Hastert's Speakership: One Step Closer to the Grave

Is Denny Hastert at war with his own staff? It certainly seems that way. Hastert held a makeshift press conference in Aurora, Illinois, today, in which he placed any potential blame in the handling of the Foley affair squarely on his staff.

I understood what my staff told me, and I think from that response, they’ve handled it as well as they should. However, in 20/20 hindsight, probably you could do everything a little bit better. . . . If they did cover something up, they should not continue to have their jobs.

His claim is that he knew nothing, and if anybody on his staff knew anything, they sure didn't tell him. He doesn't get into the fact that it's his responsibility to know what his staff knows and to find out if he doesn't know. He's now on record as willing to sacrifice his staff because he didn't live up to his own responsibility.

And as to the staff? Just Hastert's attitude alone suggests that there's no love lost, but at least somebody's passive-aggressively fighting back. The on-camera presser was held with a lovely graveyard as the backdrop. Think Progress has the video (as well as the transcript that I quoted above). It's a good thing today's Republican party doesn't believe in symbols and metaphors. I just hope Scott Palmer has been polishing his resume. (By the way, I stumbled on this profile of Parker from Sunday's edition of his hometown paper, the Aurora Beacon News.)