I have always regarding the man as Tom Delay's front man. This guy entered the House in the mid 1980's as a middle class guy and left a millionaire in 2007. That doesn't necessarily imply that he was corrupt, but it certainly does exemplify that he was focused on cashing in for his own benefit.
Also, he presided over what was arguably the most corrupt string of Congresses, led from behind by the hammer. The notion that the arm twisting and such started with the Hastert rule post 2005, fails to acknowledge the actions prior to that like the votes that went on for three hours past their end time, whilst Tom Delay practically cracked skulls to get the necessary votes to achieve passage by 1 vote in a Congress that the GOP had at least a ten seat majority over the Democrats.
In 2005, when it came time for the hammer to face the block, he cleared all the Republicans off of the ethics committee, including honest people like Steve Latourette and replaced them with cronies like Jo Bonner, who had his own ethics issues so much so that he was featured in a 2008 Fox News documentary along with Hastert himself for the Prarie Parkway that Torie mentioned, Ken Calvert (also property but with an airport I think not a highway) and Don Young (something about highway offramp in Florida. What the hell does a Congressman from Alaska want with a highway ramp in Florida?). Also you must be pretty fing dirty as a Republican to get called out by Fox News.
Hastert was a willing co-conspirator in the Washintonization of the House Republicans and the resulting destruction of the Republican Revolution of 1994 and the restoration of the culture of corruption they had promised to end, not merely replace with one of their own. After they took control in 1998, pursuit of honesty had become a mere hyprocritcal partisan tactic and burned them with the impeachment. Instead of targetting Washington corruption, they were going to co-opt it to build a right wing conservative machine built on money and special interest perks, sweet heart deals and gerrymandering bought with illegal donations (Delay and Texas). In so doing they destroyed the GOP's reputation as a limited gov't party opposed to corruption, enraged the GOP base to the point of revolt and led to the creation of the Tea Party (The saddest thing is that the Tea Party didn't stick to a reformist, anti-corruption agenda, the like that made it so popular at first and instead got coopted by kooks and fringe candidates seeking to use it to get their moment in the spotlight).
What goes around comes around and you'll be coming down my friend!
