Drudge on Foley: Blame the Victims - Not the Louse in the House

This may be an all time low for Republican apologists. Crooks and Liars has the audio of Matt Drudge saying this:

And if anything, these kids are less innocent — these 16 and 17 year-old beasts…and I've seen what they're doing on YouTube and I've seen what they're doing all over the internet — oh yeah — you just have to tune into any part of their pop culture. You're not going to tell me these are innocent babies. Have you read the transcripts that ABC posted going into the weekend of these instant messages, back and forth? The kids are egging the Congressman on! The kids are trying to get this out of him. We haven't got the whole story on this.

Well, I happen to have a son who is a high school sophomore who would be eligible to be a Congressional page next year. To get an idea of what one of these "beasts" look like, you can check out the next to last photo on this page. I'm sure his parents appreciated Mr. Drudge's characterization of Congressional pages. Sheesh. How low can you go?

Update: According to Wikipedia, I learned tonight that lice are also known as "fly babies". Seems like a good term for Boehner, Hastert, et al.

Speaking of Hastert, Glenn Greenwald is now reporting...

Drudge just put up a screaming headline, complete with the whole melodramatic multi-color siren bit, which reads:


WASHINGTON TIMES ON TUESDAY WILL CALL FOR SPEAKER HASTERT'S RESIGNATION, NEWSROOM SOURCES TELL DRUDGE... DEVELOPING... 'House Speaker Dennis Hastert must do the only right thing, and resign his speakership at once' -- Washington Times, October 3, 2006...


If Drudge (who last night was blaming the 16-year-old pages for Foley's conduct) and The Washington Times are now on the "Fire Hastert" train, it's hard to see him lasting more than a week. I actually think the best thing that could happen for Republicans would be for Hastert to resign sooner rather than later, although they then would be faced with the very serious problem that the next in line, Rep. Boehner, is quite implicated in all of this also. It seems like a safe bet that while the top level of the GOP House leadership is focused on saving themselves, the next level down is focused on which new jobs will be up for grabs.

Har tip to my wife for coming up withe the "louse in the house" phrase earlier this evening. We hereby place it in the public domain (assuming it's even necessary) if anyone has any reservations about reusing it.