*Hic!* Hey!! Hey you kids!! Come on out!!

Um ... good evening congressman. Can I help you?

Hey! Kids!! Come on down and *Hic!* give Uncle Mark a big hug!!

Ah... Congressman? I'm afraid none of the pages can see you now.

Wha?? Oh! Heya ossifer! Didn't even see ya there!

Congressman, I'm going to give you until I eat this donut to leave the premises

Hey! You canna talk ta me like that! I'm *Hic!* a congressman!

Congressman, please don't make me call for backup.

Wha's this world comin' to when a patriotic 'murikan like me can't say hullo to li'l boys? Eh?!

Last chance, creep

Whoa! Thass some backup! Goodnight, sir!

********************************************************************************************************************************

Yeah, I imagine it went down something like that. Kidding aside, one thing this story does is give creedence to Foley's claims of alcoholism. To my knowledge, it's the first story to do so. When the alcoholism angle first dropped a couple days ago, none of Foley's friends or colleagues were willing to say they'd seen him drunk.

Anyway, The Republican circular firing squad seems to be surrounding Dennis Hastert, the only congressman who loves little sausages more than Mark Foley (Sorry, sorry. Had to get one fat joke in. It's not nice to make fun of someone's weight, but at least I didn't go with the obvious "Fat Hastert" coupled with a photo of Fat Bastard from Austin Powers). I believe one of three things will happen.

1) Hastert will resign this Friday night or Saturday morning -- this seems fairly unlikely. Although Hastert's pretty much done at this point, he's still stumbling around zombie-like, unaware that he's already been killed. Sort of like in those action movies where the villain gets shot about 20 times, then lurches around for a while before dropping.

2) Hastert will resign next Friday night or Saturday morning -- depending on how next week goes for the Speaker, this could be the most likely option.

3) If he weathers the next couple weeks, Hastert will wait until after the election to resign, in order to assure a Republican seat in the House -- if the scandal doesn't build over the next couple weeks, this is the likely outcome.

Notice how Hastert will resign in all three scenarios. At this point, I think that's unavoidable. Also, notice how the first two involve late Friday or early Saturday. Traditionally, these are the times when politicians carry out actions that will play badly in the media -- it's called the "news dump" in some circles, and it happens like clockwork.

Dennis Hastert, alleged soon-to-be ex-Speaker of the House