BLOOD IN THE WATER. In the course of being quizzed yesterday by Chris Wallace on the whereabouts of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, House Majority Leader John Boehner let on that he had "spoken to the Speaker" about the possibility of postponing the leadership elections for the House Republicans -- now scheduled for Nov. 15th -- in consideration of whether, in Wallace's words, members should "take a clean look at whether you should have a new team in place to lead Republicans going forward." You'll recall that Boehner, nipping at Hastert's heels, claimed to have warned the Speaker about former Rep. Mark Foley's overly lech -- er, friendly mash notes to congressional pages, while Hastert claimed otherwise. On the subject of Denny's time out from the campaign playground, Boehner had little to say, except to counter with the discredited implication that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has also been absent from the campaign scene. Incidentally, this bogus claim has been systematically advanced through a G.O.P. memo, first reported by Think Progress -- it's a talking point that, as my new favorite blog, Canadian Cynic, put it, "Media Matters ... takes ... out to the parking lot and kicks ... to death."
--Adele M. Stan
