if it's not sex it's money:-) I think we might lose this one.The word most frequently used is sordid.

I might also say that the order for Foley to quit came relatively quickly. Any one who gets public dirt is going to disappear - the lockstep verifies the GOP generals are taking the elections as a war.
Thr sun is still shining- but remember to take your umbrella.

_{"at some point I'm hopeful I'll figure out something to put here"}

was in Spring 2005. The brain died then and it's just trickling down to the toes now. As far as the public is concerned, this may be it - but that was when a cocky White House humiliated and made enemies of the press, who lost a bit of their fear and started biting back. That's when the GOP (partially) lost control of the narrative.

That's when I started posting "it's a sunny day" to Candy - every chink in the narrative, every erosion of Bush Infallibility led to this day, as slowly and as irrevocably as a mudslide. The critical coverage of Katrina in 2005 would have been unthinkable in the fear-driven media climate of 2004.

It's a sunny day.

in one sense, it *is* about sex. What's good for the Repub, will be good for the Dem.

What goes around, comes around...

-5.75,-4.05 "I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard."
William Lloyd Garrison
US abolitionist & editor (1805 - 1879)

The corporate media is doing its damndest to mask what's going on for the Bush's blind Jesus campers, but this time I doubt it will work. Headline skimmers may initially think that the Foley scandal is just another partisan squabble over "computer stuff," as if GROWN MEN HAVING SEX WITH LITTLE BOYS isn't the issue, along with A HUGE COVER-UP BY HOUSE REPUBLICANS, including Dennis Hastert, who knew about this fiend Foley for at least a year, and did nothing to get that monster the hell away from those underage boys.

How perverted can one group of people be? Damn, at least Clinton was boffing a GIRL, and at least she was OF AGE, and at least it was CONSENSUAL.

By the way, where are the parents of these boys? Why haven't we heard from them? Have they nothing to say about their boys being stalked by this Republican monster, or about the Republican House members who KNEW that Foley was a boy-hunting frEEEEk for over a year, but covered for this sexual predator anyway?

When did the NAMBLA lobby take over the House GOP?

"Death before being dishonored any more." - Col. Ted Westhusing

1) (September 30, 2006 -- 10:50 AM EST // link)

Hard to say what it means, if anything, but Rep. Shimkus says he interviewed Rep. Foley about the page matter with the House Clerk about 10 or 11 months ago. Presumably, that would have been former Clerk Jeff Trandahl. A few quick Nexis searches shows the first public announcements of Trandahl's departure were in the second week of November 2005.

2) (September 30, 2006 -- 01:20 PM EST // link)

... Finally, one detail here isn't getting enough attention. 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.

This is Josh Marshall's own answer to your question.

I've been at this blog racket for almost six years. And usually you've got to really pore over the details to find the inconsistencies and contradictions. So I'm not sure I've ever seen this big a train wreck where leaders at the highest eschelons of power repeatedly fib, contradict each other and change their stories so quickly. It's mendacity as performance art; you can see the story unravel in real time.

Just consider, Denny Hastert has repeatedly said he didn't know anything about the Foley problem until Thursday. But two members of the leadership -- Boehner and Reynolds -- say no, they warned him about it months ago. Hastert got Boehner to recant; Reynolds is sticking to his guns.

Rodney Alexander brought the matter to the Speaker's office. And Hastert's office tonight put out the results of a detailed internal review of what happened in which they revealed that no member of the House leadership -- not Hastert or Shimkus or the House Clerk -- had actually laid eyes on the emails in question.

Only Hastert's office apparently didn't touch base with Rep. Shimkus, since as Hastert's crew was writing out their statement, Shimkus was offer giving an interview to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in which he described how he and the Clerk had read the emails.

So the centerpiece point of the Hastert statement this evening appears to have been a fabrication.

It stood up for maybe three or four hours.

At present, the Speaker is committed to portraying himself as a sort of Speaker Magoo. We're supposed to believe that pretty much everyone in the House GOP leadership knew about this but him.

These fibs and turnabouts amount to a whole far larger than the sum of its parts. Even the most cynical politicians carefully vet their stories to assure that they cannot easily be contradicted by other credible personages. When you see Majority Leaders and Speakers and Committee chairs calling each other liars in public you know that the underlying story is very bad, that the system of coordination and hierarchy has broken down and that each player believes he's in a fight for his life.

-- Josh Marshall

Yep.