Extolling The Old School
by digby
For the Ted Stevens story on Hardball, Chuck Todd called in Andrea Mitchell for some affectionate reminiscences:
Chuck Todd: They (Stevens and Inouye) developed those two states. Using the federal government, using their powers in the Senate and teaming up together one Democrat and one Republican money went to those two states because of these two men.
Mitchell: And you didn’t want to be on the wrong side of those two men but that’s true of anyone who’s ever been the head of appropriations. They are feared, they are loved, they deliver.
He was a larger figure than people might caricature him as being. And he did go through an ethics trial and he was found guilty of ethics violation for taking gifts and services from contractors for a vacation home in Alaska. And then Eric Holder from the Obama administration exonerated him and vacated the charges because of prosecutorial misconduct. But he lost his reelection clearly because of those charges.
Todd: Exactly. But one could argue that Ted Stevens was guilty of practicing accepted politics of the 60s 70s and 80s. That doesn’t make it right, but that does seem to be what happened and in the 21st century you can’t get away with that stuff.
Mitchell: But you also can’t get away with convicting someone if the prosecutor hid evidence that could have exonerated you.
Todd: Exactly. This cozy relationship with lobbyists that is what happens with appropriations — we’re seeing it with Charlie Rangel — is this sort of idea there was, quote unquote old school way of doing it. And you had guys that saw others do it and thought, gee, it’s been allowed.
Mitchell: In defense of the old school which is — I’m not defending ethics violations by anybody alleged or not alleged — in defense of the old school, the old school was also the fact that Danny Inouye and Ted Stevens would work across party lines. Inouye campaigned in Alaska for Ted Stevens. And Stevens campaigned in Hawaii for Inouye. And the two party caucuses had to ignore the fact that they were crossing every rule of the political playbook.
“In defense of the old school,” they worked across party lines to strong arm anyone in their way to bring home the bacon. Sure, there was graft and corruption but it was bipartisan, which is the only thing that matters. Why back in the day you could go to a dinner party and we’d all sit together and laugh at all the silly, little people who take this politics thing seriously. Those were the best of times — when nobody in Washington had to care about anything. It’s so tedious now with the “professional left” and the “professional right” all interfering in court business.
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