I read Thomas Lifson’s thoughts on Hastert, yesterday.  Here are some links to stories about his land deals while he was in office. Note the crucial pre 2006 election dates of these stories.  The Democrats made Hastert the face of why the Republicans needed to lose control of Congress in the 2006 election in their culture of corruption meme.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2006-06-15/news/0606150161_1_speaker-hastert-land-trust-land-deal

http://www.aei.org/publication/worse-than-foleygate/print/

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2006/06/15/5792/hastert-pictures-of-corruption/

http://sunlightfoundation.com/press/releases/2006/06/15/dennis-hasterts-highway-to-financial-heaven/

Later on in the summer of 2006, the media was keeping homosexual Congressman Mark Foley's flirtations with a male page front and center. But long before that, much of the political base of the Republican Party had had it.  Under Speaker Hastert almost every bill coming out of Congress was laden with porcine earmarks.   It was that spending binge and stories about Speaker Hastert’s own sleazy deals that helped bring about the Speakership of Nancy Pelosi and the enactment of a long wish list of reckless laws.

Hastert seems to have had a similar attitude toward such spending as Obama's mentor in the Illinois State Senate, who once stated that he considered such spending steak, not pork. That should not have been a surprise as it had been well known inside political circles that graft was bipartisan in Illinois and Hastert was a full member in the Combine,. 

Denny Hastert has been the gift that keeps giving to the Democrats.