On the Foley fallout

A statement from the only Democrat on the House Page Board, Dale Kildee (MI) regarding Dennis Hastert's continuing efforts to block any real investigation of the House leadership's role in the Foley scandal:

In my 21 years as a Member of the House Page Board, every decision has been made on not just a bi-partisan basis but on a non-partisan basis, with our main concern always being the safety and wellbeing of the young teenagers who serve the U.S. House as pages.

I was outraged to learn that the House Republican leadership kept to itself the knowledge of Mr. Foley's despicable behavior toward the House Pages.

I am now equally outraged to learn that Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert announced today that there will be changes in the policies of the House Page program. Once again, I was not informed of the meeting today, nor was I consulted in any way about any proposed changes.

And once again, the House Republican leadership is following the same pattern of unilateral decision-making that caused this problem in the first place in the Mark Foley issue. Speaker Hastert's announcement this afternoon is yet another example of the House Republican leadership being more concerned with finding political cover for themselves than with the safety and wellbeing of the House pages.

Frankly, I'm not as convinced that this is going to be the Republican take-down that many bloggers seem to think. It should be, of course, but the press is so used to parroting the Republican talking points on everything else, I can't believe they won't do this here. "Hastert's pushing for an investigation," the press will say even as he blocks any investigation. "The Democrats let their sex offenders off scott free," they'll say. "It's just one bad apple in the barrel," they'll say. "Why should the House leadership have played any role, they only heard unconfirmed rumors," they'll say.

And, the whole thing will die down and go away.

We'll see. I hope I'm wrong, but I've seen the press do this too many times before. Just look what the NY Times did this morning. It's lead article was a "he was a really nice guy" piece about Foley, and also above the fold was an article painting John Murtha as one of the money changers in the temple. I guess only Jeeeeesus (that's the Jesus of the far right) can throw him out.