Dear Media: You totally misread Denny Hastert's letter to the Justice Dept.

As Josh Marshall's "Talking Points Memo" notes, Hastert's letter is written in such a way as to exempt Hastert and the GOP leadership from the Justice Dept. investigation he's requesting. Instead, the investigation is intended to focus on outside parties - outside of Congress - be they non-profit groups like CREW, journalists, bloggers, and even potential victims and their relatives who knew of the communications but didn't contact the authorities. I.e., Hastert wants Justice to investigate the very people who broke the story and thus got the GOP in trouble.

Read Josh's analysis, he's right. Then re-read Hastert's letter carefully, or better yet, have one of your lawyers read it. You got duped. And even better, this way Hastert can say, a la PlameGate, "gosh, we just can't answer any more questions since there's an ongoing Justice Dept. investigation." Hastert and the GOP need to come clean now.