Stay, Denny, Stay

If he were the leader of my party, I would want him gone. But for purely partisan political reasons, I hope that Denny Hastert sticks it out and remains in his position as Speaker of the House.
The longer Hastert remains in office, the longer this Mark Foley scandal will play out in the media. Questions about what Hastert knew and when will continue to be raised along with speculation that the Foley situation was purposefully kept under wraps to protect a Republican-held Congressional seat during an election year.
The fact that the Democrat on the House Page panel was kept in the dark about the Foley e-mails is the clearest indication that it was part of a cover-up. There is no other explanation. They were obviously concerned that the Democrat on the panel would not have the same partisan motivation for keeping the Foley story under wraps and might leak it to the press in an effort to damage his re-election chances. So they purposefully did not tell him about it.
So that is really all you need to understand about this situation. If it had been left up to the House Republican leadership, we would know nothing about this scandal today and Mark Foley would still be a member of Congress, free to pursue cybersex relationships with more high-school age children at the Capitol. That’s despicable and there is no way they can soft peddle it, blame it all on Bill Clinton, or anything else.

UPDATE

Hastert's decsion to stay put may be short-lived if too many more polls like this come out:

Internal Poll Shows Hastert Dragging Down GOP

"House Republican candidates will suffer massive losses if House Speaker Dennis Hastert remains speaker until Election Day, according to internal polling data from a prominent GOP pollster", Fox News has learned.

Said the source: "The data suggests Americans have bailed on the speaker. And the difference could be between a 20-seat loss and 50-seat loss."

The source also said "the internal data had not been widely shared among Republican leaders, but as awareness of it spreads calculations about Hastert's tenure may change. The source described the pollster who did the survey as 'authoritative,' and said once the numbers are presented, it 'could change the focus' on whether the speaker remains in power."

Stay, Denny, Stay!!!