A sex scandal vaulted Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) into the speakership and another sex scandal may bring him down.

“Denny is reaching out to everyone he can reach out to,” his former spokesman, John Feehery, told me on yesterday.

Feehery is helping his former boss, whose grip on power and speakership is threatened by the scandal surrounding former Rep. Mark Foley’s (R-Fla.) e-mails.

``I just don’t know how the story plays out, how much oxygen is out there,’’ Feehery said.

Hastert is trying to prevent being forced to step down as Speaker weeks before the November elections.

But his immediate resignation is not the only issue. If the GOP retains control of the House, will Hastert, the longest serving GOP speaker in U.S. history, retain the job in the 110th Congress?

He came to power in the wake of revelations about Rep. Bob Livingston’s extra-marital affair just as the Louisiana Republican was going to take the gavel from then Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia. Depending on what else comes out, the instant messaging sexual escapades of Foley, a Florida Republican, may swiftly open the door for a Hastert challenger.

The Illinois Republican shelved thoughts of retirement at the urging of the Bush White House. The globetrotting Hastert put his ambassadorial ambitions on hold. Before the Foley scandal, the Speaker signaled that his next term would be his last, assuming he was reelected.

At a breakfast last Thursday for KOMPAC, Hastert’s leadership PAC, the speaker was buoyant. It was the day before Brian Roth at ABC News broke the Foley story.

Over eggs at the American Truckers Association, Hastert and Mike Stokke, his deputy chief of staff, were very confident that the GOP would maintain control after the Nov. 7 elections.

Hastert told his fellow diners, who were mostly lobbyists, that he had visited some 40 House districts in August and he had more than another 30 visits penciled into his schedule.

Will he keep those dates? Will Hastert become a liability? Will he be demonized by Democrats? How angry are the members?

Hastert was working friendly conservative media outlets this week. His damage control team ticked off all the to-do boxes starting Friday, but more revelations keep the heat on the speaker.

You know Hastert must believe he is in trouble when he sits down, as he did, with CNN.

The Foley episode has cast light on Hastert’s message machine, which was malfunctioning at the end of last year. During a Tuesday interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity, Hastert himself painted a portrait of an office that was overwhelmed by events.

``You have to understand; all this went down last November. We had the hurricane issue. We were trying to do deficit reduction. We had the Tom DeLay issue going on,’’ Hastert told Hannity.

Hastert is blaming the Democrats. He is blaming Foley, who certainly deserves it. He is blaming the news media.

But Hastert’s biggest mistake was not realizing that any suggestive e-mail from a lawmaker to a page prompting a parental complaint is a very big deal.

Sweet is the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it