Ditto
by David Benzion · 10/04/2006 6:36 amTony Blankley, The Washington Times:
Yesterday, the lead editorial of The Washington Times called for House Speaker Denny Hastert to resign his speakership immediately. I am the editor of the editorial page. Several loyal Republicans and conservatives around the country strongly disagreed with that judgment and thought we were caving to Democratic Party and liberal media pressure and dirty tricks.
I couldn’t disagree with my fellow conservatives and Republicans more. I have been an active and loyal Republican for more than 40 years (starting as a youth coordinator for Barry Goldwater in 1964, campaigning for Ronald Reagan for governor and president, serving in the Reagan White House for six years and as Newt Gingrich’s press secretary from 1990 to 1997, among other Republican campaigns and jobs).
I believe in and have regularly fought the partisan fight to the bitter end — except when the position is ethically indefensible.
In this case, defending Denny Hastert’s decisions is ethically wrong, would undermine our party’s commitment to the defense of traditional moral values and is politically stupid in the bargain.
I have known Denny for almost two decades. He is an exceedingly decent man and a hard worker for conservative Republican values and politics. But we cannot deny the fact that he had a sustained lapse of good judgment. The fact that he reportedly has been quite ill for some time may be an explanation — but not an excuse.
Forget the later hideous text messages. When the speaker was told that Mark Foley had sent that first e-mail — the “overly friendly” one that we all saw last Friday — he had to be either obtuse or on notice of the problem. Any father of a young man who saw such an e-mail sent to his son would rightly be disposed to immediately punch out Mr. Foley and warn him to keep away from his son, and then he would call the police. It was common knowledge that Mr. Foley was gay. If he had been straight and asked for a 16-year-old girl’s photo, any sensible person would have concluded the same thing.
But the fact that, according to my best sources in the House Republicans, Mr. Hastert never informed any Democrats of the matter (even on the page oversight board), unambiguously suggests that he knew what was up. Thus began the cover-up. Of course he knew what the Democrats would do with the information. But not only is this not a Democratic Party dirty trick (the facts are real, not made up), but Mr. Hastert had a moral duty to do all in his power to make sure there would not be more victims of Mr. Foley’s alleged sexual predation — or clear potential for such.
The fact that Democrats might also cover up such facts is just another reason why I am a Republican. Republicans do stand for sound moral values.
And if it is unfair that Democratic voters often give their politicians a pass on such matters (e.g. former Massachusetts Democratic congressman Gerry Studds got re-elected by his liberal voters after a similar incident was made public), that is just the price we have to pay in this wicked world for holding fast to our values and principles. If virtue were profitable, the whole world would be virtuous.
How in the world will Republicans be able to champion our values in the future if we weasel and excuse the cover-up of such conduct in one of our own? We have more to protect than the next election, we have our historic reputation among more than half the country for our principles.
It has been excruciating watching Republicans on television in the last few days grimly and ineffectively trying to defend Mr. Hastert. Better to take a stand on principle, and elect a new speaker for the last three months (the retiring Henry Hyde, a man of principle who is held in esteem on both sides of the aisle, would be ideal). We may or may not take a political hit, but better to go to the electorate with our heads held high for doing the right thing, than to slink around like a pack of phonies.
But this may end up being embarrassing to the Democrats, too. It is implausible that ABC got a hold of this information on their own and just happened to broadcast it on the last day of the congressional session.
While I don’t have any proof, I will be amazed if Democratic operatives and at least a few Democratic congressmen didn’t know about this and fed it to the media through various obscure blogs and to ABC. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) (just like the National Republican Congressional Committee) is in the business of disseminating negative information before elections, among other things.
It will be interesting to see what the FBI finds in the DCCC e-mail and files. It may well turn out that the Democrats also knew about Mr. Foley and the pages and held it back from the FBI for crass partisan purposes.
But whatever the Democrats did or didn’t do, we Republicans can only be responsible for our own conduct and conscience.
Although the hour is late, it is never too late to do the right thing. At this point, there is nothing left worth defending but our honor. And who knows, as an added bonus, it might also be the politically smart thing to do. But either way, it is the right thing.
