself in the position of Mortimer Snerd trying to keep the act going without Edgar Bergen.
Bruce Moomaw
Regarding the Studds affair, Billmon pointed out last night that — while there were 79 House votes not to censure Studds — there were fully 136 votes not to censure Dan Crane for exactly the same offense. While neither he nor I have an official party count of those votes, it’s clear that a very large number of Republicans voted not to censure Crane — maybe even more than the number of Democrats who voted not to censure Studds.
Broken
Par R says
Excuse me, but Studds was reprimanded for something that happened in 1973. Studds held a press conference with the page, who said he was a willing participant. Mind you, this was over 30 years ago.
As expected, Par R, you fail to mention that Republican Daniel Crane was also reprimanded in the same 1983 House Censure motion for having sex with a page in 1980. Just another little inconvenient fact.
Bruce Moomaw
And Foley “did less”? The appalling Studds, as far as we know, had an affair with only one page (which is one too many, and for which he should indeed have gotten the boot immediately), and was apparently never connected with making passes at any others. (In fact, he apparently established a long-term romantic relationship — if that’s the term — with the kid.) On the other hand, we know beyond doubt that Foley was trolling for pages on a wholesale basis.
It is almost certainly a mistake to say that the GOP leadership was far more capable of getting into a Foley-type pickle than the Democratic leadership — it looks to me as though either party was capable of it. But it’s the GOP that has spent the last 25 years lecturing the American people, ad nauseam, on their infinitely superior Sexual Morality (including their firm belief that Gays Are Evil under any circumstances). Now they’ve been caught covering up not only for a would-be molester, but for a GAY would-be molester into the bargain. People despise hypocrites, and — as I said in another entry last night — from now on it will be impossible for the GOP to describe itself as the Party of God without somebody in the audience snickering.
Bruce Moomaw
Two more notes:
(1) Brian Ross has testimony from three more pages — from the classes of 1998, 2000 and 2002 — that Foley directly and repeatedly tried to solicit physical sex from them. (See ABC’s “The Blotter”.)
(2) Andrew Sullivan, I see is thinking along the same lines I am: “One aspect of this is worth further noting. The base of the GOP has been fed homophobia and gay-baiting for years now. It was partly how Rove won Ohio and the presidency. Gay-hating is integral to their machine. Now, the very homophobia these people stoked and used is suddenly turning back on them.
“Part of me is distressed that the GOP could lose not because of spending recklessness, corruption, torture, big government, pork, and a hideously botched war … but because of a sex scandal which doesn’t even have (so far as we know) any actual sex. But part of me also sees the karmic payback here. They rode this tiger; now it’s turning on them. And it’s dinner time.”
(3) Fox News reports that “internal polling shows that, if Hastert stays on, the GOP could lose 50 House seats instead of only 20.” I haven’t seen any actual public polls yet of how the Dems’ margin in the national House vote may have grown as a result of this — but Rasmussen has come out with one today indicating that its effects could indeed be apocalyptic: by a huge 61-21 margin, the voters agree that “Republican leaders have been protecting Foley for several years.”
Richard 23
I agree, Corky! Let’s get that damn Gerry Studds to resign. You start the petition and I’ll sign!
Photonaton
These days, in the way Hastert used that phrase, it is just a throwaway line (see “Mistakes were made”).
Yes. Of course he was in part responsible for the extent to which this matter unfolded. Or, had he been a little more concerned in the past, he could have been at least in part responsible for having nipped it in the bud.
Exactly…Lesson #2 from any parent to any child. What Hastert needed to say is that he is also to be held accountable (for good or bad) for however he carries out his responsibility. Unfortunately, he was careful not to say that.
Send him back to childhood; perhaps eventually he will learn.
RSA
Darrell wrote:
I’m dizzy from the spinning going on here. Just what is the point of this comparison? Is there supposed to be an analogy between the responsibility held by Hastert and by Democratic voters?
Peter ve
If we are bringing up bad shit from 1973…I go one word for you…Nixon.Every time I hear someone saying: “I accept responsibility.” I hear David Frye channelling Nixon:
“I accept responsibility, but not the blame. Let me explain the difference. People who are to blame lose their jobs.”