The Note: The Mark of Truthiness

— -- WASHINGTON, Oct. 4

Wednesday realities of the Mark Foley story:

1. No strategist in either party -- including former/current Hastert adviser John Feehery -- thinks the Speaker has done enough to deal with the fallout.

2. Try as they might, Hastert and other leaders will not, by Election Day, be able to get the public, the press, and even their own Conference members, to focus on the difference between the non-sexual e-mails to the boy in Louisiana and the highly sexual IMs that surfaced later.

3. Try as they might, Hastert and other leaders will not, by Election Day, be able to get the public, the press, and even their own Conference members, to believe that they knew only about the non-sexual e-mails to the boy in Louisiana and not the highly sexual IMs that surfaced later.

4. Try as he might, Hastert will not, by Election Day, be able to get the public, the press, and PARTICULARLY his own Conference members, to believe that his staff handled the parent's complaint without deciding to "bump it up" to him, as the Speaker put it.

5. Until the Leadership takes an unambiguous position on whether the Foley matter was well handled or not, the boat will continue to take on water; if they take the unambiguous position that it was handled well, the boat will continue to take on water.

6. The White House and the RNC remain silent, pained bystanders in all this.

7. For years and years, there have been many semi-open and fully closeted homosexuals at senior staff and elected positions in the Republican Party. The heterosexual members of the Leadership and in the White House have maintained different levels of awareness and tolerance of this. Behind the scenes, this is a big deal.

8. Until there is (unobtainable) evidence to the contrary, many Republican strategists will fear (and many Democrats will hope) that the Foley scandal will give the Democrats control of Congress.

9. It is impossible to rank these series of relationships from most-venom-filled to least-venom-filled at this point: mother-daughter, landlord-tenant, Hastert-Boehner, Boehner-Blunt, Blunt-Hastert, Reynolds-Hastert, Emanuel-Dean, Yankees-Red Sox.

10. No matter what the facts, the die-hard members of the conservative Freak Show apparatus will continue to raise questions about the timing of all this and about the liberal Old Media's role in publicizing the Foley scandal, and try to rally the base by saying, "don't let ABC News and George Soros decide this election."

11. If #10 really is the mind-set of the Speaker -- as opposed to just the talking points he has agreed to read to Rush, Sean, etc. -- Tony Blankley, Ken Mehlman, and others will not be able to convince him that anti-media base rallying might alienate suburban mothers everywhere and seem out of touch.

12. Even the Democrats can't screw this up, and there's nothing they can do that would cause the Old Media to accuse them of politicizing the story.

13. Nothing would make the press happier than getting a big scalp, such as the resignation of Speaker Hastert.

14. It is easier for Republican House members and candidates to call for Hastert to not return as Speaker in January than it is for them to call for him to step down now, and that is what reporters are going to start asking about.

14. "Maddog" Madden (having survived DeLay) is thriving in his bunker, pumping out a steady strafe of bullet points bolstering Mr. Boehner's case.

15. "RonBon" Bonjean (having survived Lott) is doing his trademark non-freakout, keeping his cool head amid the pandemonium of the Speaker's suite.

Meanwhile, the Speaker himself is out of that suite (except as a disembodied voice on a speakerphone, like a modern-day Charles Townsend) and apparently in Illinois.

With the House Ethics Committee set to convene tomorrow to discuss what the New York Times has dubbed the "page scandal," and the FBI preparing a full field investigation with possible grand jury testimony, there are enough process pegs to keep this story percolating for much of the remainder of the week.

Democrats will continue to call for House GOP leaders to testify under oath before the Ethics Committee once it has organized its investigation into the Foley matter.

Republican Members of Congress continue to take a wait and see approach on Hastert and his hold on to his position, with many discussions taking place behind the scenes.

