T [...]

Bravo Dugger. Likewise, I think there’s no excuse for that turkey in North Carolina. He deserves to go to prison for a very long time. He gives all Democrats a bad name and gives plenty of ammunition to the other side.

That having been said, there is no way that the two crimes are commensurate. The difference is not just federal vs. state, but in the very nature and magnitude of the crimes. Cunningham took 2.4 million in bribes from a corporation his committee helped award contracts to and used it to enrich himself personally. The NC jerk embezzled about 1/24 of that amount from the state and funnled it into his campaign. He’s a thief, no doubt about it, but at least he’s not a fucking whore like Cunningham. Whore? Cunningham’s a one-man bordello.

Like I said, I’m not excusing the NC guy. Lock him up and introduce him to “Shirley” say I. What I am doing is calling bullshit on the right-wing attempt to distract attention from Cunningham by bringing up this other case.

As for “culture of corruption”: sure, there are bad apples in every party, but in the last few years the Republicans have been suffering an epidemic of fruit rot. They get charged with far more crimes, and worse crimes, than democrats. Don’t believe it? Prove me wrong with specific examples from the last few years.

No, Ian, this isn’t an isolated instance. Cunningham got caught doing what many in the GOP do better and more quietly. Cunningham was just stupid in that he made no attempt to cover his crimes.

Others have mentioned Abramoff/Scanlon/Safavian/DeLay/ Ney etc.—they’re criminals just as much as the Dukestir. The difference, of course, is that they tooks at least a few steps to try and conceal their crimes.

But let’s take a look at AWOL George–he’s the ringleader of this band of crooks. Take a casual look at AWOL George’s life and what do you see? Each and every business he was associated with went belly up–yet, AWOL George came out of each failure with more money. As conservative columnist, Christopher Caldwell, famously wrote:

What kills the President is that every time Harken comes up, Democrats get to retell the story of how he made his money. And this, basically, is the story of the spectacular unfairness with which moneymaking opportunities are lavished on the politically connected. It is the story of a man who has been rewarded for repeated failures by having money shot at him through a fire hose. It is the story of a man who talks with a straight face about having “earned” a fortune of tens of millions of dollars, without having ever done an honest day s work in his life.

Let s retell that story as briefly as we can. Bush started an oil company called Arbusto in the late 1970s. He was driving it into the ground when, in 1982, he was rescued by Philip Uzielli, a Princeton crony of his dad s troubleshooter James Baker. Uzielli invested a million dollars in Arbusto, which was then worth less than $500,000. In return, he got 10 percent interest in the company. No, that s not a misprint. Mismatches between equity and ownership always in Dubya s favor are a hallmark of our President s financial rise.

Even after Uzielli s turbocharging, Arbusto was going under. Before it did, it “merged” with a company called Spectrum 7, which took on Bush as head executive. As that company, too, nose-dived, Harken Energy proved unaccountably eager to “merge” with it. It offered a half-million dollars in stock and $120,000 a year to get the Vice President s son on the board. It also “loaned” Bush hundreds of thousands of dollars below prime rate.

Weeks after his father was elected president, Bush got involved in the purchase of the Texas Rangers. He would eventually sell his Harken shares to cover the loan that allowed him to help buy the team. He put up under 2 percent of the purchase price ($606,000 out of $46 million), but the deal called for him to be given almost 12 percent of the stock, once the other partners cleared their initial investments. Generous of them! In 1998 Bush sold his stake in the team pumped up by a $135-million publicly-financed-but-privately-owned stadium, bestowed as a gift from the taxpayers of Arlington, TX for $15 million.

Oliver, this is an isolated incident.

A “few bad apples”, you say?

How is the current Democratic party as corrupt as the current Republican party?

Link? Source? or pure bullshit speculation?

(Remember: Rove, DeLay, Scanlon, Abramoff, Frist, Cunningham, Ney, Scooter, ….)

Oliver, this is an isolated incident.

What Cunningham did is give liberal loudmouths like you more energy to continue the liberal drumbeat.

The fact is almost all politicians are corrupt…

For your to pooh-pooh Democratic Republican corruption is digusting.

Dugger

Find me an example of a reporter writing or saying that Cunningham’s indictment is more evidence that Republicans are corrupt and I’ll show you a biased, unfair news report. Show me Nancy Pelosi doing the same thing and I’ll yawn. That’s what politicians, partisans and pundits do for a living.