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More DC goofiness

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* Want to ask Congressman John Shimkus a question this morning about his role in the page scandal or anything else? He’ll be on WJPF radio from 8:20 until about 9 o’clock. They’ll be taking listener questions. Listen live here. The station’s toll-free number is: 888-848-9573

I’ll be doing a City Club gig during the interview, so I won’t be able to listen. Hopefully, some of you can live-blog it in comments.

Here’s a partial roundup of Illinois opinion on the DC goofiness:

* Apology 101: Don’t accept any actual responsibility

* Sweet: ‘Deeply sorry’ — and confident he’ll stay

* Tribune editorial: Blame me … but not too much

* And then there’s this:

Republican congressional hopeful David McSweeney moved Thursday to distance himself from embattled House Speaker Dennis Hastert while Congresswoman Melissa Bean chastised his handling of the congressional page scandal.

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Oct 6, 06 @ 7:59 am

Comments

Rich

If the speaker is like a lot of folks his age (No offense people), he probably doesn’t do electronic gagets. If it isn’t on paper he doesn’t know or care about it!!!

ALso, At what point is Durban doing too much to hurt Illinois? He is bashing two people from his own state that if ousted would not benefit Illinois? Is he out to help the state or hurt it?

Comment by Roadkill on the information highway Friday, Oct 6, 06 @ 8:34 am
Durbin, like mos politicians, is self first, party second

Comment by Wumpus Friday, Oct 6, 06 @ 8:54 am
Shimkus is calling for Pelosi and Durbin to apologize to him and the family of the page who first sent up a red flag. He got a little angry with some callers, but overall I thought it was a good interview.

Comment by RickG Friday, Oct 6, 06 @ 9:24 am
If McSweeney wants to distance himself from Speaker Denny Hastert, he should move to Antartica and run there to represent the penguins!

Comment by fedup dem Friday, Oct 6, 06 @ 10:15 am
Yeah, that’s it, it’s all Durbin’s fault… that’s the ticket…forget that we knew for 3 years that Foley was a perv and we looked the other way….how dare those Democrats speak out about uncomfortable situations… we would never do that…wait…well, there was Clinton/Lewinski… but thats different… (yeah she was a consenting adult)

Comment by snl Friday, Oct 6, 06 @ 11:09 am
When Dennis Hastert says, “I’m sorry” how does he mean it?

Does he mean he’s sorry that the apparent cover-up has hurt him and the House Republicans?

Or does he mean he’s sorry that he didn’t fully investigate and hold accountable Foley and other members who sought sexual gratification from pages?

Comment by Carl Nyberg Friday, Oct 6, 06 @ 11:28 am
Shimkus wants an apology for being criticized for not providing the emails to Reps. Dale Kildee and Shelly Moore Capito?

That’s some sense of entitlement. What a victim complex Shimkus has.

Comment by Carl Nyberg Friday, Oct 6, 06 @ 11:31 am
Actually, Carl, he addressed that topic too. He said that in hindsight, because of the “political football” this has become, he should have had Kildee in the room. And he probably should have told Capito. But he said he didn’t, that he felt it was put on his shoulders and he dealt with it.

Comment by RickG Friday, Oct 6, 06 @ 11:40 am
Shimkus and Hastert are typical of the Baby Boomers’ me, me, me mentality.

There’s always someone else to blame, and if it’s not about me or MY kids, I don’t care.

The only thing Hastert is “sorry” about, is that their cover-up exploded in their faces.

It doesn’t really matter if Denny doesn’t resign as Speaker. Voters will just enforce the same result in a few weeks.

Hastert has shown he’s completely worthless without his corrupt old friend Tom Delay around telling him what to do. Denny’s not a leader on his own.

Comment by RealClear Friday, Oct 6, 06 @ 12:01 pm
RickG, based on the information Shimkus had would a responsible person have asked more questions and sought more information? How would a partisan hack have acted?

Comment by Carl Nyberg Friday, Oct 6, 06 @ 1:19 pm
Tomaszewski: Shimkus did not see complete emails
Tomaszewski saying the whole deal about him saying Shimkus didn’t see the E-mails was symantics.
http://www.advocatepress.com/articles/2006/10/06/news/news02.txt

Comment by Gus Bode Friday, Oct 6, 06 @ 1:34 pm
What a tangled web

Comment by B Hicks Friday, Oct 6, 06 @ 2:10 pm
Carl, I wasn’t defending him. I was telling you what I heard. Back off.

I’d have to hear a tape, but I believe Shimkus said that not only did he have the information, but the FBI had the same emails and determined there wasn’t enough for a criminal investigation. I BELIEVE that’s what he said. I am not 100%, but I am about 90%.

