Father, Teacher, Coach

by digby

So the president supports Denny Hastert to the max:

The president also voiced support for Hastert, calling him a “father, teacher, coach” and said the Illinois Republican “wants to ensure these children on Capitol Hill are protected.”

What he wants to do now and what he did are two different things.

Dennis Hastert’s office was warned that this was an issue. (According to this morning’s interview on CNN, he was warned about it in the context of “campaign issues” which is telling in and of itself.) As the Speaker of the House, the buck stops with him. He can try to rationalize his behavior all he wants, but the fact is that he was told that there was suspicion that a congressman was preying on the teen aged congressional pages and he failed to ensure that it was fully investigated and dealt with. (He allowed the guy to continue to co-sponsor the child abduction and abuse legislation that was signed into law just last July. Come on.)

The fact that he was a “father, teacher, coach” makes it even worse that he did nothing. He, of all people, should have been particularly sensitive about the welfare of these teen-aged boys in his charge. (It makes you wonder about him too. Did he cover for people when he was a teacher and a coach. Did he think that “overly friendly” correspondence between 52 year old men and 16 year old boys was appropriate back when he was a wrestling coach?)

Republican leaders simply refuse to take responsibility for what their subordinates do and their supporters never seem to require it. From Rummy and Abu Ghraib to Denny Hastert and his cyberstalking congressman, when people in their charge engage in deviant or criminal behavior they blame it on a few bad apples and just move on. The guy at the top protests his ignorance and says he can’t be held liable for what he didn’t know.

I’m starting to become quite serious when I say, “what do we tell the children?” The allegedly conservative leadership class in this country are selling the idea that leadership means never being held responsible for anything. Blame it on the plebes. This is a very dangerous idea for any society to adopt.

Update:

Denny goes on Rush and says:

SPEAKER HASTERT: There were two pieces of paper out there, one that we knew about and we acted on; one that happened in 2003 we didn’t know about, but somebody had it, and, you know, they’re trying — and they drop it the last day of the session, you know, before we adjourn on an election year. Now, we took care of Mr. Foley. We found out about it, asked him to resign. He did resign. He’s gone. We asked for an investigation. We’ve done that. We’re trying to build better protections for these page programs.

But, you know, this is a political issue in itself, too, and what we’ve tried to do as the Republican Party is make a better economy, protect this country against terrorism — and we’ve worked at it ever since 9/11, worked with the president on it — and there are some people that try to tear us down. We are the insulation to protect this country, and if they get to me it looks like they could affect our election as well.

Yep, it’s all about him.

Funny, that reminds me of another comment I read recently:

In private conversations with Bush, Cheney said Rumsfeld’s departure, no matter how it might be spun, would be seen only as an expression of doubt and hesitation on the war. It would give the war critics great heart and momentum, he confided to an aide, and soon they would be after him and then the president. He virtually insisted that Rumsfeld stay.

Protect the royals at all costs.

Update II: Ray LaHood (R-buckpasser) on CNN just said that it was the Speaker’s staff who let everyone down. The man himself is blameless.

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