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Shakey, if you’re reading this, it’s people like this who give me hope that we’ll be able to return the Republican party to the principles that they’re supposed to stand for…
I think we have to admit that neither party is the party of morality or family values anymore. I talked to a ghood friend of mine yesterday who is a staunch conservative and we agreed on one thing. There are no statesmen or patriots in politics anymore. Our elected government now consists of very partisan idealogues on both sides who are usually driven by very narrow single minded issues that don’t take the wishes of the public into account. The main interest of elected politicians now is perpetuation of power, not the good of the country.
Ditto.
I think I’ve reached the same conclusion as Smacktle. Like many alcoholics, the Republican party will have to hit rock bottom before it mends itself.
Agreed there, but I wonder if we aren’t too far along in our fall towards rock bottom to avoid that political hit. I tend to believe that such a hit would have a cleansing effect at this point, but that’s just my optimism coming through. The time is right for conservatives to purge the Republican party of phonies.
It will be interesting to see what the FBI finds
Why yes, Mr. Blankley, it will!
Blankley overreacted hysterically yesterday without much in the way of facts, and now he’s trying to rationalize it with what basically amounts to an argument, “I’m a good Republican, really!”
The fact remains that there’s no evidence of a coverup, and excitable people really need to calm down and let the facts come in before shrieking “resign, resign!” or “culture of corruption!” or “I can one up you on Republican loyalty and loyalty to the Almighty Himself!”
I expect emotional overreaction from partisans in the opposition. I don’t expect it from more sensible people in charge of important conservative editorial pages.
I called Dan Patrick’s show yesterday and expressed the same sentiment. I likened this scandal to that of the Catholic Church. From the Pope on down, the Catholic Church had the opportunity to immediately condemn the behavior of its priests and announce a zero tolerance policy with regard to any and all priests involved in any sort of immoral sexual behavior. They should have immediately removed any and all perpetrators regardless of the short term consequences. What, in fact, resulted was a complete lack of leadership from the one institution that should have unequivocally protected the moral foundation of its faith. However, they chose to sweep the issue under the rug and they have been dealing with that mistake ever since. Again, these folks could all use a lesson from the Tylenol drug tampering case several years ago. The top management handled that situation flawlessly and restored their brand in doing so. The Catholic Church has suffered irreparable harm due to its lack of leadership and so too, will the Republican Party.
I listened to Edd’s show this morning, he is right there is a double standard when dealing with Democrats and Republicans but that is a good thing. The Reagan Republicans set those standards and were elected on those standards. They are standards that are held above others like the Democrats. Unfortunately, the current bunch of Republicans (aka “rinos”) have lowered their standards to those of the Democrats. There needs to be a purging of those like Foley who dawned Republican clothing because it was the chic thing to do to get elected to office but who are closet Democrats (or at least in their actions). I guess if that means taken a few election defeats, then so be it—-at least the Republicans will be standing on principle!!!!!
/fixed the shrieking
Right on! If we accept Hastert’s excuse that they were just “overly friendly” emails then we’re no better than Democrats. This is not a hysterical overreaction. Hastert sat on information that put children at risk.
One issue about this that really upsets me is Foleys excuses that “I’m an alcoholic and need to deal with it” Alcohol did not cause this, Alcohol did not make him send dirty e-mails and text messages to children. His lifestyle caused this.
He needs to face facts, his lifestyle is sick and he is a pervert! Alcohol may have emboldened him but it did not make him a pervert!
One issue about this that really upsets me is Foleys excuses that “I’m an alcoholic and need to deal with it” Alcohol did not cause this, Alcohol did not make him send dirty e-mails and text messages to children. His lifestyle caused this.
He needs to face facts, his lifestyle is sick and he is a pervert! Alcohol may have emboldened him but it did not make him a pervert!
why did my message post twice?
You now work for us, Definitely Blonde.
I have no problem with throwing Foley out of the congress. What Foley did was wrong and it took way too long to get him out.
I reserve my opinion on who else should go until the FACTS are in.
I see no problem with pointing out the HYPOCRITS in the Democrat party who are claim to be outraged at Foley’s behavior. We all know if Foley had been a Democrat these same outraged people would have been supporting him and in fact he would not even had to resign his seat.
