On Ethics

I'm mildly amused by the pitched battle in Washington D.C. over the alledged ethics problems of House Majority Leader, Republican Tom Delay. Four reasons come to mind.

First, am I shocked that a Congressional leader is accused of taking golfing trips described as necessary political trips, funded by illegal lobbyists instead of legal public interests groups? Hardly.

Second, I am amused at the fury at which the left is hurling five-year old accusations at Rep. Delay. I know they are still mad at him about the Texas gerrymandering incident, and this is sweet revenge. But really, why so much fury? Do many people outside of Texas, the Beltway, Air America, or MoveOn.org even know who Tom Delay is, much less care if he is the Majority Leader? Will they care if he's taken down? Another anonymous pol, who could probably not survive deep financial scrutiny of junkets, will step in and life will go on, with one more grudge to settle later.

Third, the liberal bias of the press is blatantly on display in the feeding frenzy on the Delay death watch. Brent Bozell articulated the specifics well in his column called Tom Delay vs. Media Lite., which I thought was dead-on accurate. You could disagree. You could argue that the media is not showing a liberal bias, just a controversy bias. That they're drawn to what's news and this is the most controversial news out there. You could argue that, and you would be wrong. For one thing, it's not the most controversial news out there. Sandy Berger's theft of top secret documents from the National Archives to impede the work of the 9/11 Commission is much more serious, yet draws yawns from the national press. It's not a news bias, it's a liberal bias and they smell conservative blood in the water.

My own experience of sleuthing out liberal bias on this issue, not that it's hard or take more than a half hour of paying attention, involved a story about the House Ethics Committee that has jurisdiction on Delay's case. Our intrepid reporter, on some cable news channel or other, was opining about how the Ethics Committee was "unable to meet" to discuss his case. Unable to meet? Was the chamber on fire? Was there a natural disaster or a national emergency? Were they all out golfing? Oh no. They were able to meet, as we all know, but the Democrats are unwilling to meet because of a dispute about committee rules. A dispute too boring to go into. So why would a news reporter, with valuable air time at hand, downplay the actual story of partisan bickering with half of the squad "unwilling to meet" for the blander "unable to meet"? Because the reporter has a bias and couched his language, consciously or not, to shield the childish behavior of his team. That's why.

Finally, I have a simple question on the whole mess:

Why are politicians, a partisan group by nature and panderers all, voting on ethics violations anyway?

We're voting on bribery?

Why would you put ethics to a vote? If the Congressman took bribes from lobbyists, isn't that a violation of the law? Why isn't this turned over to the justice department? If he did it, he should indicted. Not trying to finagle the vote in a partisanly staffed committee of the Congress. The answer, as far as I can determine, is that the committee looks like a good ole boys protection network to give the appearance of an investigation to keep John Law at bay for their homegrown crooks. I'm not buying it.

So, if you ask me, I would leave the Ethics Committee shut down. Good Riddance. Bring on the prosecutors. They have the power of investigation, and if Congressmen are taking bribes, then indict them. If they're not, then call of the partisan dogs of the left, and their media enablers.