{"id":3245,"date":"2004-12-21T11:02:16","date_gmt":"2004-12-21T16:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3245.html"},"modified":"2004-12-21T11:02:16","modified_gmt":"2004-12-21T16:02:16","slug":"coburns-indifference-to-senate-ethics-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/coburns-indifference-to-senate-ethics-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Coburn’s indifference to Senate ethics rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a minor part of a larger profile piece, but I found Sen.-Elect Tom Coburn’s reaction<\/a> to Senate ethics rules telling.<\/p>\n

The rules they learned in the orientation session on ethics? “Ridiculous,” [Coburn] says. “Crazy.” He can fly his wife home from Washington with frequent-flier miles, but not to<\/i> Washington. He can dine with a lobbyist, but only once. “Just think about it,” he says. “I’m 56 years of age. I’ve had three jobs, raised three kids. If somebody can buy my vote for a dinner, I shouldn’t be here in the first place.<\/p>\n

“I’m just going to ignore all that and do what I think is ethically right and aboveboard. And I suspect that’s what everyone else does, too.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m not familiar enough with the intricacies of the guidelines to defend the frequent-flier miles rule, but I nevertheless think it’s amusing that Coburn, who hasn’t even been sworn in yet, is admitting to the Washington Post that he’s planning to “ignore” formal Senate ethics rules and go with what his gut tells him is acceptable. This is the same gut that tells him it’s okay to call his campaign rival “evil,” to support the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions, to call lawmakers in his state capital “a bunch of crapheads,” and to make up a story about lesbians in Oklahoma high schools.<\/p>\n

Good idea, Tom; stick with your gut and violate Senate ethics rules whenever you’d like.<\/p>\n

I’ve long since come to the conclusion<\/a> that Coburn is stark raving mad, but that was before he joined the world’s most deliberative body. At an absolute minimum, this will be one guy worth watching over the next six years for the entertainment value alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a minor part of a larger profile piece, but I found Sen.-Elect Tom Coburn’s reaction to Senate ethics rules telling. The rules they learned in the orientation session on ethics? “Ridiculous,” [Coburn] says. “Crazy.” He can fly his wife home from Washington with frequent-flier miles, but not to Washington. He can dine with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}