| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
05 Apr 2006 10:49:28 AM |
| Object: |
DeLay is gone but the Republican 'culture of corruption' is still with us |
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_8408.shtml
The 'culture of corruption' is still with us
By MARTIN SCHRAM
Apr 5, 2006
You don't have to be a born-again anything to appreciate the Gospel of
Luke -- "Physician, heal thyself."
Nor the spirit in which it was heeded Monday when the former chairman
of Sugar Land, Texas' Albo Pest Control company, Tom DeLay, announced
he will rid the House of himself.
And you don't have to be a Karl Rove to know who will be most pleased
by The Exterminator's final act of auto-extermination.
Certainly not the Democrats -- they are losing their favorite poster
boy for their campaign against "the Republican Culture of Corruption."
No, it is the Republicans -- the pols and their strategists -- who are
so tickled that they seem incapable of suppressing their ear-to-ear
grins as they skip through the Capitol's corridors of power, gleeful
over the extermination of their albatross.
But what those of us on the outside do not know is whether the
smartest and savviest of those who work in the West Wing of 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue are allowing themselves to share in the joy.
Or are they waiting, warily, to see if the loss of the albatross will
be followed by investigative centipedes dropping other shoes?
After all, federal investigators are still probing -- mainly just
following the libretto being sung by DeLay's former three close
confidants.
DeLay's former close pal Jack Abramoff, DeLay's ex-deputy chief of
staff Tony Rudy, and DeLay's ex-aide Michael Scanlon are said to be
singing after they copped pleas to conspiracy, fraud and corruption of
public officials; it is like a musical version of "Let's Make a Deal."
Meanwhile, Washington's journalists seem to have been doing more
snoozing than snooping when it comes to following the clues and links
involving Abramoff and the Bush White House.
Here, perhaps, you do have to be Karl Rove to know best what there is
to know -- that is not yet known.
Rove and Abramoff have known each other for more than two decades,
since they were both officers in the College Republicans.
The under-reported angles include two categories of questionable
conduct -- and a bonus angle:
1) Lobbyist Abramoff was allowed to attend an unknown number of White
House staff meetings -- a rare occurrence for any lobbyist.
Bush press secretary Scott McClellan admitted months ago that Abramoff
attended "a few" staff meetings, but has since refused to say what the
meetings were about or which staff members attended.
Was Rove in the meetings?
Were these meetings where so-called independent political campaigns of
outside groups were planned?
The Associated Press reported last January that Abramoff and his
associates had more than 200 contacts with the Bush White House.
What was that all about?
(The White House also dangled info that there were some photos taken
of Abramoff in the same room as Bush. What was Abramoff doing there
that benefited the Bush team? That, of course, is no big deal, since
all presidents have posed with big givers. White House reporters
shifted their focus away from the meetings and to the photos, like
terriers yapping harmlessly at cuffs when a chomp on the calf is
required.)
2) DeLay's greatest GOP triumph -- the 2003 congressional
redistricting of Texas, which gained Republicans five House seats in
2004 -- was unanimously declared by a Justice Department panel of six
attorneys and two voting-section analysts to be in violation of the
Voting Rights Act.
The Washington Post broke that story last December, adding that the
panel's 2003 memo of objections was overridden by higher-level
appointees.
Did Rove, the longtime Texas strategist, get involved in the effort to
quash the objections and push DeLay's scheme?
3) While DeLay still faces trial on a felony charge of
money-laundering, President Bush declared in a Fox News Channel
interview that he believed DeLay was not guilty and hoped he'd be
found innocent.
Presidents have always considered it wrong to comment on guilt or
innocence before a trial.
Was Bush's comment merely a dumb statement, or something scripted for
him by Rove as part of a larger strategy to influence the court
proceeding?
DeLay not only orchestrated the announcement of his
auto-extermination, but gave a round of carefully chosen interviews in
which he fared well.
He granted Time magazine an interview in which he was a questioned
gently and gingerly _ with none of the above being asked.
And he also telephoned a National Public Radio reporter who dared to
ask if he faced any further legal problems from the Abramoff probe.
"... I am not a target of this investigation," said The Exterminator.
"Abramoff has nothing to do with me. And you know what? When I step
out of the House I don't have to answer those kind of questions any
more."
____________________________________________________
Republicans never have to answer for their crimes (with a li'l help
from the "Liberal" media). They claim that they're above the law.
Harry
.
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