So much has been written about Dennis Hastert in the pages of this newspaper.
We chronicled his rise to power. We covered his fall from grace.
So what is there left to say about the death of the country’s longest-serving Republican House Speaker and former Yorkville High School wrestling coach who was sentenced to 15 months behind bars on banking charges in a hush-money case involving his admitted sexual abuse of some of his young athletes?
That question is as complicated as the legacy of Hastert, who died Oct. 3 at age 84.
The first thought that ran through my mind when I heard he’d passed away in hospice care at his Plano home was of surprise – that this disgraced politician actually returned to his small-town community after serving his prison sentence. I’d think the once-powerful man – second in line to the presidency – would have moved as far away as he could from the place where he had been so venerated before turning into an embarrassing pariah.
Hastert was known for his commitment to the 14th Congressional District he represented from 1987 to 2007. In fact, according to news sources, he was credited with directing $24 million in grants to Aurora, his birthplace. Among his big local wins, a Kendall County official told me, was money from D.C. that got the feds working more closely with state and local agencies to clean up the gang and drug problem that devastated this area, particularly Aurora.
Hastert also truly relished his image as a hometown guy, and was known for ditching his security escort to be seen out and about at the post office, the Jewel, the local restaurants or even picking up his own cleaning.
He wanted to be known as the proverbial ordinary Joe. And in his autobiography published in 2004, the author made it a point of declaring that if a simple boy from the cornfields of Northern Illinois could achieve his level of success, then anyone could.
“He never forgot Illinois. He never got caught up in ‘Potomac Fever,'” noted a local state representative when Hastert decided to step down from the halls of power in 2007.
Ironically, Hastert made it a point early on in his book, “Speaker: Lessons from 40 Years in Coaching and Politics,” to declare it would reveal no sex scandals, nor were there any dirty little Capitol secrets brought to life.
I remember all that because I read the entire book and wrote a column about it. I also went through its pages again after the scandal hit in 2015 – then threw the autobiography in the trash.
Which is where his legacy should have always been, according to former Kane County Board Chair Mike McCoy, who fought the powerful congressman’s eventually-unsuccessful attempts to pass funding for the Prairie Parkway – critics called it “Hastert’s Highway” – that would have run through Kane and Kendall counties and linked I-88 and I-80.
McCoy said he always viewed Hastert as an arrogant “bully” who wanted to use his “power of celebrity” to enrich himself and his political cronies. (A Beacon-News investigation helped expose an undisclosed real estate interest Hastert had in land near the proposed parkway.)
“I saw him for what he was,” McCoy told me. “But he was a hero … a rock star around here who could do no wrong.”
Which is why the sordid charges against Hastert “surprised me but did not shock me,” he added.
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I reached out to other local leaders to get their reactions on the news of Hastert’s death but got either no response or they asked that their comments be off the record.
“I don’t want to dance on anyone’s grave,” said a fellow Republican who knew Hastert for decades in the political arena.
Why scratch old wounds, asked another elected official who was concerned that whatever was said could be misinterpreted.
Unfortunately, death doesn’t always put an end to questions, and sometimes it leaves us with even more of them. Like, how did Hastert live out his life in his hometown after such disgrace?
An even bigger one for me: Did he make peace with his God? Did Hastert, a professed Christian who graduated from Wheaton College, seek mercy from the ultimate judge of his life?
And, did he ever think about reaching out to the victims and/or their loved ones to seek forgiveness?
Even those who had few if any kind words for Hastert also mentioned his own family, hoping they can at least find more closure, more peace, now that his final chapter has been written.
“It really is,” said McCoy, “such a sad story.”