The sad thing is that I thought Dennis Hastert was comparatively decent when matched against his contemporaries like Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, Tom DeLay, Dick Armey, Rick Santorum, Mark Foley, Jack Abramoff, Trent Lott, Bill Frist…
It turns out that he may have been the worst of the lot.
Always useful to remember that the 1990s were no halcyon golden age of Republican congressional nobility.
I figured Hastert got to be Speaker because the GOP House leadership at the time figured his deadly sin was gluttony and not lust. But the GOP House leadership was wrong.
I think he got to be Speaker because someone (like the Koch brothers) knew his secret and used it to control him.
that’s certainly their MO
yes, he’s suffered enough already after destroying the lives of those young men.not
I always wondered what caused his descent into madness in the Speakership, turns out that was just the tip of iceberg on his criminality.
his descent into madness as speaker – what was he doing?
no idea
he was somewhat sane before he took power (for a House Republican anyway) and once he became Speaker he got crazier and crazier
I know when he went crazy as Speaker the people I knew who knew him as a teacher didn’t recognize him.
This criminality really shook people who thought they knew him. They can’t believe that they trusted a monster with their friends and their kids.
I just have to repeat a comment on that thread:
He earned it lobbying Congress. “In May 2008, six months after resigning from Congress, the Washington, D.C.-based law firm and lobbying firm Dickstein Shapiro announced that Hastert was joining the firm as a senior adviser.[111] Hastert waited until the legally required “cooling-off period” had passed in order to actually become a registered lobbyist.[111] Over the next several years, Hastert earned millions of dollars lobbying his former congressional colleagues on a range of issues, mostly involving congressional appropriations.”[112]
wikipedia
He should be treated like any other sex offender. Six months??? That’s a slap on the wrist. Put the dirty old man in jail for at least 5 years, put him on a registry, and make sure he’s not allowed near children without supervision.
He was charged with structuring because that was the only thing they could get him on given the statue of limitations had run out on the rest. As for why they charged him with structuring here is my GUESS at what happened.
the rightwing propaganda machine doesn’t yet seem to have gotten around to re-branding “The Hastert Rule”.
I’d’ve thought they’d be all over that.
What do you expect of a party that is yammering all the time about family values and God hates gays? It’s why Roy Cohn was worried about homosexuals being blackmailed as Commies in the Truman administration.
Penn State…Dennis Hastert …classic examples of closets for pedophiles as long as they win…win…win…
Damn, how did Larry Flynt’s million dollar offer miss this one.
Bob Livingston must be livid he was thrown under the bus for this guy.