Considering the amount of tax-payer millions spent on cleansing America of a philandering president, one would think Republicans would have some consistency with their own.

But what now? Do we have to ask what Foley was up to as he "aggressively" pursued boy pages down the halls of Congress? What about Scooter Libby, writing erotic novels?

What about all the people Rumsfeld took down by accusing them of sexual improprieties? Like Guantanamo chaplain Captain James Yee. Or General Kevin Byrnes.

And let's go back a bit to Abramoff. No sexual shenanigans there, right? Nope. I guess it is no longer considered obscene to defraud others of millions of dollars, including one's own Native American constituents.

Nor is it considered immoral for the President to reserve the right to torture, when he feels like it. Now--as one of my colleagues has frequently said--he can roast babies over a fire in order to gain what he deems necessary intelligence. But he wouldn't do that, would he? I wonder who is on record saying it was time to "take the gloves off"? (Hint: He's the VP.) Who authorized the extraordinary renditions? The CIA black sites? The sexual torture at Abu Ghraib? Wasn't it Rumsfeld? Or was it Gonzales? Or was it Bush? Oh, I forgot: despite the fact that they have gone on the record repeatedly, authorizing extreme procedures, they're not responsible for what their underlings do.

Ever hear of "command responsibility" or the Nuremburg Principles?

And let's take a look back for a moment at the time when this moral White House was bucking to get into office. What about the outrageous and immoral tactics used in that election? Intimidating voters, threatening recounters.

Or, for that matter, the legal strategies used by the Republicans to bring suit before the Supreme Court of the United States to stop a recount on completely frivolous grounds. Oh, the irony. A court that had repeatedly refused to consider an equal protection claim that did not prove discriminatory intent now was perfectly happy to decide that the Emperor-to-Be-with-no-Clothes really DID have clothes on, really did have an equal protection claim, even though he could not prove ANY discriminatory intent whatsoever. In fact, the laws Bush challenged were nearly identical to those he had signed into law in his home state of Texas while governor.

But the Supreme Court was perfectly willing to let him make the frivolous and insulting equal protection argument to their faces despite the fact that Bush didn't even have any standing to make the claim. He was, after all, bringing the claim for his voters, who couldn't be expected to speak for themselves, so the High Court decided that the naked Emperor-to-Be had a legitimate claim to challenge the laws that affected those he didn't yet electorally represent.

Naked, yes, and already clothed with illegality and impropriety. And astonishingly, nobody noticed a thing!

Now, fast forward to Abu Ghraib. Isn't it immoral to torture? Isn't it immoral to sexually humiliate someone? What would Jesus do? This is compassionate conservatism? But this IS what the President wants the freedom to do, isn't it? Isn't that what the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA), just passed by Congress, about?

No, I forgot. Torture is only part of what the DTA allows. It also allows Bush to declare anyone he pleases an unlawful enemy combatant and detain him for as long as he wants. It also suspends habeas corpus for aliens, although the Constitution says habeas corpus may only be suspended during insurrections or rebellions. Habeas corpus. Remember that thing? It's also been called the Great Writ of Liberty.

Now the President has succeeded in garnering exemptions from the War Crimes Act for his torturers and extraordinary renderers, as well as for himself and his Cabinet. That's real moral, isn't it?

And what about Iraq? Was it moral to invade Iraq on the basis of lies?

And where are the moral standard bearers now? Hiding their heads in the sand? Where are your morals now? How could you let this happen to your country?

Jennifer Van Bergen, a journalist with a law degree, is the author of THE TWILIGHT OF DEMOCRACY: THE BUSH PLAN FOR AMERICA (Common Courage Press, 2004). She writes frequently on civil liberties, human rights, and international law. Her book, ARCHETYPES FOR WRITERS, about the characterization method she developed and taught at the New School University, will be out in 2006. She can be reached at jvbxyz@earthlink.net.

Polls yesterday showed the scandal taking a heavy toll on Republican electoral prospects, with one survey putting the Democrats within striking distance of taking control of the House.

Mark Foley, a six-term congressman who led a personal crusade against online sexual predators, resigned last week after being confronted with suggestive emails written to a former teenage male assistant, or page. Mr Foley is now under FBI investigation.

