House Cleaning
It wasn’t surprising that the House Ethics Committee determined that no rules were broken in the Foley affair, Tom DeLay worked long and hard to ensure there were no rules left to break in his effort to hang on to power.
After taking over the House for the 110th Congress the Democratic leadership needs to turn back the clock to a time when there were rules and there was an effective Ethics Committee to deal with them.
After that it is time to do something about their own “bad boys”.
We now know that Rahm Emanuel lied about his knowledge of the Foley affair. He will claim that “technically” he didn’t lie, but his intention was to lie and he accomplished it. We have gotten all the lies we have ever needed from the Republicans, so we don’t need any from Democrats.
And then there is the case of William “Cold Cash” Jefferson who was just re-elected in Louisiana. He is still under investigation and has never explained his actions.
Members of the House are elected by the people of their district, and the House shouldn’t overrule that decision without a finding of guilt, but there is nothing that requires the House to embrace them as brothers. They are entitled to all of the benefits of every other member of the House, but they are not entitled to anything more, and they shouldn’t receive anything more.
There has to be a cost associated with bad behavior or it will never end. If the Democrats don’t discipline their own members, they lose the moral standing to discipline others.
5 comments
Curiously enough, in Jefferson’s case, the right thing to do is also the politically smart thing to do: seat him, await court rulings on the charges, and oust him if he is convicted. (Surely there’s a rule in the Democratic caucus that someone who is convicted of taking bribes must step down.) Boot him now, and you may lose everyone who voted for him. Let him sit after a conviction, and you risk legitimate complaints of not really meaning what we said about cleaning up Congress. Things must proceed in the proper sequence.
As to Emmanuel, don’t get me started. I doubt I could be fair, because I’ve disliked him for a long time, for reasons unrelated to this lie.
Emanuel. I suppose I could at least spell the (expletive deleted)’s name properly.
If a district elects someone, I think there’s an obligation to seat them, but there’s nothing that requires the leadership to recognize seniority rights. I would treat them like entering freshmen as a warning that it is no longer “business as usual.”
Emanuel has embarrassed the leadership and proved that he can’t be trusted.
Rahm seems to be prepared to fight fire with fire; underhanded lies with underhanded lies; smugness with smugness…on the theory that it takes thief to catch a thief…unfortunately we are all Sick to Death of Thieves.
🙂
This is part of the culture of corruption that has taken hold in Washington and too many places. There has to be a strong statement that “corruption, cronyism, and incompetence” is over.