HOME | BIO | MUSIC | JOURNEYS BY DJ | STUDIO BLOG | POLITICAL BLOG | BOOKING INFO | CONTACT

This thing is spinning out of control so quickly I can barely keep up. I don't really have the time to accurately summarize all this right now, so in no particular order, here are a few stories you shouldn't miss...

First off, Speaker Hastert. Although he's issued, and at times read from in front of the cameras, several statements on this whole mess, until now he hasn't actually answered any questions. Given the way his story has been changing minute by minute, that probably wasn't a bad strategy. That, of course, assumes he has a strategy. As this interview makes abundantly clear, however, lack of a coherent story or strategy is the least of his deficiencies. ThinkProgress has the video. Here's the relevant part of the transcript:

HASTERT: First I was really aware of this was last Friday when it happened, and all of a sudden the press came out and said that there were these e-mails that were from 2003, I guess, and congressman Foley resigned. That’s when I learned of it at that point.

REPORTER: All right, but I thought that you were also notified - I mean, Tom Reynolds said that he spoke with you about it last spring.

HASTERT: You know, I don’t recall Reynolds talking to me about that. If he did, he brought it in with a whole stack of things, and I think if he would have had that discussion, he would have said it was also resolved because my understanding now that it was resolved at that point. The family had gotten what it wanted to get.

REPORTER: I mean, Congressman Reynolds put out a statement on Saturday saying that he told you in the spring. Do you think he’s lying?

HASTERT: No, I’m not saying. I just don’t recall him telling me that. If he would have told me that, he would have told me that in the context of maybe a half a dozen or a dozen other things. I don’t remember that.

REPORTER: Other allegations of improper e-mails?

HASTERT: No, just other things that might have affected campaigns.

REPORTER: Ok. This is the kind of thing, I gotta tell you, if somebody told me that a senior congressman was sending, perhaps, over-friendly e-mails to a 16-year-old page, I’d remember.

HASTERT: I’m just saying that I don’t remember him telling me that.

Hastert's first official, on the record, in front of the cameras and the world, excuse is that when this was brought to his attention, it was just one of a bunch of campaign-related items under discussion, and that as a result, he has no recollection of the conversation.

He's had an entire weekend to come up with an excuse, and this is the best he can do? Are you kidding me? Seriously? That is so pathetically sad I'm at a loss for words.

But Hastert has bigger problems than his inability to lie well. It seems members of his own party have absolutely no interest whatsoever in covering for him.

It's one thing when the Democratic member of the 3 seat board overseeing House pages alleges a politically motivated cover-up. But it is another thing entirely when one of the two Republican members, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) begins doing so. Take a look (via Kos, AmericaBlog):

Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., says she was not told about suggestive e-mails that a Florida congressman sent to a 16-year-old former Capitol page, even though she is one of three representatives who oversee the page program[...]

Several high-ranking House Republicans have known about the e-mails for months, including Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., chairman of the House Page Board.

Late last year, Shimkus met with Foley about the e-mails. But Shimkus never told Capito or the board's other member, Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Mich., about them until Friday, according to all three.

"There's only three of us on the page board. I feel that we should have been informed," Capito said. "I'm absolutely disgusted by what I'm hearing. I was caught totally unaware."

Foley sent the e-mails to a former page from Louisiana about one year ago. Foley wrote, "send me an email pic of you as well" and "what do you want for your birthday coming up?" according to ABC News.

Capito said she would have been very concerned if she had read those e-mails.

"I don't think it would pass the sniff test," she said. "Even asking those questions -- that is not normal between a 52-year-old adult and a 16-year-old. It's not like they're family friends or anything. I think it would raise some serious questions. But I wasn't given that opportunity."

This is an example of one of the oft-forgotten meanings of the phrase "all politics is local." Capito's local interests, distancing herself from this to preserve her chances this November, directly contradict the needs of her party. Local conditions dictate that she has no choice but to vehemently deny any connection with this, and in so doing, to demonstrate that the claims being made by House leaders are lies.

And that, of course, means that there is no way this coverup is going to work. I'll be honest - given how high profile this whole thing is, I'm not entirely sure why anyone seems to think that it would even be possible to cover this up. Howard Kurtz:

On Friday afternoon, a strategist for Rep. Mark Foley tried to cut a deal with ABC's Brian Ross.

The correspondent, who had dozens of instant messages that Foley sent to teenage House pages, had asked to interview the Florida Republican. Foley's former chief of staff said the congressman was quitting and that Ross could have that information exclusively if he agreed not to publish the raw, sexually explicit messages.

"I said we're not making any deals," Ross recalls. He says the Internet made the story possible, because on Thursday he posted a story on his ABC Web page, the Blotter, after obtaining one milder e-mail that Foley had sent a 16-year-old page, asking for a picture. Within two hours, former pages had e-mailed Ross and provided the salacious messages. The only question then, says Ross, was "whether this could be authenticated."

The St. Petersburg Times last fall obtained the earlier e-mail, asking the 16-year-old for a picture, and interviewed the boy, who wrote a friend that he considered the message "sick." But the boy would not go on the record.

Executive Editor Neil Brown says the paper's policy against making accusations based on unnamed sources was a factor. "We just didn't feel like we had the story," he says. "We had a lot of stuff implied. . . . If I had it to do over again, I think we probably would have been more organized about pursuing it. But hindsight is 20/20."

The paper did interview Foley, who assured a reporter that the e-mail exchange was innocent, Brown says.

If that doesn't convince you that you looking at a coverup, you might want to read this. Greenwald is right - that makes it the textbook definition of cover-up.

And while I'm linking, one last bit. I said previously that the correct frame in which to understand this is parental, not partisan. When Paul Begala and Bay Buchannan are both saying the very same thing to one another on CNN, I know there's no doubt I'm right. And, apparently, living in some sort of weird alternate universe.