Gridlock Doc ain't a whore; he's just stupid

Doc Hastings
US House of Representatives (R-WA)

Dear Doc,

A lot of people were worried when you took over the helm of the Ethics Committee. Tom Delay was under state and federal investigation for corruption at the time, and the names of other GOP congressmen, like Ney, Doolittle, Pombo, Cunningham, and Harris were popping up in investigations as well. Everybody was wondering what you'd do. Would you launch ethics investigations against them, or would you ignore their crimes in a Predatorgate-like display of craven partisanship.

How did you respond? You launched an investigation against Demoslamunist Rep. Jim McDermott for releasing a tape of a phone call in 1994--a tape in which Newt Gingrich and Rep. John Boehner are caught plotting to subvert an ethics investigation against Gingrich.

You'd think that'd be enough work for an ethics committee during a session, but now you're catching criticism for doing too little. People wonder how Ney and DeLay could be indicted and Cunningham convicted without an ethics investigation against them being initiated. Indeed, the Olympian editorializes:

Rep. Doc Hastings, a Republican from Eastern Washington, should be ashamed of himself for allowing the House ethics committee he chairs to turn into a dysfunctional joke. It is an embarrassment to the state, to the country and even to the Republican Party that swept to power on the promise of clean government.

How do you respond to something like that? It makes you look like little more than the Dennis Hastert's toady, and the way things are going for him lately, it's not a good idea for you to allow that perception to linger.

You need to change your image, immediately. There isn't a lot of time for you to do that before election day, so it's probably best for you to promote another impression people already have about you. That is that you're a dullard, a very stupid man, or as The Daily Astorian put it:

There is no difficulty, however, in concluding that Republican leaders in the U.S. House are culpable and negligent in ignoring Foley's actions after they learned of them months ago. It is illuminating to consider for a moment how House Speaker Dennis Hastert and his peers would have responded if Foley was a Democrat. It doesn't take a crystal ball to know a Democrat would have been instantly tarred and feathered.

Largely to make certain it was neutered on behalf of since-disgraced GOP leader Tom DeLay, the House Ethics Committee was placed under the chairmanship of Doc Hastings, a dull Washington state congressman whose main qualification for the job seems to be belief in the philosophy espoused by Hogan's Heroes character Sgt. Hans Schultz: 'I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know nothing!'

The Daily Astorian isn't alone in thinking that you're slow-witted. Your ignorance is legendary throughout the state. I've even heard that your own staff has nicknamed you "The Idiot."

You have to run with it. It's the best explanation you have for your lethargic leadership of the Ethics Committee. Get some ads touting your stupidity up on the air, right away. The first one could show you sitting in front of a TV, drool dripping slowly from your lips as you blankly stare at a wrestling program. The only sound is the wrestling commentary. Fade to black, and the words "Doc Hastings: He's not a whore; he's just stupid" appear on the screen. You could follow that up with a second ad showing you picking up unidentifiable objects off of the ground, sniffing them, and then eating them.

Please let me know if I can do anything to help.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

Elsewhere: Hastings's opponent discusses Predatorgate.