Two heartbeats from the presidency, an absolute nut job

Jack Shafer does a nice job of taking on Dennis Hastert on Dope at Slate.

If both Bush and Cheney were to suddenly drop dead, the law would transfer the presidential powers to a man who proved himself an absolute nut job on the Aug. 29 edition of Fox News Sunday: Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

Shafer gives a recap of Hastert’s slander of Soros (see my earlier posts) and then notes:

Hastert states in a Sept. 1 letter [pdf] to Soros that he never referred to drug cartels on Fox News Sunday, that Chris Wallace did. The “drug groups” Hastert claims to have had in mind were the “Drug Policy Foundation, The Open Society, The Lendesmith [sic] Center, the Andean Council of Coca Leaf Producers, and several ballot initiatives across the country to decriminalize illegal drug use.” On this score, Hastert’s letter is completely disingenuous. These groups are beneficiaries of Soros wealth: He’s given them money. In the program transcript, Hastert is clearly asking about the source of Soros’ money for his political and social campaigns, and then he asks the leading question, is it from “overseas or from drug groups”?

Shafer finally concludes:

Whatever the reason behind his eruption, Hastert has answered the question of who is screwy enough to run on this year’s LaRouche ticket. “LaRouche-Hastert in 2004,” anyone?