His lawyer insists that he never had sexual contact with a minor. In the days since his exit from Congress, Mr Foley has admitted to alcoholism, acknowledged being gay and revealed that he was a victim of abuse by Catholic clergy as a teenager.

The drip-feed of revelations - and the daily leak of new sexually explicit email exchanges between Mr Foley and male teenagers - has intensified the pressure on Republicans to demonstrate a more emphatic response to the scandal.

The first in the line of fire is the House Speaker, Dennis Hastert, whose office knew about Mr Foley's behaviour for nearly a year but did not seek an investigation until after the damaging email had become public.

Mr Hastert's political career was hanging in the balance yesterday, with the Speaker admitting: "If I thought it could help the party, I would consider it."

In the last 48 hours Mr Hastert has been attacked by Republicans worried about keeping their seats. Democrats have already begun to use the Foley scandal in TV ads. "We have to do something different, more dramatic," congressman Ray LaHood told reporters. "This is a political mess and what we have done so far is not working. Somebody has to take responsibility for this. It is on our watch."

The momentum for Mr Hastert's departure gathered pace on Tuesday, when his deputy, the House majority leader, John Boehner, told a radio station in Ohio that he believed the Speaker had had primary responsibility to deal with Mr Foley when he first learned of his activities. "I believe I talked to the Speaker and he told me it had been taken care of," Mr Boehner said. "And my position is [that] it's in his corner, it's his responsibility."

News reports yesterday suggested Mr Hastert would hang on until the end of the year to avoid a leadership battle, but he would not seek re-election to his post.

His might not be the only high-profile Republican departure, with anger building against campaign chief Thomas Reynolds. He also knew about Mr Foley's emails and has said he will not return $100,000 raised for the party by Mr Foley. Mr Reynolds was aware of the email exchanges when he received the funds.

The urgency of finding an exit from the scandal was underlined yesterday for the Republicans by a Wall Street Journal poll in which 41% of respondents said they felt less positively towards the Republicans than they had only weeks ago.

Meanwhile, another poll put the Democrats well within reach of taking control of the House of Representatives. The party needs to gain 15 seats to reclaim the House, which has had a Republican majority since 1994. Democratic candidates now lead Republicans in 11 of 15 closely contested seats, the Reuter-Zogby poll said. Republican incumbents were especially at risk, trailing Democrats in seven of nine competitive seats.

Part of the polling was conducted after the revelations about Mr Foley emerged, and pollster John Zogby said the growing scandal could put the Republicans into freefall. Republicans readily admit their concern that the lurid details about Mr Foley's contacts with the pages would alienate Christian conservatives .

On Tuesday night ABC, which first broke the story of Mr Foley's behaviour, reported that the congressman was having internet sex with a teenage male in 2003 as the House was preparing to vote on extra funds for the Iraq war.

"I better go vote ... did you know you would have this effect on me," Mr Foley writes in the transcript of the instant message exchange. The teenager replies: "Ya go vote ... I don't want to keep you from doing your job." Mr Foley then asks for a kiss goodnight.

The questions are essentially two: why Mr Hastert did not take more vigorous action when word first reached him about Mr Foley's correspondence with the male pages late last year ­ and whether he and his colleagues tried to keep the potentially explosive affair quiet, at least until after November's mid-term elections.

But even the more innocent explanation has outraged not just Democrats, who yesterday were rushing out new campaign ads for some of the most closely contested races ­ Republicans too, especially the social conservatives who are the party's most reliable supporters, are appalled.

Their anger found thunderous echo in The Washington Times, normally loyal to the party leadership, which urged Mr Hastert "to do the only right thing and resign his speakership at once". "Either he was grossly negligent," said the Times, "for not taking the red flags fully into account and ordering a swift investigation, for not even remembering the order of events leading up to last week's revelations ­ or he deliberately looked the other way in hopes that a brewing scandal would simply blow away." The affair, it added, was "a disgrace for every single Republican member of Congress".

Last night the Speaker flatly refused to step down. He would stay in his post and "lead the Republicans to another majority in the 110th Congress ".

But the demand that Mr Hastert fall on his sword is a sign of the fear in the party that without drastic action, the scandal could seal defeat at the polls next month.

