Hastert innocent until Democrats proven guilty

Oh, Christ.

Thanks to True Ancestor for the link to this story, which makes me smack my forehead, hard, with the palm of my hand every time I read it.

Congressman Christopher Shays (R-Delusionville) is in a tight race to hold onto his seat, and he apparently became a bit unglued after Sen. Ted Kennedy campaigned for his opponent last week.

Shays, while responding to questions about the Republican leadership's handling of the Foley scandal, offered the following defense of House Speaker Dennis Hastert:
"I know the speaker didn't go over a bridge and leave a young person in the water, and then have a press conference the next day," the embattled Connecticut congressman told The Hartford Courant in remarks published Wednesday.

"Dennis Hastert didn't kill anybody," he added.

Shays is of course referring to Chappaquiddick, the 1969 scandal that forever ruined Kennedy's chances for political office outside of the adoring state of Massachusetts. In that scandal, Kennedy, probably drunk, drove off a bridge with a cute young campaign worker in his car. Kennedy escaped from the car, but the woman did not. Kennedy did not report the accident right away, but let the family's lawyers handle things, which they did poorly, and well...thus endeth Camelot forever.

But let's get back to Shays's method of deflecting criticism from the embattled speaker.

I applaud it. I think it is only fair to defend Hastert, a Republican, by comparing his sheltering of creepy creep Foley to the crimes of various Democrats throughout American history.

The only problem is that Shays didn't go far enough. Why stop at Kennedy, when there are a wealth of crimes of which Hastert is NOT guilty? For instance:

Unlike Andrew Jackson, Hastert did not advocate the genocide of Native Americans.

Unlike Martin Van Buren, Hastert did not call for the Africans aboard the Amistad to be returned to slavery.

President Wilson stood idly by while the Russians created the evil Soviet Union. Hastert did not.

Two hundred thousand civilians were deliberately killed by U.S. atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki under orders from President Truman. Speaker Hastert was not consulted.

Over a hundred Americans died in the ill-advised Bay of Pigs invasion. Unlike President John F. Kennedy, Hastert was not involved on any level.

Hastert did not escalate the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam. President Johnson could not say the same.

And let's not forget Jimmy Carter's killer rabbit. I understand that Hastert was in Connecticut at the time and has an air-tight alibi.

Frankly, I'm surprised that Shays didn't invoke the ghost of Vince Foster, the Clinton advisor that Bill and Hillary presumeably murdered, or had killed by some contract assassin, possibly Tipper Gore. Dennis Hastert has never been implicated in Foster's death, but that's hardly surprising, since implicating a Republican would make very little strategic sense.

Hastert was also, as far as we know, not involved in the fatal crash in which Laura Bush killed her high school sweetheart. Although due to the probability of alcohol as a factor in the crash, and the resulting cover-up and silence of the local police force, we will never know for sure.