Having a Darth Cheney public statement of support is essentially the Kiss of Death for any GOP politico. Behind the scenes, Hastert's probably already been offered a cushy parachute into Halliburton...too bad it won't be in Iraq.

1. The talk of Rep. Hastert "stepping down" means resigning as Speaker of the House, no? Is there any talk of Hastert leaving Congress altogether?

2. I wish we had not banned fat jokes in this discussion, in view of the fact that Cheney used the word "huge" when he was discussing Speaker Hastert.

Yeah, there were a couple of people who objected to fat jokes earlier, so before we get off this tack, here's one more.

Carrying on with the "Darth Cheney" concept, another Star Wars image comes insistently to mind. Does anyone else think "Jabba the Hutt" whenever Denny Hastert lumbers on camera in a news report?

Ha! Now I've done it! None of you will be able to think of anything else for days to come. This is worse than the tune "It's a Small World After All".

The difficulty for Denny Hastert is that he really can't afford a scandal right now.

See, Hastert has already decided to resign and retire, so he can be named ambassador to Japan.

But he has to resign on his own terms, not under a cloud like the institutionalized pederasty of the GOP.

The one point that has yet to be pushed, is how this reflects on the homeland security front. Are the GOP telling us that the US security system isnt good enough to pick up a seriously compromised candidate? In recent history, sexual aberations have been the singel most effective recruitment-method for foreign spies. If the politicans are to be allowed to scrutininze every common person in the name of the war on terror, one should assume that they keep a pretty hard watch one the ones with acess to serious intelligence material. Yet none of them have known anything about the pedophile tendencies of the congressman? Come on, give us a break. OF COURSE THEY KNEW. Its propably been the armbreaker for the heavy guys when they needed him to vote against his own conscious. Thats how politics are really played.

You, the few remaining good people of the US should not hunt Foley as the primary target, you should hunt hypocricy and corruption instead. The democratic party seems, unfortunetly, for the same f#$/&ng reason totally unwilling to go on the offensive against the republicans, wich leads you to wonder how many skeletons are in the democrats closets that Cheney & the intelligence-crews know about. They should be baying for blood, hiring hit-teams, spending money on bringing the bastards down (Where are the hired mercenaries of the left, by the way? Where are the spin-schools for liberals? You got all the filmstars, make them lay down som cash.)

As stated earlier, the US will go down in history as the empire who collapsed into internal corruption exactly 10 times fastet than its image, the Roman. Lets just hope you dont kill us all.

If Bush & Cheney are for him, who can be against him?

The longer he stays, the more the GOP has to defend him, the longer this story stays in the press. Excellent...

1. Did anyone else hear the interview with a Congressman (didn't catch his name) on Monday or Tueday morning on The Bill Press Show on Air America? He said that there's much more to come related to this Foley scandal and implied that there was/is a network of people involved. It's hard to tell, in retrospect, if by "network" the Congressman was talking about a network of people covering-up Foley's deeds or a network of people committing similar offenses. Curious to know if there's been any follow-up.

2. I found Denny Hastert's choice of words slightly disturbing in the quote several items ago in War Room. He refers to "The base" (the English translation of al-Qaida) several times (an odd word choice) and uses the phrase "see this thing blow up." It's certainly fair to call the following questions conspiracy-theorizingly nut-jobbish (say that five times fast), but (i) is he perhaps signaling that now is the time for an October surprise? Or (ii), could Hastert be signaling that he's not prepared to take a fall for Foley considering how much he knows about what went on behind the scenes both before and after 9/11? Personally, I think these people are capable of anything.

<<< "I think the base has to realize after a while, who knew about it? Who knew what, when?" Hastert said. "When the 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." >>>

should take a closer look as to what happens when you continue to lie about something bad that happened. Hastert has taken a page from the Cheney cook book of deceit. Perhaps Cheney has no other alternative but to support people who come from the same dark mold.

> Does anyone else think "Jabba the Hutt" whenever Denny Hastert lumbers on camera in a news report?

More like Pizza the Hutt....

Hastert: Hastert said. "When the 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."

Say what? How the hell did George Soros get dragged into this? And ABC is—correct me if I'm wrong (rhetorical)—the same leftist fringe organization that very recently aired The Path to 9/11, that piece of communist historical revisionism that blamed Bush for all the terrorism. Yes, we're living in Bizarro World. Or at least Hastert is.

Surely it's all the liberals' fault. I'm sure Barbara Streisand and Tim Robbins must have been involved too, I'm just trying to figure out what nefarious role they played. Let me get back to you on that.

I don't think ABC will do much to reveal this situation rather they will cover it up. Remember interlocking directorates from business class.

Look up the relationships between Robertson, ABC and Disney. Their all a bunch of scum.