Wednesday, October 4th, 2006...5:23 pm
A Question for Republican Members and Candidates
The higher class blog Talking Points Memo is always able to do stuff like this, so we’ll go ahead and try it here. Although, I have a feeling that by the time you read this it may be irrelevant.
If you are in one of Arizona’s five districts with incumbent Republican congressmen running, call up your local congressional office and ask if the member plans on supporting Dennis Hastert for speaker. Remember that John Shadegg and J. D. Hayworth are members of the leadership.
Those of you in districts 4, 7 and 8, ask the Republican candidates in your district the same thing.
I’m curious to see what responses you get.
Just so you know, Randy Graf addressed the issue in an article in the Arizona Daily Star this morning, but did not specifically address the problems within the leadership. Talking Points Memo ran a piece alluding to Trent Franks making comments on the matter, but had few details.
Funny thing, no one has interviewed Jim Kolbe, a former page, on this matter.
6 Comments
October 4th, 2006 at 7:32 pm
Great minds, or something to that effect.
I just noted that Kolbe is conspicuous by his silence in the matter. I wonder why?
October 4th, 2006 at 10:26 pm
Why should Congressman Kolbe have any immediate comment on this subject? Most House Republicans and Republicans in general are waiting for more information about the conduct of the House bureaucracy and leadership.
In the case of Congressman Kolbe, he’s retiring from Congress and will have no vote on the next Speaker of the House.
If Michael’s comment is meant to be a sneering remark alluding to Rep. Kolbe’s sexual orientation, it shames the only the author.
October 5th, 2006 at 1:06 am
As a former Hastert employee, I’d be curious as well. I hope they have the guts to stick up for him unless and until they have enough information.
Keeping up with Foley-gate is like drinking from a firehose, but my current understanding is that the e-mails were relatively innocuous (although clearly inappropriate) in comparison to the instant messages, and that only the e-mails were made available to the Speaker’s office. It sounds like he turned the information over to John Shimkus, who clearly (and by his own admission) bungled it.
I hope I’m wrong, but I expect the answers from the MC’s will be equivocating, and unworthy of a man who has been an exceptional Speaker of the House.
October 5th, 2006 at 1:34 am
Hastert is caught red-handed and this thread doesn’t apply to him.
October 5th, 2006 at 8:25 am
It was not a sneering reference to Kolbe’s sexual orientation, randall, it was an honest question.
Kolbe is the only out gay Republican member of Congress. He has a moral obligation to stand up and dispute the vile homophobic lies being tossed by the right about LGBT people. He needn’t comment on the Foley scandal or the coverup itself, but why isn’t he standing up for himself and others like him? Gay does not equal pedophile, as so many on the right are trying to imply (or have blatantly stated).
Kolbe may have never claimed to be an LGBT leader, but his own openness and position as an elected official make him that, whether he likes it or not. His voice would carry a lot of moral authority to dispel some of these myths. I just wish he’d use it.
October 5th, 2006 at 9:03 am
In addition to what Michael had to say, what is much more important is that Mr. Kolbe is one of the few, if not the only, members of Congress who was once a page. As such, he might have some intertesting insights into this matter.
At the very least, it would be refreshing to hear someone say something other than the current boilerplate “As a parent, I am appalled.” Perhaps Kolbe could say “As a former page, I am appalled.”
At any rate, the current homophobic spin coming out of the right would be laughable were it not for the fact that these guys are in charge and should know better.
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