New York Daily News – Politics – Lloyd Grove’s Lowdown: GOP has dol-fun with Dems:
LOOSE-TONGUED SPEAKER? Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert – having already enraged some New Yorkers with his remarks about local office-holders’ “unseemly scramble” for federal money after 9/11 – yesterday opened a second front. On “Fox News Sunday,” the Illinois Republican insinuated that billionaire financier George Soros, who’s funding an independent media campaign to dislodge President Bush, is getting his big bucks from shady sources. “You know, I don’t know where George Soros gets his money. I don’t know where – if it comes overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from,” Hastert mused.
An astonished Chris Wallace asked: “Excuse me?”
The Speaker went on: “Well, that’s what he’s been for a number years – George Soros has been for legalizing drugs in this country. So, I mean, he’s got a lot of ancillary interests out there.”
Wallace: “You think he may be getting money from the drug cartel?”
Hastert: “I’m saying I don’t know where groups – could be people who support this type of thing. I’m saying we don’t know.”
I don’t know for sure where Richard Mellon Scaife, the “funding father of the Right” got his money, either.
They must really be afraid of the guy if they’re prepared to bring up allegations like that. Say what you like about him, the only drug he can be accused of dealing in is currency. Seems to me the capitalist tools who create these GOP talking points should be OK with a guy who exploits market opportunities.
It’s noted elsewhere that Hastert bounced 44 checks in the House bank scandal of 1992[1]: these checks were essentially no interest loans, as they were cashed with no verification that there were funds backing them.
And it’s not like much has changed: apparently, it’s not uncommon for senators, former senators and other officials to “dine and dash” for a total of $189,545 in 2003. I’m not sure bringing how one gets and spends is a safe topic.
fn1. http://www.txstate.edu/cpm/hobbyscorner/house_banking.html