Rep. Putnam,

You’re getting nailed on FireDogLake as well. Here’s the link:

http://www.firedoglake.com/200…..#more-4881

Time to come clean, Rep. Putnam. Rep. Hastert DID NOT DEMAND REP. FOLEY’S RESIGNATION.

You stated on national TV that:

PUTNAM: Based on the information we have today, the speaker’s office acted proactively, they acted aggressively, and within hours, within hours of the explicit e-mails coming to light, they demanded Foley’s resignation. Contrast that to previous scandals.

What is the basis for your claim that Rep. Hastert demanded that Rep. Foley resign? This is the same falsehood being peddled by your RNC chair Mr. Ken Mehlman.

“This is not a claim that can be debated or spun. They’re claiming that Hastert threatened Foley with expulsion unless he resigned. That either happened or it didn’t. And it simply did not happen. Hastert has made clear from the beginning of this scandal that he only learned of the IMs last Friday when they were reported by ABC. Hastert has claimed that he would have demanded Foley’s resignation or expulsion had he known about the IMs. But in fact, Foley resigned before ABC made the IMs public and received no such ultimatum from Hastert.” Read the rest of the article here: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot…..story.html

Rep. Hastert DID NOT demamd Rep. Foley’s resignation. Rep. Foley resigned BEFORE THE ALLEGATIONS WENT PUBLIC BY ABC. Rep. Hastert MERELY STATED that he WOULD HAVE DEMANDED the resignation of Rep. Foley.

You need to come clean on this, Rep. Putnam. You are at best wrong. At worst, you spoke a deliberate falsehood. What is it?

Personally, I say what in the hell is wrong with Cokie Roberts that she’s surprised by the Republican page scandal and cover-up? How out of touch does someone have to be to be outraged by that after six years of the Bush administration’s tactics, from secret meetings with energy lobbyists and the rape of the West Coast electricity market to the bogus claims in the Iraq war and the deaths of tens of thousands of people to Katrina and everything else? And she’s upset by emails and possible buggery of young men?

Exactly. You see, Cokie — while she made an excellent statement here — appears to be reacting with irritation that the Republicans failed in the political stage on this one — not because she really cares about the pages. I mean, how about the dead U.S. soldiers? How about their mothers? Not to mention the dead and wounded Iraqis, gosh, I guess that would be expecting too much of her.

You see, to these rich and famous so-called journalists, only the spectacle, the lights and the music mean anything. The important issues about the Bush administration and Republican treachery have been right in front of Cokie’s eyes for… well, for many years, come on. How can she pretend to be shocked — shocked — that House members are sexually harassing pages? No, she’s just mad because her party mishandled the PR on this. She understands that they are dumb and incompetent, but she misses that they are truly bad and unscrupulous people who are pushing totalitarianism.

By the way, I used to admire Cokie when she was on NPR. At that time she seemed reasonably objective. How have the Republicans corrupted these perhaps basically decent people so thoroughly and so quickly?

Also today in NYTimes, Kirkpatric (their right winger, relig writer) has up something (p.1) that Foley will not impact the Repubs because they blame it on Foley not the party. (B.S.)

Got anything from Asian detection systems? I think I’d trust them more on this matter.