No Margin for Error: (bold highlighting is mine)

The fundamental problem congressional Republicans are experiencing now is that they have almost no moral capital left after the last two years. Again and again, when given the choice to reform their practices or do little or nothing, they always picked the latter. On travel, on Abramoff, on earmarking—you name it. The impression they always gave was that the integrity of the institution and the public interest had to take a back-seat to their own convenience. They wanted to squeak by this year on gerrymandering, negative ads, and money, and just might have succeeded—had nothing more gone wrong. Well, now it has and people feel confirmed in what they always suspected about this Congress—that it is unable to police its own practices and is full of people who don't follow the same rules as the rest of us. This is deadly. So, in one sense, the best way to have coped with the fall-out of the Foley scandal would have been long before the Foley scandal ever broke, when all the other scandals were breaking. Then, congressional Republicans would have had some reserve of credibility to fall back on. Now they have very little.

Denny Hastert's record as Speaker of the House is not all roses & lollipops:

1. The DeLay scandals, resulting in his indictment and subsequent resignation
2. The Duke Cunningham scandal, resulting in his indictment, resignation, plea deal and jail sentence
3. The Bob Ney scandal, resulting in his indictment, resignation, and plea deal
4. His refusal to cooperate with the FBI in the investigation of Representative William Jefferson (D-LA), resulting in an FBI raid on Congressional offices and a separation-of-powers showdown
5. The Foley scandal, resulting in his resignation

Particularly in light of his intransigence in the Jefferson matter, one must question Speaker Hastert's forthrightness when he called for a DOJ/FBI investigation of Foley's misconduct.

Now, the obvious response from the Kool-Aid drinkers (Hewitt, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc.) will be: "But there were plenty of scandals and such during Tip O'Neill's speakership, and the Democrats didn't make him resign!" To which I say, "Yes, and part of the reason Democrats lost the House in 1994 was their culture of corruption (banking scandal, post office scandal, Jim Wright, and so on)."

Democrats want power at all costs and are willing to overlook significant moral, ethical, and legal problems amongst their members and leaders.

Republicans have followed a higher standard, a more honorable standard.

At least 'till now.

 Edersole, Naomi Rose - 7
Fisher, Marian - 13
Miller, Lina - 7
Miller, Mary Liz - 8
Stoltzfus, Anna Mae - 12

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord:
he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.

I know that my redeemer liveth,
and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God:
whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold,
and not as a stranger.

We brought nothing into this world,
and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away;
blessed be the name of the Lord.

*     *     *     *     *

Jesus saith to his disciples, Ye now therefore have sorrow:
but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice,
and your joy no man taketh from you.

Therefore are they before the throne of God,
and serve him day and night in his temple:
and he that sitteth on the throne
shall dwell among them.

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more;
neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.

For the Lamb which is in the midst
of the throne shall feed them,
and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters:
and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

The online edition of the Washington Times now has its Tuesday editorial posted, calling on Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert to resign his speakership over the failure to address Rep. Foley's misconduct. Two excerpts:

The facts of the disgrace of Mark Foley, who was a Republican member of the House from a Florida district until he resigned last week, constitute a disgrace for every Republican member of Congress. Red flags emerged in late 2005, perhaps even earlier, in suggestive and wholly inappropriate e-mail messages to underage congressional pages. His aberrant, predatory -- and possibly criminal -- behavior was an open secret among the pages who were his prey. The evidence was strong enough long enough ago that the speaker should have relieved Mr. Foley of his committee responsibilities contingent on a full investigation to learn what had taken place, whether any laws had been violated and what action, up to and including prosecution, were warranted by the facts. This never happened.

*     *     *     *     *

Now the scandal must unfold on the front pages of the newspapers and on the television screens, as transcripts of lewd messages emerge and doubts are rightly raised about the forthrightness of the Republican stewards of the 109th Congress. Some Democrats are attempting to make this "a Republican scandal," and they shouldn't; Democrats have contributed more than their share of characters in the tawdry history of congressional sexual scandals. Sexual predators come in all shapes, sizes and partisan hues, in institutions within and without government. When predators are found they must be dealt with, forcefully and swiftly. This time the offender is a Republican, and Republicans can't simply "get ahead" of the scandal by competing to make the most noise in calls for a full investigation. The time for that is long past.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert must do the only right thing, and resign his speakership at once. Either he was grossly negligent for not taking the red flags fully into account and ordering a swift investigation, for not even remembering the order of events leading up to last week's revelations -- or he deliberately looked the other way in hopes that a brewing scandal would simply blow away. He gave phony answers Friday to the old and ever-relevant questions of what did he know and when did he know it? 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.

