1115.org

ABC News reports that, in a radio interview with 700 WLW radio in Cincinnati, House Majority Leader John Boehner has changed his story once again. In fact, he’s come full circle:

“I believe I talked to the Speaker and he told me it had been taken care of,” said Boehner. “And, and, and my position is it’s in his corner, it’s his responsibility. The Clerk of the House who runs the page program, the Page Board—all report to the Speaker. And I believe it had been dealt with.”

I don’t know how you read that, but I read it as signalling that a strategy decision has been made at the highest levels of the Republican Party that they’re going to try to dump it all on Hastert—sacrifice him and hope that stems the bleeding.

Actually, please make that misguided strategy decision. At this stage, they are definitely not going to be able to put the scandal to rest just by putting Hastert out to pasture.

Just for starters, who takes over as Speaker? If it’s Boehner, the hot-seat attention just shifts to him. And his conduct is as untenable, as indefensible as Hastert’s. If it’s not Boehner, then the question becomes why he was passed over. And the clear implication would be that he too was too tainted by the scandal. So he still draws a lot of hot-seat attention.

This is not going to end any time soon, no matter what they decide about Hastert. There are too many deeply troubling questions about the conduct of too many Republican leaders at this point. Sacrificing one goat isn’t going to make it all go away. (In my opinion, Tom Reynolds — still chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, and counting — is in even more trouble than Boehner.)