President George Bush issued an expression of support for the Speaker, but he was "shocked and dismayed" at the behaviour of Mr Foley, who sent explicit messages to some pages, high-school students aged 16 and 17, from as early as 2003, and who is now under investigation by the FBI.

Another sign of the turmoil has been the friction between Mr Hastert and Mr Boehner. In a radio interview, the latter said he had been assured by the Speaker that the matter had been dealt with months ago. "It's in his corner, it's his responsibility," Mr Boehner declared, signalling that Mr Hastert should not look to him for any support.

The Speaker's version is that Mr Foley was quietly admonished after some far milder correspondence was brought to his attention. Mr Foley, who insisted he had only "tried to be friendly," was told to cease all contact with the page in question. Mr Hastert says he only learnt of the truly lurid material on Friday last week, when it became public and Mr Foley abruptly resigned.

Mr Foley said through his lawyer yesterday that he was abused by a clergyman as a teenager, but accepted full responsibility for sending salacious messages to the pages. He declined to identify the clergyman or the church, but Mr Foley is Roman Catholic. Mr Foley also acknowledged for the first time that he is a homosexual, saying the disclosure was part of his " recovery".

Many Republicans and non-partisan analysts believe that the damage done by the scandal to the party's hopes in November could be irreparable, whether the Speaker stays or goes. Until last week Republicans had been staging a modest comeback, in line with Mr Bush's own rise in the polls, amid hopes that they might after all cling on to control of the House, considered the chamber most vulnerable to a Democratic takeover. Now, some experts believe the Democrats could capture not only the 435-member House, where they need a net gain of just 15 seats, but also the Senate, where the 55-45 Republican majority has been considered almost impregnable.

"No," Hastert said. "I think that resignation is exactly what our opponents would like to have happen, that I'd fold my tent and others would fold our tent and they would sweep the House."

When asked about a groundswell of discontent among the GOP's conservative base over his handling of the issue, Hastert said: "I think the base has to realize after a while, 'Who knew about it? Who knew what, when?' When the base finds out who's feeding this monster, they're not going to be happy. The people who want to see this thing blow up are ABC News and a lot of Democratic operatives, people funded by George Soros."

Hastert suggested that operatives aligned with former President Bill Clinton knew about the allegations and might have been behind the disclosures in the closing weeks before the Nov. 7 elections, but he offered no proof.

Hastert said he had spoken with former President George Bush, whom he described as "very supportive." He said he had not spoken to President Bush.

"I'm sorry that the contact between Foley and the pages happened," Hastert said. "Something like this, I take the responsibility. The buck stops where I'm at. When we found out, we dealt with it immediately and the member is gone. ... We have reached out to experts to make sure that it never happens again."

But time did not seem to be Hastert's ally. In a day of rapid developments, his office denied the charge from former Foley chief of staff Kirk Fordham that he had alerted the speaker's chief of staff to Foley's behavior well before a former page complained last year of inappropriate e-mail from the Florida Republican congressman. Fordham had resigned earlier in the day as chief of staff to Rep. Tom Reynolds of New York, the Republicans' national congressional campaign chairman, and Reynolds was among those involved in discussions of the page's complaint about Foley.

Fordham's lawyer, Timothy Heaphy, said Fordham warned Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, at least two years ago about inappropriate behavior between Foley and pages. "Palmer subsequently had a meeting with Foley, and Foley mentioned it to Fordham," Heaphy said.

Fordham is unsure when the meeting with Palmer occurred, but Heaphy said it was between 2002 and January 2004, when Fordham was Foley's chief of staff.

The FBI has contacted Fordham and "he intends to cooperate completely," Heaphy said.

The usually disciplined House Republican leadership showed signs of disarray, with Majority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri telling reporters that he would have urged a different course of action had colleagues informed him of the page's complaint.

"I think I could have given some good advice here, which is: 'You have to be curious, you have to ask all the questions you can think of,'" said Blunt, who ranks third in the Republican leadership. "You absolutely can't decide not to look into activities because one individual's parents don't want you to."

A day earlier, House Majority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio, who was informed of the page's complaint last spring, appeared to be insulating himself from Hastert, telling a radio audience that he had relied on assurances from Hastert that the issue had been handled.

