Religions > Atheism > Re: WSJ Editorial: DeLay is undisputed and unapologetic master of corruption
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28 Mar 2005 05:38:57 PM |
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Re: WSJ Editorial: DeLay is undisputed and unapologetic master of corruption |
WALL STREET JOURNAL 3/28/05
Editorial
Smells Like Beltway
.... Mr. DeLay does have odor issues. Increasingly, he smells just like
the Beltway itself.
Here is the abbreviated rap sheet against Mr. DeLay. First, we have the
imbroglio with the House Ethics Committee, which last year rebuked him
on three occasions. Among his sins: He offered to endorse outgoing
Representative Nick Smith's son in a GOP primary if Mr. Smith would
vote "yes" on the Medicare prescription-drug bill. (Mr. Smith declined
the offer; his son lost the primary.) Mr. DeLay has since changed
Committee rules so that it can no longer launch investigations, and by
packing the Committee with loyalists.
Next, there is the Texas business. Ronnie Earle, the district attorney
for Travis County (which contains Austin), last year indicted three
DeLay associates involved in his Texans for a Republican Majority
political action committee for money laundering and illegal campaign
contributions. Mr. Earle also will not rule out a possible indictment
of Mr. DeLay himself....
The "odor" stuck. Last year Mr. DeLay had to fend off a stiff challenge
from a complete unknown to keep what otherwise would have been his safe
seat.
Finally, there are the junkets. In December 1997, Mr. DeLay visited the
Northern Marianas Islands in the company of lobbyist pal Jack Abramoff,
now under investigation by the Senate Finance Committee, who just
happened to be representing the garment industry there. Mr. DeLay later
led a legislative effort to extend the Islands' exemption from U.S.
immigration and labor laws.
In May 2000, Messrs. DeLay and Abramoff took a $70,000 trip to the U.K.
(including a golf outing to the St. Andrews course in Scotland) in the
company of staff and spouses. Depending on which account you believe,
Mr. DeLay's expenses were picked up either by an outfit called the
National Center for Public Policy Research, on whose board Mr. Abramoff
then sat, or by Mr. Abramoff directly, who later charged the trip to
his clients, the gambling Mississippi Choctaw nation. Under House
rules, members are not allowed to have their travel expenses covered by
a lobbyist.
In August 2001, Mr. DeLay and several House colleagues visited South
Korea on a $107,000 trip sponsored by the Korea-United States Exchange
Council, which has close ties to former DeLay staff chief Ed Buckham
and was registered as foreign agent just days before the trip. House
rules forbid members from traveling at their expense....
The problem is that Mr. DeLay, who rode to power in 1994 on a wave of
revulsion at the everyday ways of big government, has become the living
exemplar of some of its worst habits. Mr. DeLay's ties to Mr. Abramoff
might be innocent, in a strictly legal sense, but it strains credulity
to believe that Mr. DeLay found nothing strange with being included in
Mr. Abramoff's lavish junkets.
Nor does it seem very plausible that Mr. DeLay never considered the
possibility that the mega-lucrative careers his former staffers Michael
Scanlon and Mr. Buckham achieved after leaving his office had something
to do with their perceived proximity to him. These people became rich
as influence-peddlers in a government in which legislators like Mr.
DeLay could make or break fortunes by tinkering with obscure rules and
dispensing scads of money to this or that constituency. Rather than
buck this system as he promised to do while in the minority, Mr. DeLay
has become its undisputed and unapologetic master as Majority Leader...
Mr. DeLay's real fault lies in betraying the principles that brought
him into office....
== SNIP
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