I see a lot of bumper stickers that claim “real men” do this, that or the other. Real men know right from wrong and aren’t afraid to publicly condemn wrong, regardless of what “specal interest” group it may offend. Our culture hasn’t lost its moral compass - the secular, “anything goes” crowd ripped it out of the console and threw it overboard. Then, when confronted with a pea soup fog of perversion, no one seems to know how to chart the right course. Adults attempting to seduce minors is wrong, period. For that matter, much older adults attempting to seduce young adults is wrong(refer to Clinton Presidency). Yes, Mr. Foley, you are a pedophile. No parsing of words needed.
First, I’m certainly no fan of Hastert. I believe he has been much less than ideal as a leader of the GOP in the House.
However, (and I’ve read everything I can find on the whole Foley scandal since Sunday) I haven’t read anything yet that leads me to believe he should resign over this.
I don’t see cover up. I see that it appeared to be a non-scandal based on the information they had AT THE TIME. Everyone seems to be not recognizing the difference between the e-mails and the IM’s. Either that or they are refusing to acknowledge the difference.
As I understand it, the FBI looked at the e-mails and also declined to investigate further.
Why do we (Republicans) automatically want to throw everyone to the wolves over every little issue? If Hastert knew about the IM’s before they became public, that would be a completely different story.
To Dennis Hastert…let your conscience be your guide if you have one. To Foley…you are a very sick individual and don’t use alcohol as an excuse for being a pedophile.
Hous bin Pharteen,
I see and acknowledge your point about IMs vs e-mails. The most basic problem for me though, is that I don’t believe I’m represented by the Republican party any longer. The Foley scandal is just another reinforcement of that belief. Lawrence C. stated it very well in #14. I posted this comment elsewhere, and I believe it illustrates the dilemma that I and a lot of other voters face:
At this point I see a lot of election year dodging going on, but very little concern from Republicans in the way of the moral/ethical problems this latest scandal entails. Frankly, mostly what I see is a lot of “but Democrats get a pass” style whining.
While it is certainly true that Democrats get a pass, I’m a lot more concerned about the party I do vote for than the party I don’t vote for. I truly hope Republicans can understand that before they completely erode the base that elected them.
#17 DRD,
I hear you. I’ve been pretty pissed at Rep leadership for a long time.
But my dad used to tell me, “You don’t cut off your nose just to spite your face.”
The time to deal with the issues you raise is during primaries and precinct meetings, not the general election.
#18 HbP,
There’s the rub, huh? Been through the primaries again and again and this is still what we get. I know there’s no easy solution. It’s just frustrating to watch the de-conservatization of the Republican party.
#17
The Republicans may have handled this poorly, and cerntainly they did not handle as fast as I would have liked. Foley is pervert and I am glad he is gone.
Regardless, it is not whinning to point out the hypocritical electioneering democrats that are stomping each other to get to a microphone in order to express there “moral outrage” and blame all Republicans for the perverted acts of one man.
As long as the democrats want to fake outrage over this matter, it is proper to point out what fakes they are.
# 12 - cool, so is there a paycheck involved with working for you? Or is it like where I work now?
DB,
The wonderful thing about working for the Dept. of Redundancy Dept. is that you always get two checks. The bad thing is that 0 X 2 still equals 0.
For the one-hundreth time, we need to can the weepublican party and Demoncrats and start anew with The Conservative Party of the USA and the Liberal Party of anywhere but the USA.
Then most of us could vote for people who hold the same values, and act on those values.
We have all heard the political speak when dodging the issue. I am not a Hastert fan but he clearly proclaims he knew nothing of the sleezier side of this and did deal with Foley after learning of the original e-mail. I believe him, seems to be confronting it head on.
Should red flags have gone up, yes. If that was my son, would I be pi$$ed, yes. It is still not enough to resign, it was bad judgement. They did the right thing getting the scumbag out, thats enough for me.
Pedophile is one of the few words we have left with any stigma. The word should be reserved for the evil who commit these acts on the truly innocent, our small children.
The victim in this case was a minor, not a child. Let us not dilute dispicable acts by human debris in making our points here, please.