Creep of the Week: U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert

It isn't fair to pin all of the blame for the whole Mark "Page Predator" Foley scandal on U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert. After all, he didn't send teenage boys instant messages about wanting to peel off their boxer shorts. But he is the speaker of the House and with such a position comes grown-up responsibility.
It's clear Hastert knew Foley was up to no good at least since last fall. Reports have come out indicating that folks have known for up to five years. Regardless of how long Hastert knew, he did nothing.
But why? Why would someone in a leadership position in a party that has never had a problem using homosexuality when it was politically expedient not seize on the chance to put his boot on the throat of a homo – one that was hitting on teenagers, even?
Because that homo was a Republican. A Republican in an important seat. A Republican who, besides being a little light in the loafers, towed the party line.
But gosh, does that mean while the GOP campaigned, essentially, using the slogan "homos are bad" that some of them weren't as driven by Old Testament righteous fervor as they'd like the religious right to think?
I can't help but find the song "Wrapped Around Your Finger" by The Police stuck in my head. "I will turn your face to alabaster/Then you will find your servant is your master/And you'll be wrapped around my finger," Sting sang in 1983, a year in which the religious right was just beginning to gain political power.
It's the perfect soundtrack to the shake up in the nice-nice relationship between the conservatives and the religious right. For a long time the right has trumpeted that they had the GOP by the balls. But the Foley scandal brings up the question: just who was using whom?
Today's GOP has hardly acted as the paragon of morality. They talk the talk, but don't walk the walk. Sure they threw their orgiastic support behind anti-gay marriage amendments and put fetus feet pins on their lapels. But they also supported an unjust war that has cost an untold number of human lives. And there are plenty of poor kids in this very country who are more than justified in asking folks like Hastert: what have you done for me lately?
I'm not saying Hastert condoned Foley's actions. I'm not saying he didn't care. I am saying that he cared far less about a possible predator in his ranks than he did in the be all end all goal: power. Lots and lots of power.
Many right-wing talking heads are using the Foley story as "proof" that homosexuality is a danger to kids. That's bull. What is a danger to kids – and everyone else – is when the folks in charge care more about helping their party stay in power than they doing their jobs.
It's time to pull a Donald Trump on Hastert's ass. May voters tell him and his CYA ilk what they deserve to hear next month: you're fired.