Here’s news that yet another Republican bigwig is about to leave his job to spend more time with his family:
(CBS) CHICAGO Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert is in Asia, but he’s scheduled a news conference in Kendall County for Friday.
CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports exclusively sources say that they expect Hastert to announce he will not seek re-election next year.
In personal terms, it’s been a big year for him and wife, Jean. Denny Hastert turned 65, and the couple just welcomed their first grandchild, Jack Hastert, to the family. He also had to surrender the speaker’s gavel to a Democrat.
While sources tell CBS 2 that he’s leaving Congress after 22 years, he’s ridiculed previous speculation along those lines.
First White House political maven Karl Rove, and now Hastert. The positive spin is: See, these Republicans DO care about family values!
TPM Muckraker says thanks for the memories…
It’s too early to say why Hastert is calling it quits, and we’ll probably never know for sure (I’ll bet, like Rove, he’ll be wanting to get in some quality time with the family). I’d guess Hastert might be tired of hearing about how he helped squander the Republican majority with his botched handling of the Congressional page sex scandal. And it probably hasn’t helped that the scandal refuses to go away: the Rev. KA Paul, who was widely discredited even before Hastert discussed the page woes with him last year in a private meeting, was recently arrested in a Beverly Hills hotel on suspicion of “lewd and lascivious acts with a minor.” Still, many in Illinois will be sad to see Hastert go, if for no other reason than his ability to bring home giant slabs of pork. While it’s true that Speaker Pelosi is also sprinkling some bacon bits these days, at least she hasn’t been accused of self-dealing. Hastert won an earmark for a freeway through the middle of nowhere, driving up the value of an adjacent property that he owned, which he then sold at a profit.
Not that we should miss excess pork. Still, it’s a story worth mentioning; even as a former Speaker, Hastert has been able to steer a lot of project Illinois’s way. A lot of people will miss him when he is gone.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.