Last week we learned that a fine, upstanding and moral Republican Congressman was actually an immoral, hypocritical creep. Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) had been sending naughty e-mails and lurid IMs to former congressional pages. Foley resigned from Congress, declared himself an alcoholic and immediately checked himself into rehab.

It annoys me that this happened for a couple of reasons. First, I’m troubled that we put creeps like this in office. At least Foley is now gone and out of the picture but what type of environment has Congress become that something like this could occur in the first place… and this isn’t the first time. Secondly this has taken the national debate away from immigration, tax reform and foreign policy and replaced it with something that you would expect to only see in some prime-time SOAP opera. This partisan circus is just not good for the country.

Now, up until today I was hoping this would just go away. As badly as Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) may have handled this problem I didn’t see a need for more than just an investigation. Yeah, he’s been a do-nothing Speaker but I didn’t see this being enough for him to step down. Like I said, though, up until today.

What has changed today is Speaker Hastert’s own words:

Hastert asserted that any Republicans urging his ouster are playing into the hands of Democrats and blamed his problems on the media and Democratic operatives, even suggesting former President Clinton might somehow be involved.

“All I know is what I hear and what I see,” he said in an interview with the Chicago Tribune on the eve of the ethics meeting. “I saw Bill Clinton’s adviser, Richard Morris, was saying these guys knew about this all along, If somebody had this info, when they had it, we could have dealt with it then.”

This man is not a leader. That has been apparent from almost the begining. However, the above quote shows him to be, not only ineffective, but a man out of touch with reality. Dennis, it’s time to go.