So quoth Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) on the Abramoff brouhaha.
Wrong, Harry. It’s a Congressional Scandal, and with names like yours and Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) being bandied about as “recipients of large contributions from tribes represented by Abramoff,” the only reason I suspect we’ll see more Republicans than Democrats lined up against the wall on this is because they have a majority in both houses and have been in power more over the past decade or so.
I am not one to automatically associate lobbying with bribery, or to presume that contributors are actually puppet masters. I like to think the system usually works, within the bounds of human frailty.
But I’m getting the tar, feathers, and rail ready for these guys this time. It’s about time someone reminded Congress of whom they are actually supposed to represent.
(via Ginny)
With all of the press about it looks like the Democrats are trying to line this up as part of the mid-term 2006 elections with the catch-phrase of “We aren’t as corrupt as they are!” which really translates as “We have been politically less successful in the last decade then they have.”
The Republican’s seem to be trying to disassociate themselves from this as much as they possibly can, I’ve enjoyed the press bits of people denouncing Abramoff as a “super-thief and not a super-lobbyist” only to look around and realize the person on the soapbox was a recipient of large chunks of money from Abramoff.
In the end, I imagine this will simmer in the news for a while and get more and more buried by more recent sensationalized media events. Large sums of money will be spent on investigations and prosecuting or persecuting people, money that could be better spent on schools and social service programs. The definition of ‘bribery’ will get argued in court for a while. Many 30 second sound bites about Congress cleaning up it’s ethical problems will be uttered by people getting ready for their re-election campaigns.
Then it’ll be forgotten. Lobbyists will find ‘better’ or at least slicker ways to launder their money for campaign donations. Congress will continue to serve the interests of the few who have money to influence them rather than the many who actually elected them into office they are supposed to be representing. This will happen not because they were smart, or ‘in the right’, or any other reason having anything to do with them.
It’ll happen because the majority of the people who should be caring about it, who should be up in arms because they are getting screwed by the people they elected, would rather watch wrestling or the reality show of the moment or whatever the popular procedural on just then is or a home improvement show rather then ever watch the news. Most of America just doesn’t, and won’t, care enough to actually remember this by the time the next election comes around to have this influence the way they vote.
Instead we’ll have a handful of interested people still remembering and trying to motivate the semi-interested people to cast an informed vote while the seething horde of humanity will either vote by party-line, by who has the best picture in the voters pamphlet, or by who has the best catchphrase or slogan that they can remember.
But I think most of this was a bit off topic. Abramoff isn’t the beginning nor the end of the problem, if anything he is just a currently obvious signal of how badly our electoral system could use an overhaul and how very much the people who do get elected should be held far more accountable for their actions and their finances during their term then they currently are.
What Aaron said….
Plus…100% of the money from Abramoff himself went to the GOP.
I am, perhaps, a bit more optimistic than Aaron (perhaps a few symbolic convictions and/or expulsions). And I’m certainly not being partisan in this — whether Abramoff spread the largesse (his own or others) around based on principle (ha!) or truckling to the majority, I say throw the bums out whether they have red lapel pins or blue.
Indeed, the one way the Dems can muff this whole thing is to turn it into a partisan brawl. Then it will be easily chalked up to “partisan business as usual” by the public and ignored. Alas, the DCCC mailing I just got makes it sound like that’s exactly the tack they’re going to take. I can understand why, especially given GOP hypocrisy on being the party of morality and rectitude — but if I were running things in the Democratic Party, I’d be cleaning my own house, first, so that my accusations couldn’t merely be dismissed as partisan bickering.
Assuming there are any Congresscritters in power on either side who could stand to have their dirty laundry examined. Which may be an overly large assumption.
The guy with the new political blog at the Chicago Trib wondered who would be the last Congressperson left when everyone else has coughed up their share. I’m not so wild about Harry.
Of all the congressman who I have heard so far admit to taking money from Abramoff, the one who has the largest fund of money and isn’t giving it all to some charity is a democrat, Reed of Nevada, who has 61k of money from Abramoff.
Personally, I think the two party system is flawed since it promotes a choice between the least of two evils instead of the better of a field of candidates. My one bit of political optimism these days is rooted in the idea of a future emergence of a viable and competitive third party.
So many ways both parties could spin the whole situation, and once more the (R)’s show themselves to apparently have better (okay, ‘more savvy’ is probably a more correct way to phrase it) people advising them on how to handle this in front of the media.
Wait, yes, Harry Reid of Nevada, not Reed. Mis-spelled his name and there it was back at the start of the original thread.
I don’t know that a multi-party system would solve this particular problem, and it would invite a number of other. The biggest flaw with multi-party governments its that it inflates the importance of fringe parties (Israel being a good example of this, but others can be found) whose cooperation is needed in order to gain a majority in the legislature.
I can’t, in truth, argue with that point. That is a flaw in the multi-party system, a 49/49/2 split in the senate would give a disproportionate amount of influence to the 2 as whoever they caucus’d with would have control of the senate. Which could potentially give 2 very scary people more power then I would like to see ( as I think of some of the ‘Constitution’ or ‘Reform’ party candidates I’ve seen in the last couple elections *shudder* ).
In the end, I suppose it all comes back to needing more honest and well-intentioned people involved in politics for the purpose of representing and serving the people who elected them rather then the lobbyists. Which ultimately goes back to that whole quote of Jefferson I believe from the Federalist Papers, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”
Our government, or rather the people who make it up currently, apparently need more oversight. Which is another layer of government, and another set of costs detracting from tax-payer money actually getting spent on anything to benefit the people being taxed.