{"id":332,"date":"2004-02-05T01:59:11","date_gmt":"2004-02-05T01:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:08:29","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:08:29","slug":"have_you_no_shame_sir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=332","title":{"rendered":"“Have You No Shame, Sir?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

A long time ago<\/a>, I harshed soon-to-be-former Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA). The post was titled “Why My Ostensible Party, The Democrats, Will Not Be Able To Use Bush’s Corporate History Against Him<\/b>,” and the story was a simple one, from the New York Times:<\/p>\n

Among the biggest beneficiaries [of the proposed bankruptcy bill] would be the MBNA Corporation of Delaware, which describes itself as the world’s biggest independent credit card company. Ranked by employee donations, MBNA was the largest corporate contributor to President Bush’s 2000 campaign.<\/p>\n

The company has also recently acknowledged that it gave a $447,000 debt-consolidation loan on what critics viewed as highly favorable terms to a crucial House supporter of the bill only four days before he signed on as a lead sponsor of the legislation in 1998. Both MBNA and the lawmaker, Representative James P. Moran Jr., Democrat of Virginia, have denied that there was anything improper about the loan.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I was appalled.<\/p>\n

Clearly, I had my appall-o-meter set too low. Because this week, Billy Tauzin (R-LA) announced<\/a> that he will resign before the expiration of his term, to take a new job – at well over the $1 million\/year he’d been offered to head the MPAA. The job is working for Big Pharma at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the trade group that represents drug giants such as Pfizer Inc. and Merck & Co.<\/p>\n

The Post notes today that:<\/p>\n

Tauzin was one of the principal authors of the Medicare prescription drug bill, which included several provisions expected to vastly expand the market for prescription drugs among the elderly. In addition to adding hundreds of billions of dollars for drug benefits, the law bars the federal government from directly bargaining down the price of drugs, a provision PhRMA pressed for.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Moran was obviously a piker. Why settle for a piddly $400K loan – on favorable terms – when you can shepherd a bill through, resign your seat, and get a couple of million a year.<\/p>\n

I can’t decide if they think we’re stupid or just inattentive. Or if it’s just that they don’t give a damn and don’t need to. Now I think that approbation is well and good, but when I read about things like this, I begin to wonder why it is that tar and feathers went out of fashion just a little too soon.<\/p>\n

Someone once said on the Senate floor: “Have you no shame?”<\/p>\n

Obviously not.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/b> Did this without looking around the blogs, and went to Kaus and Simon and Instapundit to see if they’d covered it before I emailed them to rattle their cages, and discovered as usual that I’m behind the news curve and they<\/a> all<\/a> have<\/a>. I’m emailing all the conservative bloggers I know, because if this is the kind of kleptocracy – and there’s really no other word for it – that the GOP stands for, GWB deserves to get skinned in November. I’m going to make this guy my hobby, and see if some of the bigger bloggers and eventually the press get on board. J’accuse!<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A long time ago, I harshed soon-to-be-former Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA). The post was titled “Why My Ostensible Party, The Democrats, Will Not Be Able To Use Bush’s Corporate History Against Him,” and the story was a simple one, from the New York Times: Among the biggest beneficiaries [of the proposed bankruptcy bill] would be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}