Shimkus repeats same GOP talking points Hastert used

Seriously, can these guys give an honest answer once without simply repeating talking points?

Shimkus, a Republican, serves as head of the board that oversees the page program and he confronted Foley last year about a set of e-mails that the former Florida congressman had sent to a former page. In a telephone interview Wednesday with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from his Collinsville, Ill., office, he maintained his actions were sufficient.

". . . What else do you want me to do? Take off my shirt and give myself forty lashes?" he asked. "Would've, could've, should've."

That's exactly what Denny Hastert said the other day, verbatim:

“Would have, could have, should have,” Mr. Hastert said, responding to questions about whether Republicans should have done more.

We're talking about the sexual molestation of children here, Mr. Shimkus. Playing cute little word games isn't going to gloss over the fact that you knew about this scandal, hid it from your Page Board colleagues, and then helped cover it up.

Oh, then Shimkus repeats the other GOP talking point about this scandal, that we need to get to the bottom of who covered up this scandal! What are you people, OJ now? Gonna help us find Nicole's murderer? How nice of you.

The real question, Shimkus said in his interview with the Post-Dispatch, is who had the sexually explicit instant messages Foley had sent to underage boys and why didn't they come forward earlier.

"Whoever had them put these kids at risk," he said. "That's where we ought to be doing our investigative journalism . . . That's the real smoking gun that would have identified the real former congressman Foley."

Yeah, well considering ABC had the same emails as you and was able to find those lurid messages in just 12 hours of looking, tell us again why it was so hard for YOU to find them Mr. Shimkus. Oh, that's right, it was so hard because you didn't even try.