Here’s an email representing the sooner-or-later-so-why-not-now? view:

Mr. Lowry
From your post, or your bolding of certain phrases, we can infer that someone from Hastert’s staff will be taking the fall for this. This is what Mr. Ponnuru has been advocating for the past day or two. Is it safe to say Dennis Hastert will not be Speaker next year, no matter who has control of the House? If that is true, then why shouldn’t he resign and stop the bleeding. In my opinion if one of his staff people is fired over this, then that will look even worse. At least the head of the Page Committee has to go. As Nicholson says in the amazing “The Departed,” “We are all on our way out; act accordingly.”