Why Are We Back In Iraq?

Guest blogger: Michael Hussey

House Clerk Jeff Trandahl told Kirk Fordham about Mark Foley's drunken visit to the page dorm. Forham said he talked to Scott Palmer, Dennis Hastert's Chief of Staff, about the matter. Palmer said, "What Kirk Fordham said did not happen."

Fordham has testified to the House ethics committee and the FBI about his conversation with Palmer. Will Palmer be willing to do the same?

There are reasons to be skeptical about the stories coming from Hastert's office.

Yesterday morning, the ethics panel spent more than an hour with Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). She is among the members of the House Page Board who were not alerted about the e-mails sent to the Louisiana youth. "I'm a member of the Page Board who was not informed of the e-mail messages that were sent," Capito told reporters as she left the session.

She and another Page Board member -- Rep. Dale E. Kildee (D-Mich.) -- have said that they should have been informed and consulted. Democrats say an inquiry into early concerns about Foley might have uncovered his objectionable communications, which had been whispered about in some circles of former pages.

Ted Van Der Meid and Mike Stokke saw the same email that the St. Petersburg Times sat on. Tom Reynolds, the Chairman of the Republican Congressional Committee, knew about the emails. Rodney Alexander went to Reynolds instead of congressional members running the page program. That is not how things should be ethically done. Unless, politics comes first. Reynolds personally asked Foley to seek re-election.
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