It's been a few days since my last entry here, and I was thinking about giving the ethics discharge petition project (
here,
here,
here) a week off since Congress is out of session. But then I saw this from the subscription only
CQ Today...
Senate Indian Affairs Chairman John McCain is walking a tightrope.
He has promised an aggressive investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, but insists he will not target other lawmakers linked to Abramoff, including House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
"I'm not going after Tom DeLay. It's not my job," McCain said. "If I was the chairman of the ethics committee, and somebody brought an ethics charge, I would go after that. But we're not the ethics committee."
Steering the investigation clear of his Republican colleagues would seem the prudent thing to do if McCain, R-Ariz., hopes to win the party's presidential nomination in 2008. But it may prove difficult to keep a probe of Abramoff away from lawmakers.
This is simply inexcusable. The man who has cast himself as the lone anchor holding the GOP to its roots now has the opportunity - dare I say responsibility? - to be the last standing avenue of accountability for the corruption of his party, and blatantly shirks it altogether. It is difficult not to believe, as CQ suggests, that 2008 isn't the sole motivation for the action. McCain says it's "not his job" to look into other Congressmen - then maybe he can explain why the Senate Finance Committee is looking at Bob Ney right now.
A later graf from the CQ article is also interesting...
Senior Republicans including House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., have encouraged McCain and Senate Finance Chairman Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa - who has begun a separate probe of charitable groups affiliated with Abramoff - to be thorough and bring closure to what has been a slowly expanding scandal.
When I read David Brooks' now ubiquitous column this morning, I had a laugh along with everybody else, but this was my reaction:
Yeah, well that's pretty rough and all, and Grover Norquist will no doubt have a fit, but frankly I'm a little unimpressed. Norquist is an SOB, but he is only an SOB with any influence because Karl Rove and Tom DeLay let him run the show. Abramoff and Scanlon are SOB's, but the only reason anybody's ever heard of them is that Scanlon was DeLay's spokesman and Abramoff was "director of travel for DeLay Inc." Ralph Reed is not just some hypocritical figure on the religious right, he was the chief southern strategist for the Bush campaign. All of these people are nothing but Rove & DeLay's foot soldiers, and yet Brooks does not see fit to lay one iota of blame at their feet, attacking only those who will not have to face a voter in a national election any time soon (Ralph Reed, however, is making a run at Lieutenant Governor in Georgia).
David Brooks: these people are not parasites on your party, they are your party, and when you go back tomorrow to slopping out the spin, they'll be who you're working for.
Reading Hastert's words, Brooks suddenly doesn't sound like such a maverick either, does he? In fact it sounds strikingly similar to the Speaker's own new party line.
So it appears that the Republicans are suddenly closing ranks to minimize damage from the Casino Jack scandal. The only way that will work is if McCain abdicates his responsibility this way.
So take another day off from hounding your Congressman to sign the ethics discharge petition and contact John McCain to tell him to investigate as he should.
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