The problem with politicians is that they think the voters have forgot that action speaks louder that words. Hence, responsibility in one's actions are more influential than mere verbal (lip service) responsibility.
Hope the Speaker of the House reads this to re-establish for himself some integrity.
Adam Young

DENIS HASTERT HAS NO POWER EXCEPT TO WARN. IF NO LAW IS BROKEN HE COULD NOT ACT. WHEN SALACIOUS AND PERHAPS ILLEGAL IM'S WERE FOUND FOLEY WAS OUT.

DENIS HASTERT IS NOT A POLICEMAN AND WE ALL HAVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

Charlie lied:
"DENIS HASTERT HAS NO POWER EXCEPT TO WARN."

A lie. Hastert has the power to investigate.

"IF NO LAW IS BROKEN HE COULD NOT ACT."

Another lie. He could not determine if a law was broken without investigating.

"WHEN SALACIOUS AND PERHAPS ILLEGAL IM'S WERE FOUND FOLEY WAS OUT."

The question is, when did the Republican leadership know about these and other activities, Charlie? Why are you trying to defend liars who sheltered a sexual predator for years?

Charlie,
The house leadership coverd up for a online sex predator who was clearly targeting pages under his control. And you're an apologist for these people? Seriously?

Rats, all of them, scurrying to escape the proverbial burning ship.

Sexual predators are often coddled by those around them. This MUST stop.

Survivors of child sexual assault must navigate the turbulent waters of adulthood with the albatross of sex abuse bumping against them every single day. One never forgets. It's a life sentence, even if a survivor learns healthy coping strategies.

Our society MUST enact laws that hold predators responsible for their actions and that inflict meaningful consequences. Our children deserve no less.

Charlie,

Do you have kids? How would you feel if your kids were being molested by a teacher, and another teacher who learned of the misdeeds warned the principal, but did nothing else.

You'd be upset, right?

Why weren't these warnings documented with the House Page Board?

That's ridiculous, Charlie. If an ABC reporter could investigate for several weeks and reveal the im's, then certainly the GOP leadership could have. They didn't. I'm sick of all the weak excuses for this failure.

charlie? hello?
WHAT are you smoking?
contrary to bush administration standards, freedom of speech does NOT mean it is o.k. for elected officials to lie in lame attempts to cover their plumbers' butts.

In about 2 weeks, our Dictator-in-Chief will be speaking somewhere telling us all that the Foley scandal never actually happened and it was all an attempt by unknown enemies (possibly Osama, possibly Michael Moore, or possibly the inhabitants of Omicron Persei 8) that spun this outlandish tale of impropriety.

In any event, this country, as well as its original philosophy is headed toward an outcome that our forefathers (nor Al-Qaida) would ever have dreamed.

I read recently that George W does not care about this country or its freedoms. And that all he cares about is making the GOP stronger.

I disagree.

All he cares about is money.

Can I have a picture of you?
Your friend has a nice body.
What do you want for your birthday?

Nine out of ten people would look at email sent by a 52 year old man to a teenage boy that contained language like the above and realize that this 52 year old guy was a sicko.

So maybe Hastert isn't that swift. There wasn't enough there to make him realize the seriousness of the problem. Hard to believe but let's give him the benefit of the doubt.

But now, if this is true, that Hastert knew about Foley's problems well before the overly friendly emails reached his desk - THERE IS absolutely no excuse to misinterpret the emails - to not realize Foley had to be removed IMMEDIATELY!

NO excuse.

GIVE ME A BREAK. HASTERT IS GUILTY of a HUGE obnoxious COVERUP.

HE should GIVE UP his HOUSE seat TODAY before he is THROWN OUT OF OFFICE in five weeeks

And I hope you manage to CHOKE and Vomit your insides out when the American people take your vile EXCUSES and throw the HOUSE and SENATE out to the DEMOCRATS so we can get OUR DEMOCRACY back
TORTURE is TORTURE.
SPYING on US CITIZENS is ILLEGAL
OVERTURNING OUR RIGHTS
NO WMD or ANY other VALID reason for the QUAGMIRE we are NOW in for the NEXT 20 years!
AND yes, Virginia, there WILL BE a draft to get the troop levels in IRAQ to the 500,000 that we need to SECUREthe country

ALL of these are reasons WE're TIRED of the LIES, EXCUSES and BS
you've given us since 2000, including TWO stolen ELECTIONS.

I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Bush is indicted Jan 21, 2008 as a WAR CRIMINAL for starting and abusing the IRAQi People.
A life in Jail would be too good for him after the harm and destruction he has done to our democracy...

Signed/.
STOP yer whining, and get ready for the backlash... You deserve it..

Charlie, are you suggesting that the Speaker of the House has no power over the members of his party? Or to initiate investigations? Or to go to the media? They haven't officially disbanded the Ethics Cmte yet, have they? In case you haven't noticed this Speaker hasn't even been keen to act when a law *is* broken. Cunningham and Ney resigned on their own, as did Foley. And where does one start with Tom DeLay? Talk about a living monument to sleaze...