First Lady Laura Bush's 12:25 pm ET open press appearance at a fundraiser for Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY) in Amherst, NY provides a nice opportunity to look at what is arguably the most affected congressional campaign (other than Foley's district, of course) in the country. (Check out today's Washington Post editorial questioning (as Nancy Pelosi does) why the GOP campaign chief in the House was one of the first to be notified about Foley's emails. LINK

In recent days, Reynolds has raised eyebrows by indicating that the NRCC will not give back the $100,000 it recently received from Foley - after Rep. Reynolds was aware of the email exchange with the Louisiana page. An anti-Reynolds group of parents will hold a 12:00 pm ET event across the street from the hotel where Mrs. Bush is expected to speak.

Democratic candidates around the country continue to call on their Republican opponents to call for Hastert's head, return Foley-related financial contributions, and demand a full investigation.

Patty Wetterling, the Democratic candidate in Minnesota's 6th congressional district who has already launched a television ad on the Foley matter, has been tapped to give the Democratic radio address on Saturday. Wetterling is expected to address child safety, schools, and the Internet.

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) holds a 10:15 am ET campaign event in Springfield, MO where he will likely get asked about his thoughts on the Foley matter and Speaker Hastert's standing in the Conference.

Still out on the western campaign trail, President Bush attends a Rick Renzi for Congress reception at 10:20 am ET and then he signs a Homeland Security bill at 11:15 am ET at the Camelback Inn in Scottsdale, AZ.

Later today, President Bush talks up Bob Beauprez, the GOP candidate for governor of Colorado at the Inverness Hotel and Conference Center in Englewood, CO at 3:40 pm ET.

Vice president Cheney delivers remarks at 11:20 am ET to troops at Fort Hood, Texas. Cheney later heads to a luncheon reception at 3:00 pm ET for the woman seeking to replace Tom DeLay in Congress, Shelly Sekula-Gibbs, at the Hyatt Regency in Houston, TX.

Before her appearance with Tom Reynolds, First Lady Laura Bush speaks at 9:30 am ET to a Curt Weldon for Congress breakfast in Springfield, PA. Mrs. Bush wraps up her day on the stump with a 5:00 pm ET reception for Rep. John Sweeney (R-NY).

Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg and strategist James Carville host a press conference at 2:00 pm ET to release the new Democracy Corps poll at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner headquarters in Washington, DC.

Check below for the rest of the day's political events.

Foley: the House pages:
The Washington Post reports that as far back as 1995, House pages were warned to steer clear of Foley. He was already learning the names of the teenagers, dashing off notes, letters and e-mails to them, and asking them to join him for ice cream, according to a former page. LINK

Foley: calls for Hastert to resign:
On ABC's "Good Morning America," George Stephanopoulos said Hastert is "hanging by a thread right now. . . He's fighting very very hard. He says he is not going to resign."

"I think the chances that Speaker Hastert will return as Speaker next year are almost zero," added Stephanopoulos.

In a Washington Times op-ed, Tony Blankley defends his newspaper's Tuesday decision to call for Hastert's resignation. LINK

". . . the fact that, according to my best sources in the House Republicans, Mr. Hastert never informed any Democrats of the matter (even on the page oversight board), unambiguously suggests that he knew what was up. Thus began the cover-up. Of course he knew what the Democrats would do with the information. But not only is this not a Democratic Party dirty trick (the facts are real, not made up), but Mr. Hastert had a moral duty to do all in his power to make sure there would not be more victims of Mr. Foley's alleged sexual predation -- or clear potential for such."

"The fact that Democrats might also cover up such facts is just another reason why I am a Republican. Republicans do stand for sound moral values."

More Blankley: "While I don't have any proof, I will be amazed if Democratic operatives and at least a few Democratic congressmen didn't know about this and fed it to the media through various obscure blogs and to ABC. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) (just like the National Republican Congressional Committee) is in the business of disseminating negative information before elections, among other things."

ABC News' Jake Tapper and Avery Miller report on House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) defending himself on friendly conservative airwaves yesterday amidst criticism that his office hadn't done enough after first being notified in 2005 of former Rep. Foley's inappropriate emails. LINK

More from Tapper/Miller: "Hastert went on to tell Limbaugh's listeners -- and other audiences -- that he and the GOP leadership had facilitated Foley's resignation."

"'We took care of Mr. Foley,' Hastert said. 'We found out about it, asked him to resign. He did resign. He's gone.'"