Young hot-shot reporter Jeff Zeleny, formerly of the Chicago Tribune,teams up againwith the paper's veteran congressional reporter Carl Hulse for Thursday's A1 rundown of the latest Foley happenings, "Early Warning on Foley Cited By Former Aide."
Again, the Times portrays the Foley scandal as the latest in what has been a long line of issues the Times has aggressively promoted as wrecking Republican chances of holding on to Congress.
"A former Congressional aide said Wednesday that Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's office knew about reports of 'inappropriate behavior' by Representative Mark Foley far earlier than Mr. Hastert's office has acknowledged....The statement further clouded Mr. Hastert's prospects of retaining his position as speaker as his party reached for a strategy to deal with a controversy that seems to have undermined its chances of keeping control of Congress on Election Day."
The economy [1], Tom DeLay [2], high gas prices [3], Iraq [4] and Randy "Duke" Cunningham [5]are just a few of the other issues that at one time or another were set to wreck Republican chances of retaining Congress in 2008.