Corrupt Reformers

by digby

I admire Rich Lowry’s intellectual integrity in pointing out that no matter how much the Republicans might wish to portray the Abramoff scandal as bi-partisan it just isn’t. But his prescription just won’t do.

You see, this graft and corruption has been going on in plain sight for a long time and GOPers had their mouths so full of pork they apparently couldn’t say a word about it until a Republican Justice Department public integrity section stumbled over Jack Abramoff. The Republican party has no standing to reform itself now. It’s like the mafia saying they promise to clean up their act once Sammy the Bull blew the whistle.

The Abramoff scandal is about corrupt lobbying and money laundering, which was coordinated at the highest levels of the party, run by the majority leader of the House of representatives. But that’s just one of many corrupt GOP practices. There are the perjury and obstruction cases in the CIA leak investigation. And the SEC investigation into the majority leader of the Senate. There are the numerous payola and propaganda schemes. Bribes on the floor of the House. Crooked Pentagon appropriations and missing billions in Iraq. Dirty tricks in New Hampshire. Hiding the real cost of the prescription drug program (and Billy Tauzin being on Pharma take when he got it passed.) The list goes on and on.

(Here are just a few of the alleged GOP ethics abuses from the Washington Post. Here’s an even longer one. And here’s Think Progress’ indispensible compendium of Abramoff criminals.)

This Republican party is crooked. And despite what George Will says, it’s not because of big government. Government spending has exploded under the allegedly “small government” Republicans while delivering less and less to average Americans. They have proven that they are completely full of shit on that issue and anyone who votes for them on that basis is an idiot. Judging by their performance the only things they actually care about are padding their own pockets and protecting their own power. If there are a hoard of “reform” Republicans out there who have been objecting to this pillaging of the treasury, they haven’t exactly been speaking up. All I’ve heard is “praise God and pass the contributions.”

I expect Republicans to take potshots at Clinton and his supporters whenever possible so I don’t usually respond, but this statement is too self-serving to let pass:

Republicans must take the scandal seriously and work to clean up in its wake. The first step was the permanent ouster of Tom DeLay as House Republican majority leader, a recognition that he is unfit to lead as long as he is underneath the Abramoff cloud. The behavior of the right in this matter contrasts sharply with the left’s lickspittle loyalty to Bill Clinton, whose maintenance in power many liberals put above any of their principles.

That might be an apt analogy except for the fact that Democrats defended Clinton out of the principle that a rabid partisan witchunt into a president’s sex life was beyond the pale.

By contrast, both the Republican president and the invertebrate Republican congress have engaged in or silently acquiesced to blatant graft and corruption for years while the Democrats impotently screamed into the void. The party was keeping the seat warm for months while the majority leader remained under indictment. They changed the rules so that an indicted leader could keep his seat until the public outcry forced them to retreat, for crying out loud, and then they launched a grassroots campaign to defend him:

Conservative leaders are crafting plans to launch a public campaign to defend House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).

The move follows a meeting last week among DeLay, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the chief deputy majority whip, and nearly two dozen conservative leaders, including David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union; Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; Morton Blackwell, president of the Leadership Institute; and Edwin Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation.

Perkins, Keene and Feulner called the meeting, according to participants.

“It was a rallying cry to our conservative community that we are under assault. We need to fight back. We’re going to have a challenging year with the judicial issue bubbling up in the senate and the impact it may have on our ability to get things done,” said Cantor, who said he described to the group how Democrats and liberal groups have waged a coordinated battle to raise doubts about DeLay’s conduct.

Several of the conservative leaders who met last week are planning to launch a grassroots campaign targeted at conservatives in the districts of House Republican lawmakers whose support for DeLay may be wavering.

This man is a corrupt thug who ran a corrupt political machine. Everybody in Washington knew it. Republicans celebrated it and bragged about it publicly. For them to now go all Claude Rains about it is just funny.

It’s possible that the voters will not care or will not hold Republicans responsible for this corruption. But these are early days in the 2006 election cycle and many more shoes are going to drop over the next few months. I wouldn’t want to place a bet that Americans won’t laugh at any Republican claiming the mantle of reform come election day. It’s going to be very easy to find pictures of Republicans kissing the ring of Tom DeLay.

Update: Read this great post by Tom Watson (via Wolcott)on this topic.

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