What Should Dennis Hastert Have Done?

[CanOWorms]

The Congressman's emails look like they're from a 12-year-old AOL user.

 

[Craig234]

"You can thank Delay for that."


Get over your partisian BS, this stuff has gone on for YEARS! Long before Republicans took charge.

John, when you say 'the other side does it too!', that's partisan. 'Yes, it's wrong that Bush tortured the girl scouts who visited the White House, but at least he didn't get a blow job!'

The poster above made a reasonable statement that the republicans have made the ethics committee far more broken, however bad it was before. That's not partisan.

See his link for one fact on the issue.

Then go watch the Moyers' show, 'Capitol Corruption' for an idea how big the problem is.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: dullard

Originally posted by: Fern
Responses in bold above.

I was under the impression that the pages knew rumors about Foley. Rumors + the inncocuous emails should be enough to:
(a) Confront Foley,
(b) Give Foley sexual harassment training,
(c) Tell the pages to be careful. Maybe don't mention Foley by name, but also give the pages sexual harassment training.

As for monitoring, I didn't intend spying on him. I simply think regular questioning of him and following up on any future rumors about pages would be sufficient.

Hastert and his staff, in my opinion, did much of what should have been done. But he didn't go quite far enough. If it comes out that he knew more, then I'll change my opinion on him.

Yeah, Ok I agree that stuff sounds like a good idea.

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: Craig234

Course, only gawd knows what that may have turned up. And whatever did, they'd be obligated to follow up. I think that would have likely been a bad idea, while catching Foley a lot of other "innocent" Congresspersons could have been unfairly besmirched. A lot of opportunity for political shennagans with something like that.

You were not doing too badly until the above weak argument.

You're concerned the pages would have made up a bunch of lies about congresspeople hitting on them, and that worry justified not asking?

Come on...

An investigation will help determine whether the info given to the leadership was light and they handled it ok, or whether they were given more info and dropped the ball.

Just to remind, I'm talking about an inquirery where no "one name" is mentioned. Moreover, most polititions are lawyers, and one of the most important rules for lawyers seems to be that you don't ask questions unless you already know the answer.

I'm just saying I can't see Washington polititions mounting a broad "dragnet" designed to ensnare Washington polititions. However, I do think it would be a good idea. I wonder what else woudl pop up?

Fern

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: Pabster

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
BTW: it looks like the House ethics committee has not even started to investigate William Jefferson despite the widely known fact about the $100k in the freezer. This just shows you how slow they are to move on anything involving members, from either side.

Yeah, kinda funny how the MSM has dropped that story, eh?

Maybe we should get Brian Ross on that.

Yeah, your hero's are in charge of things, what does MSN have to do with that?

Maybe they're waiting for the most "opertune time" to do the most political damge?