First up – if Byron Dorgan took any dirty money he should give it back, if he did anything illegal, his butt should be thrown out of the senate. But for the right, like Glenn Reynolds, to do the usual shuck and jive and throw their hands up proclaiming equality of corruption is just another Republican trick.
This is always what they do, once they realize you’ve caught them dead to rights, and its a trick that works with the media and is never used by the Democrats because quite frankly I think they like to lose (how else to explain the continued employment of the Bob Shrum class?). The right always leaps to “well if we’re bad, they’re bad too”. It’s bull.
The Republican majority leader in the house has been twice indicted. The Republican Vice President’s chief of staff has been indicted for perjury. The Republican majority leader in the Senate is under SEC investigation. A Republican congressman took $2.4 million dollars in bribes and will be serving jail time. A Republican lobbyist with ties to 100 times more Republicans than Democrats is at the center of a major criminal investigation.
At some point you have to admit there’s a pattern. And to create a pattern, there must be a culture of corruption that is encouraging that pattern of fraudulent criminal behavior. No attempt at fake balance is going to change that.
Oh for the days when the government spent millions of dollars for an investigation of a Democratic President for a failed land deal he lost money on that eventually cleared him of all wrongdoing.
>> The Ultimate In Balance Stupidity
How humorous. All of those Rs but one, Cunningham, are really only indicted or under investigation. Yet you feel free to impute all sorts of negative assumptions about Repubs as a class. Yet show us a Democrat with the same conditons applying and the response is “but I think Republicans did it more.” The same type of response you (rightfully) derided from a few conservative web sites re Cunningham. Don’t equivocate. Don’t try to minimize. Leave it with Dorgan and Dorgan’s problems. Or did Dorgan learn it watching Repubs?
Dugger
You write:
But for the right, like Glenn Reynolds, to do the usual shuck and jive and throw their hands up proclaiming equality of corruption is just another Republican trick.
Glenn writes:
The problem is that corruption is bipartisan. The Republicans seem worse now, but that’s because they’re in power, and power provides more opportunities.
Therefore, you completely misstate what he wrote. The fact is, Glenn is 100% right. If you want, we can take a little trip down memory lane where I can remind you of the indictments, scandals and law-breaking those in the Democratic party. Jim Wright, Ted Kennedy, the DNC, Bob Torricelli, Mel Reynolds, Dan Rostenkowski, John Murtha (yes that John Murtha), etc. The list can go on and on. So spare us all the Clinton nonsense.
Power corrupts and if you think that if Democrats take back control of Congress and the White House that suddenly it will all be as clean as newborn’s ass, then you’re deluding yourself.
Besides, I’m not sure how you think saying, “Yeah we got our corruption, but you guys are more corrupt” is akin to some sort of badge of honor.
I actually think Glenn and Jay C are right here. Power corrupts. Republicans have been in power too long and they’ve become utterly corrupt and devoid of whatever reformist principles that brought them to power in 1994. Republican corruption takes on a slightly different form than Democratic corruption only because the source of political power for each party is different. Corrupt Dems will take shady union and state pension money while corrupt Republicans will take illegal corrupt and defense contract money. The undoing of the modern GOP was the K Street project where DeLay wanted to maximize power in Washington. It was his power-mad nature, not his political philosophy, that led him down this path. I don’t think Glenn is saying that Democrats in Washington right now are as corrupt as Republicans because he knows who’s in power. But are they as corrupt as the Dems in 1994? Sure. I’m sure the voters will punish the GOP in 2006 because they are the ones in power now. Hopefully the Dems will put in some principled reformers like Francine Busby who’s running for Duke’s seat and has pushed a comprehensive CLEAN House Act that will attack the way BOTH parties suckle at the teat of lobbyists.
Jay, maybe Glenn is 100% right. But if so, the amazing thing is that it has taken the Republicans only 10 years to reach the same level of corruption Democrats took about 25 years to achieve.
Hooray for Republican efficiency.