Completing the circle for recent Republican disasters, the president weighs in:
Bush expressed confidence in [Hastert]’s ability to resolve the matter, calling him a “father, teacher, coach.”
“I know Denny Hastert. I meet with him a lot. He is a father, teacher, coach who cares about the children of this country,” Bush said. “I know that he wants all the facts to come out.”
[…] “I know that he wants all the facts to come out and he wants to ensure that these children up there on Capitol Hill are protected,” the president said. “I’m confident he will provide whatever leadership he can to law enforcement in this investigation.”
Heckuva job.
Skip
father, teacher, coach.
WRESTLING coach. . . .
Hmm, didn’t Rummy like rolling on the rubber too?
The Other Steve
Hastert’s Campaign Manager is probably frantically trying to call the Whitehouse right now begging them to shut Bush up.
sglover
How vulnerable is Hastert in his district? Is there a viable Dem challenger in that race?
Mr Furious
“”Rafael Palmeiro is a friend. He testified in public and I believe him,” Bush said
“He’s the kind of person that’s going to stand up in front of the klieg lights and say he didn’t use steroids, and I believe him. Still do.”
tBone
“He is a father, teacher, coach who cares about the children of this country,” Bush said. “In fact, he cares so much that whenever there’s a hurricane, he emails children and asks them to send a picture so he knows they’re OK. Oh, no, wait, that was somebody else.”
chopper
yeah, a father who gave one of his sons a car for xmas and the other one a t-shirt. guess which one was the ‘troublemaker’. nice.
Steve
Hastert’s challenger is John Laesch. He seems like a good candidate, and has support from Daily Kos and the netroots, but I don’t think this has polled as a particularly close race in the past. Of course, it’s all up for grabs at this point.
ThymeZone
Bush has looked into Hastert’s soul.
Tax Analyst
Yep, Tim…it sounds to me like another “Medal of Freedom” trinket is being fashioned at this very moment.
Richard 23
I heard an interview with John Laesch. The Young Turks suggested that he check out and possibly use the fact that Hastert’s web page still had that protecting children in cyberspace stuff on his web page.
Heck of a job indeed. Or should I say “haand job?”
Christian
Hastert isn’t my district but one over.
I can tell you that before this, the Chicago Tribune ran a big story about a Denny earmark for a road project that accidently on purpose netted him some big real estate appreciation on some previously useless farmland.
Not that having Vanity Fair run a story about how the Turks brag about bribing Hastert could have helped.
(for more on both see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Hastert)
I don’t know how bad it is that it will take bumbling a perv case that will bring him down while those two previous items didn’t seem to have a huge impact.
merlallen
Bush trusts him because he’s a coach?
What if he wasn’t a coach? Would Bush distrust him then? When I saw him on CNN I could hardly stop laughing.