Denis Hastert may have no power - except to warn - but he certainly seems to have every bit of a lack of power when it comes to telling the truth!!

He knew what was going on with Foley, along with Reynolds. Don't these people talk with their OWN chief of staff's? Doesn't seem that much of a stretch to imagine a private conversation about a Republican pedofile in Congress.

Hastert et al simply could not stomach the hit on thier power base - the religious right - and now it has blown up on them. What a bunch of fools.

It looks like Renyolds is toast in his district. How about that stunt of using kids to shield him away from pointed questions at a press conf.? The man is a liar and the people in NY-26 have seen right through his false claims.

Let us hope the good people in Hastert's district can see that as well and give Dennis an early start on his retirement. That man, like many of the R's in charge - hey, over there in the White House - value staying in power more than personal integrity.

Sorry, Charlie. Hastert had a responsibility -- and decided to keep Foley around to keep bringing in the dough instead of doing the right thing.

But there's a lot more to come out, because there are so many highly-placed gays in the GOP. Hastert's secrets might not stay so secret.

Denis Hastert might well have used his "power to warn" to do just that, warn the current pages of the risk of innapropriate contact with Mr. Foley in the same way a parent would warn their own children of a known predator in their midst. the Speaker's failure to investigate to make certain that this was the only case of Foley's predation is the very least Mr. Hastert might have done. Telling a predator to stop and then doing nothing to check for potential victims or warn future victims is simply inexcusable. This is a devastating failure on the part of Hastert.

Democrats want that lyin' Hastert to stay the course. Please don't quit Denny. Puhleeze. We love how you are handling this.

Charlie,

Thanks to Foley, there is a law prohibiting using the Internet for such purposes. Foley violated his own law.

But in a larger sense, do you really believe that "FREEDOM OF SPEECH" applies to sending sexually explicit email to minors?

Hastert is the Speaker of the House and has the authority to appoint committee chairs and to recommend censure of members. He also has the moral obligation to report illegal acts to the proper authorities (in this case, the FBI and/or the Sentate Ethics Committee).

If my 15-16 year old son (or daughter) were receiving sexually explicit emails from a middle-aged man, I would march right into his office and throttle him.

Have you Republicans have no sense of shame? Where are your moral values?

to sander, the republicans we have in office today have no moral values, haven't you learned that in the past 5 years? no bid contracts to fix iraq and house and feed our troops, the protection of the oil in iraq so cheney and bush can steel more money? leaving afghanestan to declare war on iraq so all the terrorism we have now can multiply?
war to protect us i can understand. war for oil profits and escalating terror i can't understand. i think all the dirty politicians (reb or dem) need to be impeached. starting at the top. but i also believe democrats need to have a better plan than the one they know about but we don't. someday we will all have to go back to ww2 mentality, where everyone worked for our troops overseas fighting a paper hanger.we are not united, our gov't shows that and so do our citizens. we need to stand together to fight terror, or it will be in everyone's backyard.

Just please vote Democrat THIS TIME!!!!!!! I don't know why 1 single person voted for ANY conservative Republicans in 2004. Not a clue.

This time, send these bastards out of office, and then jail all those responsible for IRAQ. I want to spend the next 15 years of GW's life reading about his prison life. That SOB and all of his henchman have betrayed, lied, stolen and murdered members of our country and they must pay dearly.

bush(president) campained say that he was going to bring family morals to the federal gov!t and down size the fed!s and provide more state gov!t.well he has so much power and so much coruption,that every thing he stood for is not valid,he has let cheney & rumsfeld lie and mislead him he never imagined the magnituede of the job he wanted,his mission accompliched on top of the carrier,was so miss leading,if he actually would have known what his admimistration was doing he would have never made such a foolish statement, i think mr. bush and all of the repubicans in powers should resign for selling themselves and lying to the american people how many more tom delay foley or hasters do we not know about yet,mr. bush needs to ask them to resign that would help get his message across.this people have really done the united states wrong.

Charlie, Foley told ABC News he was resigning 20 minutes after he learned that they had the messages in hand. Hastert had nothing to do with his resignation.

Do you think Foley should still have the post that was given to him by the Republican Leadership? Should he still be at his desk, typing messages to pages? That is where he would still be if this hadn't come out.

I feel as though I have punched in the stomach, but my voice will be strong. I am a Veteran of over 40 years and served in Korea. I know many buddies who were sent to Iraq, some are still in hospitals. Cheney said he is no longer an employee of Halliburton. Yeah Right. Over $2 million a year, plus whatever he and George W is skimming from the BILLIONS being spent to support that war. How stupid do they think we are. PLEEEESE wake up America. Way too many dollars are being spent and human lives are being sacrificed.
It makes me sick at my stomach to know the only thing I can do is wait for NOVEMBER. This is all wrong!!!