It looks like the phrase “culture of corruption” refers specifically to the Democrat party these days. As a Republican, I’m proud to say that the party has been largely successful in weeding out the bad apples over the last 3 years. As a result, we are left with a political party that controls the house, senate, white house, and all of the criminal activity. However, I must take the time to highlight the differences between the current “culture of corruption” and the old one.
The Republican culture of corruption was carried out in the full light of the press. There seemed to be no end to the articles regarding Ted Stevens, Tom Delay, and the Abramoff scandal. In fact, Hollywood is making a movie with Kevin Spacey depicting the Abramoff Scandal. You can easily google these topics and quickly find new stories. What about all the democrat scandals so quickly swept under the carpet? It may surprise you that my googling efforts found more recent press on Tom Delay than recently embedded Roland Burris.
In actuality, I couldn’t write a post long enough to cover all the corruption being investigated in congress. Jonah Goldberg covered many of the stories in an LA Times piece called “Democrats wallow in a ‘culture of corruption.’” Devrim, a regular reader and commenter on this blog had this to say on Senator John Edwards Scandal:
"Senator John Edwards is a man of my heart. He is under investigation for misallocation of funds from his campaign. In my belief, Sen. Edwards should appear in front of the court, in his best souther gentleman voice declare that "funds spent on a mistress are well allocated, not misallocated, therefore the prosecution has no case".” Check out his full comments in his Hijack Thread.
Just in case you can’t find press about corruption in the Democratic Party, here is a brief refresher. We have 6 tax cheats that were appointed to Obama’s cabinet, tax cheat Charlie Rangel, Diane Feinstein’s billion dollar hubby deal, Roland Burris’ perjury, Edwards and Spitzer’s love triangle and cover up, William Jefferson’s money in the freezer, John Murtha the earmark machine, Blago and Richardson’s play to pay scandals and Pelosi’s missing memory in regards to the enhanced interrogation meetings she attended. Why don’t I hear about these scandals day after day and all day?
Another point must be made regarding the validity of all the Republican scandals. Charges regarding Ted Stevens’ ethics violations were dropped last month. Tom Delay was indicted, but the charges never went to court. It is not beyond the realm of belief that charges could be manufactured for political gain. Remember Palin's Troopergate? That was big news in the fall, but I dare you to try and find all the news stories where she was cleared in the investigation, that the firings were legal and there was no probable cause for an ethics violation.
I maintain that political corruption is not something owned by one party or another, but a culture inherent in all politics. This is a truth more evident to the American public every day regardless of the efforts of the media and Democrats to brand it a Republican problem.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments
First things first, that Hijack Thread was written in full sarcasm mode. If Mr Clinton got a BJ from Catherina Zeta-Jones, and came to the microphones and said, "Hey, take a look at Hillary, I got a BJ from Ms Zeta-Jones, SO WHAT ?", I would have ZERO issues with that. After all, we let President Kennedy and Ms. Monroe slip by.
May 7, 2009 at 12:47 PMProblem with US today, is we lost the "representative" part. When the Colonies rebelled against King George, every Colony gathered their representatives, discussed the issue, and voted AYE or NAY, I am not a historian so I can't say how accurate the movie is, but let's watch "The Patriot" again, and pay special attention to where Mel Gibson casts his vote, and reasons why he is casting a vote of NAY.
Today we lost that kind of direct input. Unless I have access to millions of dollars to hire lobbyists, my voice isn't heard.
Again, if I had access to millions of Dollars, I could hire a newspaper to publish my points of view (you publish what I tell you to, and I'll give all my advertising to you).
In the 1900's the average size of towns made it almost impossible to form a representative form of government. So we moved towards democracy. Today, in the age of internet, American Idol etc, I don't see a reason why we can't return to the good old days of a "representative republic".
Correct me if I am wrong, over 70% of the voters were against the first TARP bill, tough 60% of OUR representatives voted FOR it. What would happen if we had American Idol like phone lines, call 555-0001 if you say AYE, call 555-002 if you say NAY, and your representative had to vote according to the votes gathered by that polling.
One of the hot button issues today is health care, which way would I vote if I "knew", giving "me" free health care would cost my kids a 10% tax hike ?
Devrim,
May 7, 2009 at 1:27 PMSorry if I was misrepresenting your quote. I was trying to both include it in my thoughts and get others to look at your post entirely. However, I don't totally agree with your comments on democracy. We are a republic and not a democracy. Our representatives are supposed to vote on the voices of the constituents in their region. As a result, you sometimes have situations that you stated where most people are against it, but many representatives are for it. I believe that the representative government is still very much fair as it gives regions a say and not just the masses.
Post a Comment