Here in this country, House Speaker Dennis Hastert refused to resign on Thursday over his handling of the Mark Foley scandal. Hastert’s office knew for months that Foley was sending inappropriate Internet messages to underage boys but the House Speaker allowed Foley to stay on as co-chair of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. During a press conference on Thursday, Hastert denied that he had done anything wrong.

• Dennis Hastert: “Well, ultimately, any time that a person has to, as a leader, be on the hot seat and he is a detriment to the party, you know, there ought to be a change. I became speaker in a situation like that. I don’t think that’s the case. I said I haven’t done anything wrong, obviously. And we need to come back. What we need to do is start talking about the issues.”

The House ethics committee has announced it will investigate how Congress handled early warnings that Foley had inappropriate relationships with underage boys working on Capitol Hill.