Dems use corrupt congressmen to fight corruption

[Balta1701]

So, naturally, with the Jack Abramoff mess going on, it makes some logical sense for the Democrats to try to make a major campaign issue of Congressional corruption. After all, the Dems have been fully out of power for 3+ years, and it's damn hard to be corrupt when you don't have a shred of power, so this should be an obviously easy issue for the Dems right? Throw in the billions of reconstruction dollars missing from Iraq, the fact that their majority leader is going down in a blaze of glory...and it's almost being handed to the Dems, right? They couldn't possibly find a way to screw this one up, right? It's just too easy.

 

:banghead :banghead :banghead

 

Guess who the Dems are using to clean up the House?

 

The House Democrats this week chose a Democrat, who is being forced to explain his own involvement in a trip related to Jack Abramoff, to be their chief spokesman and strategist running the House Democratic effort to pass ethics reform.

 

What? Jim Traficant wasn't available?

 

This is beyond belief.

 

First, we have Nancy Pelosi announcing the choice of Cong. Clyburn to run the ethics battle:

 

    Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina, the newly and unanimously elected Chairman of the Democratic Caucus who has lived his life with a commitment to a high ethical standard, will head the Clean House Team.

 

Then we have NPR confirming that Clyburn has his own ethics accusations to deal with:

 

    House Majority Leader Tom DeLay isn't the only politician facing ethics charges. South Carolina's James Clyburn and Mississippi's Bennie Thompson, both Democratic members of the Congressional Black Caucus, also had to answer tough questions last week. In 1997, both men traveled to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth. The trip -- and an earlier trip to the Marianas by two associates of DeLay -- appears to have been paid for by lobbyist Jack Abramoff. It is a violation of House ethics to accept gifts from a registered lobbyist. Abramoff is now the subject of a federal corruption probe.

 

And finally, as would be expected, the National Republican Congressional Committee blasts Pelosi for picking someone to lead the ethics reform battle who themselves is under an ethical cloud:

 

    Clyburn, however, had been connected to the very lobbyist around whom Democrats are building their "clean up Congress" campaign - Jack Abramoff. In 1997, Abramoff paid for a trip costing more than $10,000 that Clyburn took to the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean. (Roll Call, 5/5/05)

 

What is it with these people? Are they so suicidal that they insist on shooting themselves in the foot every single chance they get? What possible reason could there be to appoint Clyburn to this position, let alone keep him there now that we all know he's got his own explaining to do regarding Abramoff?

[YASNY]

This speaks for itself. Not about the Democrats, but about the politicians. All of 'em.

[NorthSideSox72]

This speaks for itself.  Not about the Democrats, but about the politicians.  All of 'em.

 

Yes it does.

 

It says even more about the Dems, though. I realize that much of Congress is pretty bent, but you cannot tell me that the Dems couldn't find SOMEONE from their ranks with a clean background and no ties to Abramoff. There has to be someone. What a bunch of idiots (those who made this decision, not all Dems).

[G&T]

Yes it does.

 

It says even more about the Dems, though.  I realize that much of Congress is pretty bent, but you cannot tell me that the Dems couldn't find SOMEONE from their ranks with a clean background and no ties to Abramoff.  There has to be someone.  What a bunch of idiots (those who made this decision, not all Dems).

 

It's very telling about why the dems can't get elected. If you have to pick a dirty politician at least pick one that isn't connected to a well publicized scandal. But the sad thing is that it is very possible that there aren't any other people to pick because all the clean politicians are busy doing other things...if there are clean politicians.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

I think if the last 10 years with the scandals in the Clinton and Bush administrations have proven anything its that the public either doesn't care about scandal or they believe that both sides are equally corrupt.