I concur with the Times' suggestion that retiring Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) be named as speaker until the leadership elections in January for the new Congress.

I'm glad to see that the entire Republican Party and conservative movement in this country haven't sold out their core values and are asking Speaker Hastert and (in some cases) Majority Leader Boehner to resign over the mishandling of Foleygate.

Ed at Captain's Quarters led the way Saturday:

Republicans have to act swiftly to remove the stench of Foleygate from the party. They need to demand the resignation of Hastert as Speaker, as well as Boehner as Majority Leader if he lied to protect Hastert. Allowing Foley off the hook was a mistake in judgment, but this is a betrayal of those who trusted Hastert to lead the House with dignity, honesty, and integrity.

Robert Bluey in Human Events Online reports on calls for Hastert's resignation by Michael Reagan (himself a victim of child sexual abuse) and David Bossie of the conservative group Citizens United:

"Speaker Hastert had knowledge of Congressman Foley’s inappropriate behavior and chose to protect a potential pedophile and powerful colleague over a congressional page,” said David Bossie, president of conservative advocacy group Citizens United. ... “Any member of Congress who was aware of the sexual emails and protected the congressman should also resign effective immediately,” Reagan said.

Joseph Farah, writing in World Net Daily, goes a step further and wishes a pox on the whole Republican house:

Following the revelations about Florida Rep. Mark Foley's sexually suggestive e-mails to a 16-year-old congressional page, I have concluded Republicans are unworthy of retaining control of the federal government.

The Drudge Report has a breaking news siren atop a bulletin reporting that the Washington Times, in Tuesday's edition, will call on Hastert to resign as speaker and quotes from the editorial, in part:

"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."

Now, to be fair, many conservatives don't believe that Hastert or anyone else in the House Republican leadership should resign. Hugh Hewitt has ignored Foleygate except to criticize Nancy Pelosi for her criticism of the Republican leadership. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity both took this position on their radio programs today, instead focusing on the timing of the Foley revelations. Mary Katherine Ham excoriates the Times for its editorial and questions their motivation:

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.

Of course, one could argue that Rush/Sean/Hugh/MKH have ceded the moral high ground by failing to condemn anyone except Foley, when the evidence clearly shows problems beyond Foley's conduct. Result? You look like someone putting political power over doing the right thing, and you end up losing both the political power you seek to protect and the moral authority you once held.

If this ABC Blotter report is correct, it looks like some current and former Republican House leaders have, to borrow a phrase from Ricky Ricardo, "some 'splainin' to do" - again:

A Republican staff member warned congressional pages five years ago to watch out for Congressman Mark Foley, according to a former page.

Matthew Loraditch, a page in the 2001-2002 class, told ABC News he and other pages were warned about Foley by a supervisor in the House Clerk's office.

Loraditch, the president of the Page Alumni Association, said the pages were told "don't get too wrapped up in him being too nice to you and all that kind of stuff."

I can see only two scenarios here: (1) House staffers knew of Rep. Foley's behavior five years ago, yet didn't tell House Republican leaders, or (2) House staffers knew of Rep. Foley's behavior five years ago and told House Republican leaders, and those leaders took no substantive action.

The first scenario is frankly unbelievable in the CYA (Cover Your A**) atmosphere of Washington. House staffers likely would have run screaming to the leadership as soon as they had information about Rep. Foley. Additionally, since Washington has more leaks in it than a New Orleans levee, somebody would have gone to the WaPo or the Old Gray Lady.

The second scenario, which seems to be coming true with every passing day, is that the House Republican leadership knew of Rep. Foley's reprobate behavior as long ago as 2001, and did little or nothing. If this turns out to be the case, it simply adds to the case for removing Hastert, Boehner, and any others remaining from the time from their leadership positions, committee chairs, and the like.

The specific details of the Foley case are still coming to light, but one thing is clear: At best, the Republican House leadership soft-pedaled the allegations against Foley (this may have been due in part to a reluctance of the page's family to be involved). At worst, Speaker Hastert and Majority Leader Boehner covered up Foley's misconduct and then publicly lied about it afterwards.

