What Cunningham's misdeeds illustrate about conservative Washington.

[Thom Little]

By Michael Kinsley
Slate
Friday, Dec. 2, 2005


It used to be said that the moral arc of a Washington career could be divided into four parts: idealism, pragmatism, ambition, and corruption. You arrive with a passion for a cause, determined to challenge the system. Then you learn to work for your cause within the system. Then rising in the system becomes your cause. Then finally you exploit the system—your connections in it, and your understanding of it—for personal profit.

And it remains true, sort of, but faster. Even the appalling Jack Abramoff had ideals at one point. But he took a shortcut straight to corruption. On the other hand, you can now trace the traditional moral arc in the life of conservative-dominated Washington itself, which began with Ronald Reagan's inauguration and marks its 25th anniversary in January. Reagan and company arrived to tear down the government and make Washington irrelevant. Now the airport and a giant warehouse of bureaucrats are named after him.

By the 20th anniversary of their arrival, when an intellectually corrupt Supreme Court ruling gave them complete control of the government at last, the conservatives had lost any stomach for tearing down the government. George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" was more like an apology than an ideology. Meanwhile Tom DeLay—the real boss in Congress—openly warned K Street that unless all the choice lobbying jobs went to Republicans, lobbyists could not expect to have any influence with the Republican Congress. This warning would be meaningless, of course, unless the opposite was also true: If you hire Republican lobbyists, you and they will have influence over Congress. And darned if DeLay didn't turn out to be exactly right about this! No prominent Republican upbraided DeLay for his open invitation to bribery. And bribery is what it is: not just campaign contributions, but the promise of personal enrichment for politicians and political aides who play ball for a few years before cashing in.

When Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham pleaded guilty this week to accepting a comic cornucopia of baubles, plus some cash, from defense contractors, the vast right-wing conspiracy acted with impressive speed and forcefulness to expel one of its most doggedly loyal loudmouths and pack him off to a long jail term. Even President Bush, who possesses the admirable quality of an affable capacity for understanding and forgiveness on the personal level, seized an unnecessary opportunity to wish the blackguard ill. There was no talk of "sadness"—the usual formula for expressing sympathy without excusing guilt.



http://www.slate.com/id/2131370/

[NNadir]

1. Thanks. Nominated.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. glad to see someone telling it like it is

the DeLay ploy with lobbyists being bribery. This information needs to get out to the general public. But we must be careful. When I talk to people around here about it, their response is "It's all corrupt and you can't do anything about it." That's the kind of attitude that will keep these jokers in power.

[cascadiance]

4. Need to respond back with the successes in Arizona and Maine...

at replacing a lot of the older "bribery prone" politicians with those wanting to serve the people with their clean elections campaign financing legislation in place. And it looks like Connecticut this week is following in their footsteps this week with passing their reform as well. I'm hoping we can get it here locally in San Diego this coming year as well, after all of the corruption we've had in this town lately.

[sendero]

3. Kinsley..

...hits the nail here. Nominated.

[rainbow4321]

5. Delay's fund trustee: "We want to stay as clean as we can,"

Ok, so if you need a LEGAL DEFENSE FUND you aren't very fucking "CLEAN" to begin with....
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/washington/stories/DN-taintedcash_04nat.ART.State.Edition1.18ed8eb6.html

With pressure mounting from Democrats, most vowed Thursday to donate the money to one good cause or another. Recipients included Rep. Tom DeLay, the former majority leader whose legal defense fund got $6,000 from Mr. Cunningham's American Prosperity political action committee.

"We want to stay as clean as we can," said DeLay fund trustee Brent Perry.

[petgoat]

6. Joseph Cannon has some interesting findings about

the guy who bribed Cunningham, a character named Brent Wilkes whose
companies, though they got hundreds of millions of dollars in defense
contracts, appear to consist of little more than websites and mail
drops.

http://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/

[VaYallaDawg]

7. Outstanding thumbnail!

Nominated.