Hastert's Disingenuous Defense

As a follow up to my previous post about Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert's insane comments about George Soros, you need to read Jack Shafer's column on Slate about both Hastert's initial statement and his utterly dishonest defense thereof. Soros wrote Hastert a letter demanding an apology and Hastert replied with this letter, packed with baldfaced lies.

His first lie is that he was referring not to "drug cartels" but to pro-legalization groups that Soros funds. Shafer nails this lie perfectly:

Hastert states in a Sept. 1 letter to Soros that he never referred to drug cartels on Fox News Sunday, that Chris Wallace did. The "drug groups" Hastert claims to have had in mind were the "Drug Policy Foundation, The Open Society, The Lendesmith [sic] Center, the Andean Council of Coca Leaf Producers, and several ballot initiatives across the country to decriminalize illegal drug use." On this score, Hastert's letter is completely disingenuous. These groups are beneficiaries of Soros wealth: He's given them money. In the program transcript, Hastert is clearly asking about the source of Soros' money for his political and social campaigns, and then he asks the leading question, is it from "overseas or from drug groups"?

And he's right. Hastert's initial statement was this:

You know, I don't know where George Soros gets his money. I don't know where--if it comes overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from.

Obviously, he's talking about where Soros gets his money from, not who he gives his money to. Furthermore, when Chris Wallace follows up on this with, "You think he may be getting money from the drug cartel?", Hastert doesn't say, "No, not the cartels, the pro-legalization groups". He doesn't correct the obvious interpretation when given the chance. The bottom line is that Hastert is lying, plain and simple. But that's not the only lie. Here's the second one:

I also believe that 527 political organizations set a
dangerous precedent for political discourse because we don't know where the money comes from. For all we know, funding for some of the 527s might come from foreign sources or worse.

Why is this a lie? Because under current law, 527s are required to file disclosure reports with the FEC that show where all of their donations came from. In fact, guess who helped pass the legislation that requires it? None other than Mr. Hastert. Media Matters points out:

As the Chicago Tribune reported on June 30, 2000, "Congress closed a loophole that had enabled tax-exempt political groups [527s] to raise millions of dollars in secret contributions," and "Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) played an instrumental role in getting the bill passed in the House."

The lies keep on piling up. What Hastert said was astonishingly slimy and stupid, even in our political system where such things are expected. The lies to cover up that slime and stupidity just up the ante even more. And this idiot is third in line for the presidency. Then again, after Clinton and Bush, he seems the obvious choice, doesn't he?