(after I was gone…even the figures in scandals are younger than I am nowadays…), and somewhere there is a post or two in riffing on the notion of how little my cohort has done with the advantages we were dealt. Instead we got the kind of tawdry Babbitry Abramoff so ably represents…
But this post isn’t about that, it’s about the rare opportunity this presents to those of us – Democrat and Republican alike – to try and crack the deathgrip that law bought and sold has on our national politics.
The GOP – that bastion of strict morality, values, and propriety – is reduced to the plaintive “she did it too” of a five-year old caught hitting his sister in the back seat of the family car. The Democrats, with their own cast of bagmen, are left saying “we may have got millions from his clients, but he only gave his own money to Republicans!”
They’re both pathetic and shameless, and somehow the one thing I’d like to see is the reintroduction of shame into our national politics. Or better still, the reintroduction of people capable of feeling shame into national politics.
Let’s identify a few of them and start supporting them.
I hope he takes down about 50 Congressman. I want a bloodbath. GOP and Dems alike. Clean the bums out of there and start fresh. I’m sick of the fat cats in Congress and thier political circuses. Clean them all out, offer them a cigerette, and then line them up against the wall.
“From your lips to God’s ears.”
I wish I knew how to induce shame and real accountability at the national-federal level. I fear me that it’s an intractable “Yes, Minister” problem. Plus there’s the shrewlike attention span of the populus.
Is it just me, or does the MSM coverage of the Abramoff thing seem oddly… muted? It seems they’re just reporting the news, the “narrative” is missing… Like I said, maybe it’s just me…
All money received by government employees should be posted on the Web, where it can be scrutinized by all and analyzed by bloggers.
Congressmen are people?!!?
#4 Jim
“Here’s one list of recipients of Abramoff money.”:http://www.thinkprogress.org/abramoff
I agree with celebrim: All of them out.
In congress on this list: 18 Republicans (8 Senators, 10 Reps); 3 Democrats (all Senators).
Oh, I see I left out
5 members of the Bush administration (including George) and about 10 of 11 Republican partisans (e.g., Grover and Ralphy Boy).
That makes the grand total, by this accounting:
33 Republicans
3 Democrats.
So, this statement by A.L.
“They’re both pathetic and shameless…”
is perhaps a valid general comment about the undue influence of money in modern politics, but it completely and utterly misses the much bigger issue in the Abramoff scandal…that the current ruling party is rotten at it’s very core, and that even it’s political success at the moment, bought and payed for through devious and illegal means, should be viewed in this light, rather than being mistaken for the “will of the people”.
In other words, the Republican electoral success is based on cheating the system. What would an appropriate penalty be for this?
Andy,
That list is not complete. Odd that it omits Democrats is it not?
Robin;
Perhaps.
But, feel free to provide a link to one you think is better.