I've received several requests for The List (see below), but I haven't passed it on. And a few emails have come in with the same sort of query: is So-and-So who works for Senator So-and-So on the list? I haven't answered such questions. But a reporter told me that The List is in other hands. He was told by an official at the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights lobby, that it had a copy. The HRC official refused to talk about it, though. What's intriguing is that there is a Republican strategy to find scapegoats--other than House Speaker Denny Hastert, of course--and the two leading candidates seem to be Democrats (for somehow making this scandal a scandal) and gay Republicans (for presumably protecting the page-pursuing Mark Foley). From what I can tell, some of these gay GOPers are fighting back. I cannot say too much about this without disclosing more than I should about certain individuals. But there does seem to be a conflict brewing within Republican circles between straight cons and gay GOPers. I'm wondering how nasty this will become and if it will become public. Should that occur, things could get rather ugly.
Meanwhile, Hastert is increasing the odds that this sordid affair will continue on. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune he defiantly proclaimed he's not going anywhere. His resignation, he said, "is exactly what our opponents would like to have happen--that I'd fold my tent and others would fold our tent and they would sweep the House." Yes, his position is that he should base his decision not on what's right, but what's politically beneficial. And in classic caught-in-the-act fashion, he blamed others: "When the [GOP] base finds out who's feeding this monster, they're not going to be happy. The people who want to see this thing blow up are ABC News and a lot of Democratic operatives, people funded by George Soros." He claimed that political operatives aligned with Bill Clinton knew about the Foley business and perhaps orchestrated the disclosure in the weeks before the congressional elections. But, as the newspaper noted, "he offered no hard proof."
This is a sign that Hastert is becoming unhinged. He's lashing out at his political enemies (real and imagined) and not accepting full responsibility for his own screw-ups. He's going to have a hard time convincing the public that the real villian in the page scandal is George Soros and unnamed operatives (who, if they did anything, disclosed accurate information about GOP malfeasance and nonfeasance.) After all, Foley's former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, now says he gave Hastert's office a warning about Foley's conduct sometime between 2002 and 2004.
Last night a person who covers Capitol Hill told me that Hastert would be out within a week. But Hastert is indicating he's digging his nails into the Speaker's desk. That's good news for Democrats and bad news for GOPers. There's blood in the water. And Hastert is signaling he'd rather bleed further than leave. This won't be pretty.
By the way, sorry if you had trouble with this site yesterday. Matt Drudge linked to the entry about The List and that overloaded our server, forcing a hour-long shutdown. But my web wizards quickly bought more server space and got the site back up. It's great to get all that traffic. But it's going to cost me. And the comments section is still down. I've been overwhelmed with other matters, and we're probably going to have to come up with a new system to prevent hackers from shutting down the site again. Thanks for sticking with us.
Posted by David Corn at October 5, 2006 10:38 AM
