Allegations? Puh-leeze. You have ideological blinders on. America's parents (I'm one) will not forgive Hastert for neglect. But by not coming clean, Hastert makes it into a problem for all of the GOP. That was the point of my post, which was on proper crisis management.

Want to see the results? Newsweek poll. TIME poll. And the Zogby poll showing tom Reynolds now down by 15 points in NY. Frank Luntz (no liberal, he) expects 10% of usual R voters to not vote R (see TIME).

So the R counter-plan is to attach Dems and the media for a pure R scandal?? As Cokie Roberts said this am, expecting the R base to hate Dems and the media more than sex predators is hardly a reality-based approach to elections.

Oh, I think Hastert will get hung out to dry based on the allegations. Don't get me wrong. But I thought Karl Rove was toast, too, based on the the "evidence" we saw in various statements to the press, so there's an element of putting the cart before the horse, counting your chickens before they're hatched, etc. that makes me hesitant to call the result based on what we've seen so far, even as bad as it looks. The GOP has proved pretty resilient in the face of potential scandal. This may finally be the straw that breaks the elephant's back, but a lot of people said that about Katrina, too, right?

The biggest difference here -- as you point out -- may be that FoleyGate is so much easier to understand. An average parent in suburban American may not get the impropriety of slandering a public official or making deals for Indian tribes they way they get preying on teenagers.

As for the ideological blinders, I would like nothing more than for the Dems to run the table in November. Well, really I'd like for a viable third party to emerge and run the table, but that ain't gonna happen.

Thanks for commenting, by the way.

Re commenting, my pleasure. The country's a mess and we'll need all hands on deck after the elction. ;-)