Dennis Hastert: protecting pages from GOP Congressmen

(updated below)

From the AP (via the NYT):

House Speaker Dennis Hastert said he had asked the chairman of the House's page board, Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., to investigate the page system. ''We want to make sure that all our pages are safe and the page system is safe,'' Hastert said.

Good idea.

UPDATE: Sept 30, 2006, 00:29. Want to stay up-to-date on this growing scandal? -- go to Talking Points Memo:

House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post last night that he had learned this spring of some "contact" between Foley and a 16-year-old page. Boehner said he told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), and that Hastert assured him "we're taking care of it."

It was not immediately clear what actions Hastert took. His spokesman had said earlier that the speaker did not know of the sexually charged e-mails between Foley and the boy.

This one isn't going away.

UPDATE II: Sept 30, 2006, 00:40. And just in case you weren't sufficiently grossed out, let me push you over the edge (from The Blotter):

They say he used the screen name Maf54 on these messages provided to ABC News.

Maf54: You in your boxers, too?
Teen: Nope, just got home. I had a college interview that went late.
Maf54: Well, strip down and get relaxed.

Another message:

Maf54: What ya wearing?
Teen: tshirt and shorts
Maf54: Love to slip them off of you.

And this one:

Maf54: Do I make you a little horny?
Teen: A little.
Maf54: Cool.

The language gets much more graphic, too graphic to be broadcast, and at one point the congressman appears to be describing Internet sex.

Foley's gone, Hastert's toast (he appears to have known about this for as much as a year), Pelosi has filed for a House ethics investigation, which won on a 410-0 vote today, and with the Democrats' newly minted 50-state strategy, there's now a credible Democrat running in Florida's 14th (eat Howard Dean's shorts, Rahm Emanuel!).