Ed over at Captain's Quarters sums up my feelings pretty well:

What makes me angry and disappointed is the denial by Hastert that he knew anything about Foley's issues on Friday. Recall that Majority Leader John Boehner had already told the press that he told Hastert about the earlier e-mails months ago, and after Hastert's statement, Boehner had to retract that. Only after Reynolds released his statement did Hastert acknowledge that he knew about Foley's earlier issues. It's the dishonesty and the butt-covering that I find unacceptable in a House Speaker, who is two heartbeats away from the Presidency.

Dennis Hastert should resign as Speaker of the House. John Boehner (who had ethical problems before the Foley matter developed) should resign as House Majority Leader. Of course, voters may make the decision for them in another month or so and turn the House back over to the Democrats.

Remember: It wasn't the Watergate break-in and previous events that brought down Richard Nixon, it was the subsequent cover-up and - that infamous phrase - "the appearance of impropriety."

ABC's Brian Ross, blogging at ABC's The Blotter, has an exclusive report with details of Foley's instant messages with the page. Ross's investigative team also reveals that Foley's predilection for male pages was not unknown, quoting one (anonymous) page as saying that his class of pages was warned about Foley.

This goes way WAY beyond bad judgment. As Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent and now ABC News consultant, says in the above-linked story, "What it amounts to is serious - both state and federal violations that could potentially get you a number of years."

The San Francisco Chronicle's online story (via AP) about the resignation of Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) suggests the House leadership may have known about the problem nearly a year ago.

The page worked for Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., who said Friday that when he learned of the e-mail exchanges 10 to 11 months ago, he called the teen's parents. Alexander told the Ruston Daily Leader, "We also notified the House leadership that there might be a potential problem," a reference to the House's Republican leaders.

I hate to use an old Democrat line, but it's actually appropriate here: What did the Republican House leadership know and when did they know it? I don't for a moment think that Denny Hastert et al would cover for a child molester, but if they knew of rumors and reports and the complaint to Rep. Alexander, and did nothing, Rep. Foley's resignation should not be the only one being read by the clerk of the House.

Now, I'm not blind to the suspicious timing (less than two months before an important Congressional election), and I'm aware of the reputation of the AP / SF Chronicle / ABC News for being, shall we say, less than fair to Republicans. But there seems to be an awful lot of smoke in the room for there to be no fire.

Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) has submitted his resignation to House Speaker Denny Hastert after being caught up in an exchange of e-mails and instant message, some sexually oriented, with male Congressional pages under the age of 18.

ABC's The Blogger has been all over this story, beginning with e-mails to a single page, and then continuing to multiple messages to multiple pages with a sexual orientation.

If a Representative taking advantage of their position of power for nefarious purposes with a minor isn't bad enough, Foley was the chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children.

Seems like the best thing he did to help exploited children was to resign. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Sometimes you find the best / most entertaining information in the least likely places.

I was reading a Q&A session on the New York Times website with Bill McDonald, obituaries editor at the Old Gray Lady. (Wonder if he has the OGL's obit ready yet?) In answer to a reader's question about whether or not Times staffers get preference for an OGL obit when they die, McDonald had this to say:

"One of the worst things a news organization can be accused of is maintaining a double standard. If you're guilty of that, your credibility is gone." (Bill McDonald, Talk to the Newsroom, page 2 of 9.)

Irony, sweet irony, thy name (for today, anyway) is Bill McDonald.

The Senate race in Virginia gets darker and darker (no pun intended), with the Webb campaign's minions now alleging that Senator George Allen used the N-word repeatedly while in college, and put a dead deer's head in the mailbox of a black family. Allegations were made by a former teammate and by political science professor and talking head Larry Sabato.

The Allen campaign released statements from four of Allen's college teammates, all of whom denied that Allen made any comments of the nature alleged. Of course, the Associated Press story puts the denial in the fourth paragraph down, with no details.

What the Associated Press failed to put in its story is that both of the people making the N-word allegations - Dr. Ken Shelton, a radiologist in Hendersonville, NC, and Sabato, head of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics - have donated to Democratic candidates in the past, with neither one ever having given to a Republican candidate, committee, or cause.

According to the Federal Election Commission's searchable database for individual contributions, Dr. Shelton has given two donations totalling $700 to Sam Neill, a Democratic House candidate from North Carolina in 2000 ($500 on 2/16/2000 and $200 on 9/26/2000). Sabato gave $500 on 5/21/1999 to James D. Matheson, a Democratic House candidate from Utah.

