If Hastert Has to Resign, the GOP Won’t Care

If Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert does the right thing and resigns (read: is kicked out by his pals), it will not be because he enabled Representative Mark Foley (R-FL) to bugger the teenage boys who fill the posts of pages in Congress. If Hastert leaves, it will be because he has little name recognition among voters and he hasn’t done anything to make himself invaluable in the eyes of Republican dealmakers. He is expendable. The reason Hastert is Speaker of the House today is because former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich self-destructed in a spectacular explosion of arrogance and self-worth delusions in 1998. Gingrich’s big mouth and bumptious personality were already seen as a liability and many Republicans were working behind the scenes to boot him out at a time when Gingrich was obsessed with the Clinton/Lewinsky affair. Gingrich boasted that the GOP would pick up 30 seats in Congress, but instead the GOP lost five seats. Oops! Gingrich announced he would resign as Speaker, and left the House as well. With the Speakership open, Appropriations Committee chairman Bob Livingston (R-LA) was expected to become Speaker, but an extra-marital affair caused him to resign his seat. Then two Texans, Majority Leader Dick Armey and Majority Whip Tom DeLay, seemed to be in the running. But Armey had only recently fended off a challenge by Steve Largent for his position as majority leader and DeLay always was seen as a slimeball and was not Speaker material. Hastert won the position as Speaker of the House because he didn’t make waves, he wasn’t controversial and he had done nothing for 12 years as a Republican Representative from Illinois. Hastert was a compromise. The Republicans are not going to fight tooth and nail for Hastert. If it works out that he can save his job on his own, fine. But no Republican is going to put his reputation or his job on the line for J. Dennis Hastert. He isn’t worth it. How Hastert fares in this debacle has nothing to do with his inaction or his lies in the scandalous Foley affair. It has to do with the fact that the Republicans can afford to rid itself of this Speaker who is and has been a cipher. And if Hastert can be suited up as a GOP scapegoat, that’s what is going to happen. Not only do the Republicans not care a rap about Hastert, they don’t give a mink-dyed rat’s ass about protecting Congressional pages from the advances of rapacious old queens. The White House cares about protecting itself. And only about protecting itself.