Rep. Ron Lewis of Kentucky, in the midst of a tough re-election campaign, abruptly canceled a fundraiser at which Hastert was scheduled to appear.

Hastert's deputy chief of staff, Mike Stokke, said Hastert has not received any feelers from the White House or Republican officials about leaving and had been on the phone much of the day talking with GOP lawmakers.

Still, national Republican officials were trying to move beyond a scandal that has crippled their campaign for the midterm elections.

"This is a disaster. It's undermining our base. And it's been handled terribly," said a Republican official with close ties to the White House. "Right now, everybody's circling the wagons."

But the official pointed out that a departure by Hastert might not solve the party's political difficulties since Boehner also was in the loop on the complaint. "The No. 2 supposedly knew about this months ago," the official said.

With the House Ethics Committee scheduled to begin an investigation today, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said that Hastert and the rest of the GOP leadership should be "immediately questioned under oath."

Foley, 52, resigned Friday after ABC News disclosed sexually explicit instant messages that the congressman exchanged with teenage former congressional pages. Last fall, Hastert's staff received a complaint from the office of Rep. Rodney Alexander, a Louisiana Republican, that a former page Alexander had sponsored received an e-mail from Foley requesting a photo and asking the 16-year-old what he wanted for his birthday.

The controversy engulfing Hastert and other Republican leaders has focused on his handling of that complaint, and the speaker's staff has stressed that they were unaware of the other, more lurid messages until Foley's resignation.

The matter was referred to then-House Clerk Jeff Trandahl, a Republican appointee whose domain includes the page program, and Page Board Chairman Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois. They told Foley to cease contact with pages but did not inform authorities or otherwise investigate.

Stokke, who said he referred the complaint without informing Hastert, defended his actions.

"I didn't want it to look political," Stokke said. "It was turned over to the proper authority. And if the proper authority had found anything of a sexual nature, they would have reported back."

Stokke said he could not recall how he heard of the outcome, but he said, "I remember hearing that they had this intervention with Foley and it had been handled."

Stokke said no one on Hastert's staff had received any warnings about Foley's inappropriate conduct with pages until the congressman resigned.

"There were rumors rampant here that he was gay, which is not illegal," Stokke said.

Still, Fordham told the Associated Press that he had "more than one conversation with senior staff at the highest level of the House of Representatives asking them to intervene" several years ago. Fordham named Palmer, who issued a denial through the speaker's press office.

Rick Pearson and Mike Dorning write for the Chicago Tribune.

Now a book by Bob Woodward of the Washington Post is helping to turn the knife. He points to divisions inside the Bush administration. After Mr Bush was re-elected, Condoleezza Rice, now the secretary of state, and Stephen Hadley, the president's second-term national security adviser, apparently suggested that Mr Rumsfeld be sacked. So did Andy Card, Mr Bush's trusted chief of staff. Mr Rumsfeld has kept his job, reportedly, largely because Dick Cheney, the vice-president, and various political handlers worried about going through bruising confirmation hearings for a new secretary of defence. Such hearings would certainly have focused on the war in Iraq.

According to Mr Woodward internal rivalries also undermined planning for the war in Iraq in 2003. Mr Rumsfeld disdained the interagency process by which the State Department, the National Security Council and others work together with the Pentagon to plan big things like wars. Mr Rumsfeld isolated himself from dissent, sometimes even refusing calls from Ms Rice (who was then the national security adviser). The book buttresses the idea of a powerful team of Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld, with near complete control over Mr Bush's key decisions on Iraq, shutting out the administration's more cautious voices. As with the National Intelligence Estimate, the gist of Mr Woodward's book is not new, but it offers more evidence of what many have long thought.

As if internal revolt over Iraq were not enough, a scandal at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue threatens the Republicans before November's mid-term congressional elections. It emerged on Friday September 29th that a Republican congressman from Florida, Mark Foley, had written sexually suggestive messages to several teenage boys working as congressional pages (who deliver messages in the House and the Senate). Worse, Republican leaders had known of at least one inappropriate e-mail exchange with a teenager. Instead of investigating, one of them merely told Mr Foley to end contact. Now, the FBI is looking into the matter. Mr Foley has resigned in disgrace; his colleagues are running away from him as fast as they can.