I have no particular love for Senator Allen - at best, he's been an undistinguished Senator, and his campaign has resembled a seismograph reading - up, down, up, down, up, down. But he deserves a fair shot - something he, and no Republican, will get from the MSM.

Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz reports that former Clinton Administration officials are protesting the mini-series (which most of them haven't see yet), using terms like false, defamatory, misrepresentative, and misleading:


Side note: This preemptive strike is the strongest action Clinton Administration officials have taken against anything remotely related to Osama bin Laden since - well, since they were actually in power.

Hugh Hewitt writes eloquently today on the kerfluffle between ABC and the Clintonistas, both in his blog post on The Clinton Censors, and in his Townhall column, Why Does the Left Hate "The Path to 9/11"?. Also, Hugh had Cyril Nowrasteh, the writer/producer of the mini-series, as his guest on Wednesday's program; unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be a transcript posted at RadioBlogger (or anywhere else) but Hugh does write about the conversation today.

Judging by the response of the Clintonistas, the movie MUST be accurate - or at least unflattering to them. Unfortunately for them, a 4-hour mini-series is too big to stuff down Sandy Berger's pants.

Kudos to Hugh Hewitt for linking to an excellent post by Carol Platt Liebau (another convert to Townhall.com, by the way) regarding Florida Senate candidate Katherine Harris' playing into the Left's prejudices of Christians by calling for, in essence, a theocracy.

Carol does a nice job in very short order of dissecting the lie of separation of church and state and pointing out the left's hypocritical (although perhaps politically convenient) stereotypes of people of faith on the right. She is very thorough in showing the offensiveness and the danger of Katherine Harris' comments, and really sums up the issue in the last two paragraphs of her column:

By appealing to religious prejudice, singling out Christians as the only lawmakers who won’t “legislate sin” and insisting that America was not founded as a “nation of secular laws,” Rep. Harris distorts the true meaning of both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. In doing so, she misrepresents the enduring principles that have allowed America to remain a religious country, without being a theocratic one.

Ultimately, Katherine Harris has not only hurt her own political cause – she’s handed another weapon to those who seek to rouse public suspicion against believers and eliminate every religious influence from public life.

Cross-posted to Ordinary Everyday Christian.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's "Republican" Governor, this week signed SB 1441 into law, a bill which will in effect end religious freedom in California.

Before you say, "Oh, that's just overblown bull," let's see what SB 1441 does. Authored by lesbian Democratic State Senator Sheila Kuhl, the "Nondiscrimination in State Programs and Activities Act" bans "discrimination" based on sexual orientation and/or gender identification in state-operated or state-funded programs. Or, as the GayRightsWatch blog describes it, "Basically, if you want to receive state funding you can't be bigoted, ass-backwards and pleasured by your ignorance and hate any longer."

The Pacific Justice Institute's view is more rational than the gay lobby's, and also more depressing: "This provision appears to be designed to stop any state funding, contracts or grants from going to religious institutions or nonprofits, such as inner-city ministries and religious schools, which hold traditional or Biblical opposition to homosexuality or transgender behavior."

The possibilities boggle the mind.

• The State of California could deny Cal-Grant educational funds to a student attending a religious school (University of San Diego, Azusa Pacific University, and Fresno Pacific University, for example), depending on the associated denomination's position on homosexuality.
• We could see state funds denied to rescue missions and religious social service organizations.
• We could see local fire, police, and other agencies prohibited from providing services to religious facilities, schools, and religiously-oriented nonprofits.
• Professing Christians could be denied state employment or benefits.
• The Franchise Tax Board could deny tax-deductibility for donations to churches, temples, mosques, and non-profits that do not take the government-approved position on sexuality.
• Libraries receiving state funds could be directed to remove the Bible and other "non-compliant" books from their shelves.

How extreme the enforcement of SB 1441 will be is unknown at this time. It's entirely possible that the implementing regulations which will be crafted by the Schwarzenegger (or Angelides) administration next year will tamper down some of the more radical possibilities. We are likely to see court challenges from congregations, religious-oriented schools, and other organizations (Pacific Justice Institute, American Center for Law & Justice, Thomas More Center, Alliance Defense Fund, etc.).

Worst case scenario? We've just seen the end to religious freedom in the State of California. Or, as Linda Kimball puts it in the title of her Sierra Times column, "America's Second Civil War."