Reply #12: Bigger than the coverup - is the thread of corruption

[salin]

Why didn't anyone take serious action against Foley? He is a big fundraiser - raising big bucks for the RNCC (the $100,000 to Reynolds from Foley's PAC didn't end up being a big story because Foley's PAC regularly gave that much money, as well as big $ to individual congressional campaigns.) Have to keep the gravy train rolling.

This is the same reason that Bob Ney went down. Not because he was taking personal bribes (ala Duke) - but because he was seeking big bucks for his PAC, that he could then give to other repubs seeking election/reelection. Why was this important enough for Ney to raise this money for something other than his own reelection? Because of the system put in place by Tom Delay - that doled out key committee chair positions based on how much $$ was given to support the election of other republicans, rather than based on seniority or experience - as had previously been the case.

This is just a very, very ugly episode in an ongoing bigger story of a corrupt system set in place by the GOP leadership that was inevitable in setting folks up for corrupt behavior - as the stakes for how much money that had to be earned in order to get plum positions was ratcheted up far past the huge amounts of money needed to simply run their own reelection campaigns.