It’s only Thursday — Congress Edition

June 16, 2005

Last week at this time, I noted that the Bush White House was so encircled in scandal, we could look at just one week — in fact, not even a whole week — and see why the current president is causing his own “scandal fatigue.”

Maybe I was lucky, some of you thought. It was an odd week, you argued, and multiple scandals at the same time aren’t this common on a regular basis.

With this in mind, I thought it’d be fun to play this little game again, this time noting what we’ve seen from Republicans at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue this week. And remember, all of these reports were published this week and the week isn’t over yet.

* Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) sold his house to a military contractor with business before his committee for an inflated price, ultimately leading to a $700,000 gift for the lawmaker. Shortly thereafter, Cunningham helped direct tens of millions of dollars in defense appropriations to the same contractor. We also learned that Cunningham lives on a luxurious yacht, named after him, which is owned by the same military contractor.

* Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) made $822,000 last year from the sale of a controversial real estate investment with an Anchorage developer who had obtained a $450-million military housing contract with his help. Stevens is now the subject of Senate Ethics Committee investigation.

* Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) apparently violated federal campaign regulations by filing misleading reports with the Federal Elections Commission after his 2000 campaign’s finances took a sharp turn for the worse following a bizarre and risky investment strategy.

* House Judiciary Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) cut off a hearing on the reauthorization of the Patriot Act when witnesses started criticizing the legislation in a way he didn’t like. After declaring the hearing over despite Dem protests, GOP staffers turned off the microphones. Sensenbrenner’s office then announced Dems would no longer have access or permission to use committee rooms.

* House Ethics Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) insisted this week he will continue to ignore committee policy about a non-partisan staff and insist that his chief of staff head up the committee office. It led Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), the ranking Dem on the House Rules Committee, to call for Hastings’ resignation.

* Rep. Don Sherwood (R-Pa.) “repeatedly punched and choked a Maryland woman during a ‘five-year intimate relationship’ with her, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday.”

* House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s (R-Texas) claims about merely being a figurehead for the Texans for a Republican Majority PAC are, apparently, completely untrue.

Ethics troubles, campaign finance irregularities, physical abuse, fiscal management, possible bribery, abuse of power, corruption, all within the last few days. It’s just another week — pardon me, part of a week — with a Republican Congress.

And remember two things: the week’s not over yet and this isn’t a particularly unusual week by Republican standards.

I like this Thursday game. Can we play every week?

  • The thing to remember here is that “scandal fatigue” is not caused by scandal per se; it is caused by a failure of scandal to actually result in any meaningful action.

    So we see here another set of major scandals and have to ask ourselves, What is actually going to happen? Well, with current Democratic leadership, perhaps nothing.

    Newt Gingrich took over Washington (and after his fall from grace, his peers remained in control and brought us to our current state of affairs) on the backs of idiotic, scandal ridden Democrats. Now the tables are turned, and it’s time to make sure the just charges stick.

  • I second Gary’s call for action.

    Also, I thought Friday’s were the day to release bad news. Given that this week was pretty heavily focused on the House, should we expect something to be released late on Friday by the White House? Perhaps something related to the Downing Street Memo? Or will it relate to Cooney’s recent platinum parachute drop into Exxon/Mobil? hmmm…

  • Please make this a weekly (well almost) post. This gives me tremendous ammunition to throw at these Kool-ade drinking politically ignorant Bush supporters who shield their hate and discontent for democracy with the bible. God Bless America, Or better yet
    God SAVE America!

  • Carpetbagger,

    Maybe you should have included Ohio in this ever growing list of scandals, it looks like they hired the Coalition Provisional Authority to manage their worker’s compensation fund.

  • good post. those that believe that this administration and current congress are too extreme, and are moving the country away from limited, responsible government and too far to the right need to begin making these types of issues, well laid above, mainstream stories, particularly in the mainstream news.

    can’t start doing that in the first few weeks (need some input first), but started a website to not only hopefully add to the quality of the information out there, but hopefully impact the nature of the debate, and begin to (a) support the media from the constant mischaracterizations that it and the public get deluged with from the far right, and (b) at the same time, begin to hold it accountable for its slanted presentations as a result therein, and hopefull encourage more to do the same so that the same messages begins to resonate in the mainstream debate.

    the site is http://www.joeweiser.com. to the administrator, if you glance at it and think that it might help in this regard, please add it as a link. either way, any commentary or suggestions, good or bad (bad is always instructive, btw) would be most appreciated.

    thanks,

    Ivan Carter

  • Sadly, like I have said for the past four years, this administration and cronies make the whole Watergate thing look like the ‘third-rate burglary’ it was. The only difference is, this time, they don’t even have the decency to try to lie about it. They just do it right in front of everyone’s face and say, “So?”
    Watergate, ultimately, castrated the press. They are so fixated on cover-ups (“I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”), that they miss the fact that a scandal does not necessarily involve just a cover-up. The mere action is also a crime.
    Look at how they handle everything. Guantanamo- ‘oh, they didn’t flush a Koran down the toilet, just a few pages. Oh, yes, and someone pissed on it too.’ Ummmmmm, hello, why was the ‘scandal’ cleared when the English used was incorrect??? Anyone with half a brain could have told you that you can’t flush a book down a toilet (okay, without a really large pipe, good plunger, etc… would take a hell of a lot of work). But somehow the scandal was cleared, because nobody technically lied…
    The scandals, with this administration, is not in their lies. It is in their truths.

  • Carpetbagger – This list is brilliant because it’s hard to keep track of all the corrupt, deceitful and illegal activities of the Republican right (and mind-blowing how thoroughly rotten to the core these guys are). But the listing needs to be exposed, reported and acted upon.

    Is this list something you’d want to e-mail out on a weekly basis to the MSM, those with an objective ear and bully pulpit (Olberman, Imus, Jon Stewart, Congressional staffers), or is there a source/ forum that could desseminate it to an even broader audience? More people need to get pissed-off about this crap other than like-minded blog readers.

  • I whole-heartedly agree. I was merely trying to point out that the MSM needs to revize it’s current definition of ‘scandal’. These people aren’t trying to cover anything up.

  • Here is a post from Crooks and Liars I thought was interesting:

    Idea: ads sponspored by liberal groups like moveon or perhaps the DNC that feature different Repub politicians lying on camera. Give us the actual statement and the denial that the statement actually occurred back to back. Think that would be effective?

    Why not use this list to produce videos as suggested above? Seeing the lie come right from the horse’s mouth seems like it would be pretty impactful!

  • Tell Randy Cunningham if his son can bring that 400 pounds of pot over to Josh Marshall’s place, we’ll get so stoned that we’ll forget the initials MZM. And we’ll petition Bush to pardon him for being such a great pilot and drug smuggler.

  • An all inclusive database is what is needed.
    Searchable by scandal type, Congress member, etc…

  • The Democrats, too, are part of the establishment that forsakes the poor, succors the rich, makes war on feeble nations and engages in corrupt politics. Maybe not quite as bad as the Republicans, but bad nevertheless.

  • You can add Frist’s $873,000 in contributions from the pharmaceutical industry. He’s been working to immunize vaccine makers from liability in 4,200 lawsuits that have been filed by the parents of injured children. On five separate occasions, Frist has tried to seal all of the government’s vaccine-related documents. See Tapped.

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