Mr Foley's transgressions are those of a lone, troubled man. But as the Republicans' swagger was self-reinforcing in Mr Bush's first term, their struggles seem to compound themselves in his second. Mr Foley has landed a powerful blow on the only strong Republican pillar remaining: social conservatives. Though they will never vote for the Democrats, a good number may be so dispirited by the scandal that they stay at home on November 7th.

Can anything lift the Republicans now? Some have speculated recently that the Republicans may be planning an "October surprise" to help them in the election-some even joking that the death of Osama bin Laden, or even strikes on Iran, will be announced. But, so far in October, the only surprises are nasty ones for the ruling party.

Cheney aides described the vice president as repulsed by allegations that former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., sent salacious e-mails and instant messages to teenage boys working as congressional pages. At the same time, Cheney is determined not to let the scandal overshadow campaign issues that he considers far more important - national security and the economy.

"I think we've got good stuff to work with," he said during a flight from Houston to Washington. "The Foley thing, again, as to how that cuts, I can't tell."

Cheney flatly rejected predictions by pundits that Democrats will take control of the House and Senate in November.

"We will retain control of both houses," he said.

If Cheney is wrong, some believe Democrats will spend the next two years investigating the Bush administration with subpoenas and hearings. Some Democrats have already called for Bush to be censured, while others have hinted at impeachment proceedings.

"I don't think we fear investigations," Cheney said. "I don't think they [Democrats] would get much done, if that's all they've got. And I don't think there's great enthusiasm on the part of the country for that.

"But I think the stronger argument is basic questions on the economy, tax policy on the one hand and national security on the other."

As for national security, Cheney rejected the notion that Democrats will win the argument if they decouple the Iraq war from the broader war on terror.

"They are linked," he said. "Democrats may not like that, but Osama bin Laden himself says Iraq is the central front in the war on terror. It just is.

"They may try to wish it away, but the bottom line is they don't have a policy, they don't have a strategy, they don't really have an effective philosophy for battling the global war on terror. They still, left to their own devices, probably would do what John Kerry seemed to focus on, and that's law enforcement. It's got to be a lot more than law enforcement."

Cheney said that even if the focus of the campaign remains on Iraq, as opposed to the larger war on terror, the debate redounds to the benefit of Republicans because Democrats such as Rep. John, D-Pa., Murtha want to withdraw U.S. forces.

"I don't think the majority of the American people want to withdraw from Iraq," Cheney said. "I think they'd prefer we complete the mission given to us.

"I also think it's important, if you're going to be responsible in this debate, that if you find things to criticize about Iraq - it's taking too long, we underestimated the difficulties of the task - you have to consider the consequences of a withdrawal from Iraq on all the other things you're doing in the global war on terror."

For example, he said, it would adversely affect U.S. allies such as Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"The United States is no longer a trusted ally if al-Qaida is right in its claim that the U.S. doesn't have the stomach for the fight," he said. "You'll have a hard time ever getting more allies to assist in this long-term struggle against the Islamic extremists. It's the worst possible thing you could do."

Cheney was also forceful in his warnings that Democrats will raise taxes if they take control of Congress. He pointed out that Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., who would be chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, recently said he "cannot think of one" tax cut from President Bush's first term that should be extended.

"He doesn't believe there's a single tax cut that should be extended," Cheney said. "If he simply doesn't act, as chairman, those taxes are going up. And I think that has significance for every family in the country."

As Cheney spoke, stock prices skated across a flat screen television on the wall that was displaying news coverage of the country's economy.

"I'm sitting here watching - we're up 122 points - a new all-time record high," he said of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. "And unemployment's down, inflation's down, productivity's up, gasoline prices have gone down significantly. If you look at the basic underlying fundamentals of how the country's doing, it's pretty damn well."

Earlier in the day, Cheney had appeared with former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to raise $196,000 for the Texas Republican's would-be successor, write-in candidate Shelley Sekula-Gibbs.

It was Cheney's 108th campaign event this season, bringing his haul for the cycle to $38.9 million, all of which will be used in the effort to elect Republicans.

"It is important to have a national perspective on a campaign," he said. "It does have consequences - not just in terms of a selection of an individual to represent a particular district. There are major consequences that will flow from the collective decision the American people make on Nov. 7."