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I swear, idiocy abounds.

Via Tracy at In These Times, I found the following: 

On Tuesday, Joe Maguire, one of two editors in charge of markets coverage at Reuters, handed his bosses the galleys of his new book, “Brainless: The Lies and Lunacy of Ann Coulter.” On Wednesday, Mr. Maguire discovered he would have plenty of free time to promote his book, which comes out this week. Neither side in this dispute would say that he was fired....

Reuters confirmed that Mr. Maguire was granted conditional approval to write his book on Ms. Coulter — a conservative lightning rod, author and TV talking head. When asked what changed once the book was ready, a company statement pointed to Reuters’ principles of “integrity, independence and freedom from bias.” The statement reads: “Our editorial policy and The Reuters Trust Principles are prominently displayed for all to see on www.about.reuters.com. Mr. Maguire’s book will soon be available. Both speak for themselves.”

So, let me see, according to Reuters, pointing out that Ann Coulter tells big whopping lies, doesn't get her facts straight, and just flat out talks nonsense, bunk and a whole lotta crapola is...bias. Good to know.  I'll keep that in mind each and every time I see a Reuters by-line, so that I can keep a few grains of salt handy for the reading, since they appear to have a bias against honesty.  Because if Reuters doesn't believe in pointing out factual inaccuracies of the wingnuts they interview, I think the public has a right to know that.  Don't you?

Thankfully, Bob Schieffer didn't get the memo on the so-called bias against honesty (via C&L):

Lahood: Look at, I give Speaker Hastert high marks for strong leadership. He took care of Tom DeLay, his best friend. When Tom was having ethical problems, the speaker went to him and asked him to leave. When he appointed Duke Cunningham to the intelligence committee, he went to Duke and made sure he wasn't on the intelligence committee after it was disclosed he took 2.3 million dollars. And when Bob Ney was appointed chairman of the House administration committee, he was appointed by Speaker Hastert. Speaker Hastert went to him and told him to step down from that committee after the Abramoff disclosures. Hastert has the ability to take on these big ethical challenges that our party has faced…

Bob: But, but…"chuckle"..what you're saying when you list all that Congressman is that he did appoint some of these people who turned out to be crooks. So doesn't he have something to answer for there?  (emphasis mine)

Um, yeah...Rep. LaHood, you just keep throwing the selection of Bob Ney out there as an example of Denny Hastert's impeccable judgment. Good choice, my man.

Finally, via MSNBC around 1:30 pm ET or so, Chris Matthews is disgusted with the GOP.  (Apparently he didn't get the "truth means bias" memo either today).  In discussing the whole Foley mess, Matthews said essentially that the GOP leadership has broken faith with the evangelicals -- who the Republican party has courted as a means to political power since the Reagan administration -- and what Matthews is hearing is that voting for that particular segment of the base is going to be sincerely depressed due to the blatant hypocrisy exposed in this Foley mess. 

Matthews, who was Tip O'Neill's Chief of Staff back in the day then went on to say that, in his experience, the Speaker's staff's job is to be the eyes and ears for the Speaker -- to bring to him just this sort of information, to protect the integrity of the Speaker's office, the House and the party, and that he finds it very unlikely and unusual that Hastert would not have been told about Foley the moment anyone on his staff had any inkling of a problem.  Matthews then said something to the effect of "there must be some good reason that those staffers kept that information from Denny Hastert -- IF they even did so -- and we aren't going to find out what that is until they get them under oath."  The Foley mess is not going away any time soon. 

MSNBC also reports that subpoenas have gone out to four dozen members of the House and their aides, and that both the FBI and Florida state police are investigating various levels of the scandal.

I have to say, Matthews is exactly right in terms of how a political office like that works:  staffers protect their boss' flank and that of the party above all else and anything -- especially something as potentially damaging as this would have been -- would have come immediately to the Speaker's office.  Now whether that would have gone to Palmer, Hastert's Chief of Staff or to Hastert himself, I don't know -- it would depend on the way the day-to-day business of the House is managed out of that office. 

But I find it absolutely ludicrous to think that Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) would have known about sexually explicit e-mails from Foley to a page in 2000 and didn't tell anyone in the GOP leadership.  That just isn't plausible...and that makes me wonder how many more shoes there are to drop in this mess.  More as we get it...

(Graphics luv to Billmon.)