In Hour of Need, Hastert Turns to — Nut-Job Evangelist?

You’re House Speaker Dennis Hastert. You’re up to your wattle in the recriminations and repercussions of the Foley page scandal. You probably lost whatever chance you had of keeping your party in the majority. You’re trying to save your own skin, much less the skins of your loyal staff, while multiple investigations are digging into your side about who knew what, when, and what they did or didn’t do about it.

So you decide to take a meeting with a globe-hopping, PR-happy evangelist who (if accounts can be believed) faked his own leper colony?

After the 30-minute meeting between Hastert and Indian-by-way-of-Houston Christian evangelist K.A. Paul today, Hastert had no comment for the press. Paul, however, was downright chatty.

“I am humbled with his humility and simplicity,” Paul told the Associated Press. (In the past, Paul has relied on the work of public relations firm Rubenstein Associates, who has also handled Rupert Murdoch and David Letterman. The firm says it no longer represents him.)

Paul was trying to get Hastert to step down, he told AP. “We don’t want the Foley scandal when we have 100 more important things to do.”

Perhaps that’s true. But why did Hastert give a guy like Paul half an hour of face time to hear what plenty of other people have been more than happy to tell him?

According to a June 2006 article from the Houston Press, Paul has plenty of history to be wary of, including:

– claiming another minister’s leper colony as his own, and videotaping said lepers for a promotional video

– transporting children in an airplane one former crew member called a “flying death trap”

– leaving a trail of unpaid bills for the plane’s fuel and maintenance

– interfering with a murder investigation in India, earning the wrath of that country’s National Council of Churches

– fleeing to the United States from India after nine of his American volunteers were arrested and thrown in prison

– abandoning an 11-year-old girl after checking her into a hospital

But he also appears to have strange connections — and a good deal of money. Anybody know more about the guy, or why Hastert might agree to meet with him?