Well, some stories develop pretty quickly, don’t they?
So let’s take stock of where we are. For the last four or five days Speaker Hastert and the entire House GOP leadership have been staking their positions on this story: They were notified of some inappropriate but ambiguous emails in late 2005. They addressed the matter with Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL). They had no idea that the underlying truth was as scandalous as what was revealed last Friday. Whether Hastert himself knew about that individual incident or his staff is sort of sub-codicil of the basic line.
Now, one of key figures in the scandal, Kirk Fordham, who was Foley’s longtime Chief of Staff and until today Rep. Tom Reynolds’ chief of staff, has been fired. And he’s come out and said, no, the whole leadership story is a lie. Fordham says he repeatedly told Hastert’s then-Chief of Staff Scott Palmer as far back as 2003 that there was a problem with Foley and the pages. And nothing was ever done.
So, two years before the date everyone’s been focusing on back in 2005. We’re not at parsing little details.
They staked everything on a story. And the story was apparently pure fiction.
Unless Hastert and Co. can thoroughly discredit Fordham in the next few hours (and oh are they going to try) I’d figure Hastert is gone by this time tomorrow if not sooner. And just as a capital ship generates a giant whirlpool as it founders and disappears into the sea, I’m sure he’ll be taking several with him.
