Wednesday, October 04, 2006

 

God Must Have A Highly-Developed Sense Of Irony...

...because the House GOP Caucus is intent on doing to itself (and possibly to the rest of the GOP) what it allowed George W. Bush and his PNAC Platoon to do to Iraq: Send it spiraling into bitter factional warfare that paralyzes it and threatens to destroy it utterly. There are at least two distinct factions in the GOP House right now, the Hastert faction (aka the Ba'athist insurgency) and the Reynolds faction (aka the Badrists), and when they're not busy holding unbelievably silly press conferences, they're busy sticking knives in each other's back. There's also John Boehner, but he doesn't really have anyone behind him, and he can't decide whether he fears Hastert's capacity for revenge more than he fears destroying what's left of his tattered credibility by changing his story yet again. The latest hit was made by the Hastert insurgency, on the Reynolds Badrists:

The chief of staff for Republican Congressman Tom Reynolds, Kirk Fordham, resigned after questions were raised about his role in the handling of the congressional page scandal, according to Republican sources on Capitol Hill. Those sources said Fordham, a former chief of staff for Congressman Mark Foley, had urged Republican leaders last spring not to raise questionable Foley e-mails with the full Congressional Page Board, made up of two Republicans and a Democrat. "He begged them not to tell the page board," said one of the Republican sources. People familiar with Fordham's side of the story, however, said Fordham was being used as a scapegoat by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. They said Fordham had repeatedly warned Hastert's staff about Foley's "problem" with pages, but little was done. The complaint about Foley was brought to the chairman of the page board, Congressman John Shimkus (R-IL), last spring, and he then consulted with the Clerk of the House of Representatives, Jeff Trandahl. At Fordham's urging, according to the sources, the matter was not given to the full board, and instead Congressman Foley was privately approached and told to stop all contact with the page he had been e-mailing.
Expect to see a retaliatory hit by the Reynolds Badrists before the sun sets over the Potomac tonight. Reynolds is the head of the NRCC. He's not going to let a guy who he thinks of as Tom DeLay's waterboy get away with thinking he can diss Reynolds with impunity. UPDATE: Wow, that was even faster than I expected. Roy Blunt has apparently joined up with the Reynolds Badrists; he's just thrown a knife at Denny Hastert. Wonder if Reynolds even had to ask Roy to help him out, or if Blunt has his own agenda? UPDATE 2: Hastert's turned radioactive now; Republican candidates are starting to ask him not to appear with them at fundraisers. Hoo boy.


Comments:
"Roy Blunt has apparently joined up with the Reynolds Badrists; he's just thrown a knife at Denny Hastert. Wonder if Reynolds even had to ask Roy to help him out, or if Blunt has his own agenda?"

My immediate guess is that Roy Blunt thinks he can replace Hastert as speaker.
 
Man, if we don't mop up all the crocodile tears, this thread is gonna mildew.

The time to show you cared about American troops was before they were sent on a fool's errand.

The time to show you cared about American troops was when they weren't being sent into battle properly equipped.

The time to show you cared about American troops was when they came back so terribly wounded and were denied veterans benefits, charged for their meals, and forced to pay for calls to their folks.

But suddenly the GOP shields itself behind the troops it has despised for so many years.
 
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