More than two weeks ago, on August 26 the Chicago Suburban Daily Herald reported this about Jim Oberweis, Hastert's rumored hand-picked successor, in the IL-14 Republican primary:

With the Iraq war a dominant issue in next year's election, Oberweis takes the view that the U.S. will start bringing troops home within six months because that's what military leaders will recommend. At least some troops will need to remain for 10 years or more as Iraqis start taking over responsibility for their country, said Oberweis, arguing "that's the right approach."

Ring a bell?  Sound like anything you might have heard tonight?

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In the period following then-Speaker Denny Hastert's rejection of suggestions that he resign from Congress through the weeks following his party's disastrous showing in the November midterms, many believed that Hastert would stick around in the Congressional minority for only so long before eventually relenting and leaving Capitol Hill. Not so, according to Mike Flannery of CBS 2 in Chicago.

In an exclusive interview with CBS 2 Dennis Hastert said he can deal with the demotion, and that, contrary to many rumors, he will not quit Congress.

"I just think that was wishful thinking on the part of some people," Hastert said. "Some even had me being an ambassador someplace, which had no founding at all."

"I've made a commitment to run, and I'm going to stay here to get going here, and I can do some things on energy -- I think energy is certainly important for Illinois," he said.

There is one thing, and one thing alone to read into this decision: Hastert has seen polling from his district and it shows that either his party would have difficulty holding on to his seat should he resign in the middle of his term or that, alternatively, his party has no chance of holding his seat in this situation.

In November Hastert was able to defeat his Democratic challenger, newcomer John Laesch, by a relatively healthy margin -- but he had to spend to do it. According to FEC filings compiled by PoliticalMoneyLine, Hastert outspent Laesch by a $5.1 million to $300,000 spread, a feat that would no doubt be difficult for any other Republican in the district, even one with the capacity to self-fund, to achieve. Given this, combined with fact that Hastert's district (IL-14) has a Republican lean of less than five points and that just about anything can happen in a special election, a decision by the former Speaker to resign in the coming months would cause real problems for his party.

So this move comes from a real position of weakness and it is indicative of just how worried Republicans are about the current political environment.

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Only under this Republican Congress, this unethical and morally bankrupt Republican Congress.

Today Congressman Bob Ney, Republican of Ohio, went before a court and admitted guilt to charges related to his connections with disgraced former GOP superlobbyist Jack Abramoff. According to the AP's Pete Yost, "Ney pleaded guilty to conspiracy and making false statements" and "acknowledged taking money, gifts and favors in return for official actions on behalf of Abramoff and his clients."

Yet despite the fact that Ney has effectively defrauded his constituents, and indeed all Americans, through the actions for which he pleaded guilty and admitted culpability, he nonetheless is still a member of Congress and is still receiving a paycheck from the federal government for his service. In fact, Ney has no plans to resign from his position immediately, but rather step down "in the next few weeks."

The ultimate responsibility for this situation lies on Denny Hastert, the Republican Speaker of the House. Just as Hastert allowed Mark Foley to continue to serve in leadership and as chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Abused Children even after it was widely known (even apparently in his office) that Foley had made inappropriate advances to underage House pages, so too has Hastert allowed Ney to remain in Congress both after he informally admitted wrongdoing through the announcement of a plea arrangement and then even today as Ney officially pleaded guilty.

Given the fact that Rep. Ney apparently still refuses to resign from Congress and give up his government salary, the only acceptable response at this juncture is for Speaker Hastert to call the House into order and quickly commence expulsion hearings. The entire House should be able to expedite the proceedings and have Ney out of the House in a matter of hours or perhaps days instead of a matter of weeks. If Hastert is unwilling to take a decisive action to show both members of Congress and the American people that malfeasance inside the Capitol will not be tolerated then Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi should publicly demand he do so.

Update [2006-10-13 12:28:54 by Jonathan Singer]: It appears that Congressional leaders are doing just that: "Ney did not immediately resign from Congress, and within minutes, Republican and Democratic leaders vowed to expel him unless he steps down."

If these reports are true and both Republican and Democratic leaders are threatening expulsion, then good for them. But it is still too long in coming. Ney had admitted guilt long ago when he reached a plea agreement with prosecutors and had Speaker Hastert actually cared about running a clean House of Representatives, he would have taken this action then.

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Fresh of off polling showing Speaker Denny Hastert barely cracking 50 percent in Illinois 14, Hastert's Democratic challenger John Laesch is going on the air with a powerful ad using the words of NRCC chairman Tom Reynolds to place blame on the Speaker for failing to act in the Mark Foley scandal.

The production quality isn't perfect, and it shouldn't be expected to be given the modest level of fundraising success achieved thus far by the Laesch campaign (though it should be noted that the flow of money has picked up in recent weeks, particularly through ActBlue). Yet the ad does make a strong argument -- using words from this ad from Reynolds -- that Hastert knew about Mark Foley but simply failed to act on it.

So while most Congress-watchers are still overlooking the race in Illinois 16, if Laesch is able to get this ad, and perhaps some others, on the air and keep it there from now until election day, polling on Hastert indicates that this might -- might -- be a race the Democrats can sneak away with come November 7.

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Republicans would have us believe the outing of Mark Foley is the October surprise concocted by the Democrats.

Republican finger pointers wail that Foley's eye for the young page was well known throughout Washington and only now, on the cusp of the midterm elections, has the blow below the belt been delivered.

All in the name of politics.

Well, my view is different.

Oh, I believe Republican House members knew about Foley and his email slime trail. My guess is the Tony Soprano of the House, James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) knew as much, if not more, as Speaker of the House, Denny Hastert.

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