IF that’s the case, if I heard him correctly and if what he said was true, then I think the answer to your question is ‘no’. You can’t expect one person to be a crusader when the FBI says it’s nothing. But again, these are “IFs”.

I will say this — he sounded genuine. Let’s assume something like this happened to our Governor. He’s a very polished politician, but when he’s lying he gets trapped (see that YouTube video about tbe $1500 check). Shimkus did not have awkward pauses and was forceful about what he said — and I don’t think he’s as polished a speaker or politician as the Governor. He also took 8 or 9 phone calls, so give him credit for talking to the people and sticking to his story.

Comment by RickG Friday, Oct 6, 06 @ 2:36 pm
Wasn’t Foley allowed to “auction” himself off to the pages for a free dinner with him, AFTER Shimkus supposedly told him to cut it out?

Didn’t he take another boy to dinner at Morton’s, and didn’t he still deal with the pages, AFTER Shimkus got involved? Someone needs to check that, but that’s how it appears.

Telling him to stay away from ONE particular boy was a huge screw up. And it’s a huge unreported part of this story.

More shoes are still to drop. The horrible management from Shimkus and Hastert continues. They want to run out the clock to Nov. 7th, but won’t.

Comment by RealClear Friday, Oct 6, 06 @ 3:16 pm
What we have here is a failure to communicate…Actually what we have here is a case of “let sleeping dogs lie.” Everyone knew that this perv was on the loose, but kept silent about it. It is the way of politics in general these days. We see wrong and ignore it. It is what sickens me about most of our politicians, but worse yet, it saddens me that “we the people” have permitted this to happen. Both sides of the isle are complicit in looking the other way. Perhaps not in this particular incident but certainly in many, some of which are yet to be revealed. I personally think that all who knew and kept silent should resign, or we should throw them out. This applies to do nothings like Durbin who only speaks when the party needs a mouth piece to complain. Hastert absolutely should resign, and if found to be complicit, Shimkus too should resign. We need to get back to decency and honesty in Congress and get rid of scumbags, perverts, thieves, and s**tbirds. If anyone is to blame, it is us!

Comment by Justice Friday, Oct 6, 06 @ 3:27 pm
Let’s presume for a minute that Hastert didn’t know about the perv messages, just the kinda weird email and that they told Foley to stop.

Really, what else was he supposed to do?

Foley is, afterall, elected to Congress by the same number of people as Hastert. Hastert’s his political leader, not his dad, teacher, boss or guardian.

If the people of FLA elected a perv, what’s Hastert supposed to do? Fire him? Kick him out of Congress. If Republican (or Dem) leadership used creepiness as a bar for who’s entitled to serve, who’d be left?

Comment by anon Friday, Oct 6, 06 @ 4:24 pm
Anon, are you serious? Hastert’s at the head of an organization that INVITES young kids to come out and work under the House’s supervision - talking about the pages.

OF COURSE he has a duty to maintain a safe work place. Hastert delegated some of the responsibility to Shimkus. Both were grossly negligent in their duties.

Good lord, in the past week we had Peter Roskam saying he wouldn’t let his kids in the page program, and Ray LaHood saying if there were any Peoria kids in the program, he would bring them home.

Think about that for a second. We’re trying to secure Iraq against some really committed religeous fanatics, while at the same time OUR OWN CONGRESSMEN (and wannabes) are admitting they haven’t even secured OUR OWN CONGRESS from THEIR OWN COLLEAGUES!

Comment by RealClear Friday, Oct 6, 06 @ 6:42 pm
First he blames senior citizens for the size of the deficit, & then he yells “I DON’T CARE who did it!” on the radio this a.m. Every time Shimkus opens his mouth he gives everyone another reason to vote him out of office. IL-19 needs Stover in office!

Comment by Philosophe Forum Friday, Oct 6, 06 @ 8:31 pm
They are all career politician pond scum. The Founding Fathers did not intend these types to be around forever or until they got caught in a scandal. Absolute power corrupts absolutely!

Comment by Truth Sayer Saturday, Oct 7, 06 @ 5:22 am
What’s wrong with the people in the 19th? This Shimkus is the same guy that broke a fundamental promise to them, i.e., his own term limit pledge.

Shimkus has always been a bit of a do-nothing doofus. Now the voters there are letting him break a key promise, just so he can stay out there longer for screw-ups like this? So they can be lied to even more?

Come on people, get a spine.

Comment by Anonymous Saturday, Oct 7, 06 @ 10:55 am
Maybe instead of building that fence along the Mexican border, we should build one around our Congressmen, to keep them from getting to our kids.

Comment by Anonymous Sunday, Oct 8, 06 @ 8:43 am