Shut-It-Down Sweeney Wants Hastert's Head

If I were House Speaker Denny Hastert, I'd put a wrap-around mirror on my back so I could watch it very carefully. According to the Pentagon Post,

In the first sign that even Hastert could be in trouble, Rep. John E. Sweeney (R-N.Y.) said Republicans should consider whether to replace the speaker. "The time is right for us to do some soul-searching and have an open dialogue about the direction of the House."

Et Tu, Sweeney?

So who is Rep. John Sweeney anyway?

He's not the cuddly grandfatherly president of the AFL-CIO pictured on the right. As far as I know, he's not related either.

No, Rep. John Sweeney (far left) is an election-stealing right-wing thug from upstate New York.

As a legislator, Sweeney's main accomplishment has been to prevent General Electric from having to clean up the 1.3 million pounds of of toxic PCB's it dumped into the Hudson River.

But Sweeney's "greatest" accomplishment was outside Congress, when he paid a visit to Florida in the midst of the 2000 recount and started the infamous "bourgeois riot" at the Miami-Dade election board by shouting, "Shut It Down!"

Sweeney's slugs were captured in this famous photo, which was later annotated by Al Kamen of the Washington Post.

At the time, Miami-Dade election officials were painstakingly trying to manually count 10,750 punchcard ballots that had been rejected by the counting machines. But Shut-It-Down Sweeney's "bourgeois riot" terrorized them into abandoning the recount.

As Timothy Noah pointed out in Slate that week, Sweeney and his thugs committed a crime under the Voting Rights Act:

No person, whether acting under color of law or otherwise, shall intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for voting or attempting to vote, or intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, or coerce any person for urging or aiding any person to vote or attempt to vote. ...

So why wasn't Sweeney ever indicted? Because Bush put John Ashcroft in charge of the Justice Department, and Ashcroft refused to prosecute any of the crimes committed in Stolen Election 2000.

(Thus began the pattern of Bush's Justice Department - first under Ashcroft, then Alberto Gonzales - whitewashing crimes committed by their allies, which led eventually to the Torture Scandal.)

One year later, Sweeney had another crime covered up by his political mentors. After drinking wine at a bar, Sweeney wrapped his car around an electrical pole near the Willard Mountain ski resort, cutting off power in the neighborhood and stranding skiers on chairlifts. Thanks to Sweeney's political connections,

Sweeney was not given a sobriety test by the state trooper on the scene or even asked if he'd been drinking. Nor did the solon volunteer to take a test.

Why is Sweeney leading the fight to depose Hastert? Perhaps he's running scared, because he's facing a stiff challenge from Kirsten Gillibrand (left), an accomplished lawyer and a terrific candidate. (Headline writers might be forgiven if they call this race Beauty versus the Beast.)

Or perhaps Sweeney is carrying the hatchet for Bush's chief of staff Andrew Card, whose younger brother Brad used to be Sweeney's chief of staff.

Whatever Sweeney's motive, Hastert shouldn't be surprised if he finds a horse's head in his bed...