Hastert: Should He Stay or Should He Go?

[babylonsister]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rob_kall_061004_hastert_3a_should_he_s.htm

October 4, 2006 at 11:30:10

Hastert: Should He Stay or Should He Go?

by Rob Kall

http://www.opednews.com



Will dumping Hastert send a message that will hurt the Republicans? Or will keeping him send a worse message that they can't police their own, they refuse to confront their problems, their corruption, their failures?

snip//

In Hastert's Illinois 14th district, his Democratic opponent, John Laesch's campaign has been inundated with phone calls and emails from new volunteers and what had seemed to be a daunting race against a massively better funded opponent is looking better and better. Laesch, a veteran who served in the middle east, is seeing the campaign take off, with a big jump in campaign contributions over the weekend and a flock of mainstream media interviews including CNN, CBS, NPR, Washington Times, Ed Schultz...

Up until recently, Hastert had refused to debate Laesch. The way things are going, Hastert may be begging Laesch for debates, if the beleaguered congressman even stays in the race.

If the Republican leadership decides to allow Hastert to stay, they'll be setting up the Dems with a beautifully ugly target. Hastert, who has been able to stay in the background most of the time, really is an ugly politician, whose face alone is a real liability. And when he starts talking, he sound stupid, nasty, and like the sterotypical back-room, cigar smoking politician Americans have grown to despise.

If the intensity of the media coverage continues even a few more days, Hastert's failure to do his job, his cover-up of the internet sexual predatiobns of Foley could collapse the whole republican termite hive down.

[RobertSeattle]

1. Fox Headline will be

Speaker Hastert (D-IL) Resigns

[babylonsister]

4. Yep, I think you've got it! nt

[pkz]

2. he's got no credibility

has to go. if the Breaking News is legit and he was informed three f'in years ago? just think about all the kids he put at risk, and the Dem sponsored kids weren't even given a head ups?
Disgusting...and all in the name of preserving the moral high ground of grand ole party.

Italian horns shot at them all.

[babylonsister]

3. Agree! And welcome to DU, pkz! nt

[notadmblnd]

5. if he stays there will be trouble..... do, da doda doda do..

if he goes there will be double..... do, da doda doda do..

Can't remember the rest of the song. But it's the first thing I though of.

[DaveinMD]

6. I hope he stays a while

that will help us more.

[subterranean]

7. I say let him stay

Keeping him out there as the face of the Republican Congress can only help our cause.

But even if he resigns, it still makes them look bad.

[gratuitous]

8. C'mon Denny, FIGHT!

You didn't coach your wrestlers to give up when they were faced with overwhelming odds, did you Mr. Hastert? Now's no time to be quitting, just because all your closest lieutenants are contradicting everything you say. And just because you didn't want to know how bad the Foley situation was, is that any reason you shouldn't cling to leadership? You've got the experience Washington needs right now to deal with scandal after scandal, like Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, and now Mark Foley. Who knows what else is lurking in your caucus that will need your practiced hand to guide it through the scandal-infested waters? And is it really your fault that all this is coming out now and that much of it has happened on your watch?

Okay, maybe it is. But FIGHT Denny! Fight, buddy! Keep your overfed face in front of every camera you can find, so that the voters will connect it with the figurative pigs at the trough in Washington every chance they get.

Don't let us down now.