leejo

You characterize the story as fishing. I accuse you of ignoring the bobbing cork on the end of the line.

You rise to Sen Reid's defense for his clear, multiple, violations of Senate ethics rules while simulatenously claiming to support punishment for any politician who does wrong. Mark Folley has not been indicted, yet he is gone. Correctly so. William Jefferson remains. Barney Frank remains. Ted Kennedy remains. Harry Reid remains. Bill Clinton is an icon. It's amazing.

AMosely

I can't even believe you're pointing this out. Reid's $1.1 million is pocket change compared to the billions in taxpayer money that Haliburton (and subsidiaries) rode away with after various 'political appointees' pushed their no-bid contracts through.

Are you really prepared to go tit for tat on which major political party has netted the most personal income through questionable or otherwise undisclosed means?

And little Harry Reid is the best you can come up with?

Give me a break.

leejo

Please clarify which politicians personally pocketed money from these deals. Also, please list the companies who also provide the services Haliburton performed in these no-bid contracts.

Finally, does any of this mean that Sen Reid should be excused? Or that he shouldn't be investigate? What is your point?

dfg872

I think we can all agree that the senate is full of idiots on both sides of the isle. Before this gets into a pissing contest on the misdeads of the parties and their esteemed members lets remember that very few washington scandels have ever had an effect on us. Sure, what goes on in DC is dispicable, but I've gotta say that none of it surprises me anymore. Though this is what some would term an october surprise... The fact remains that the republicans run risks right now in trying to bring up the ethics questions. He probably violated ethics rules, but the republicans probably did too with the whole foley thing, and in the eyes of the public, unethical things with sex > unethical real estate deals. Just look at clinton... no one blinked with the whitewater scandel, but sex with an intern got him impeached.

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leejo

I don't know about that. A lot of people blinked at the Whitewater scandel. Several people went to jail over their roles in it. And obstruction of justice and perjury got him impeached, not sex with an intern. That just happened to be the thing he was caught lying about.

And I disagree with your assumption that the republicans "probably" violated ethics rules with regard to Foley. I certainly hope that there isn't a clear playbook to cite in deciding how to handle a representative's sexual peccadilloes with the pages.

dfg872

Ok, some people went to jail, but I don't think it affected people politically as much as a sex scandel would. So My wording was off, what I meant was that as far as Politics goes sex>real estate. Yeah, I don't know that ethics were effected, but it's still enough of a hot political issue that they probably won't do anything to aggrevate it before the election. I'm coming purely from a political perspective on this. Reids actions won't hurt dems come november nearly as much as even the perception of misaction in the Foley case hurts republicans. And it hurts republicans not in the way that it will change votes, but it will supress turnout of certain peoples. Thats all.

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leejo

Ken Starr was appointed to investigate Whitewater, and the trail eventually led to Lewinsky. How I don't know, but runaway special prosecutors is another topic.

I also think that if Bill Clinton had been having an affair with someone who wasn't his subordinate, and if he hadn't lied about it under oath or violated another law he would have been forgiven by all, not just the entire democratic party, who not only excuse his illegal behavior but continue to trumpet his as their leader. But 41 is his new bff so the guy's definitely got major league charm mojo.

I agree that Reid's actions won't hurt dems, but I disagree with why. Also, I disagree that Foley will suppress votes and I disagree with your assumptions about why it would.

dfg872

Well, luckily we're just making wild speculations... election day will tell the tail. The one thing it does is make it harder for republican candidate, and even, I expect democrats to stay 'on message' in their campaigns.

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Steeler

Or maybe 41 just realizes that where a President puts his willy isn't nearly as important as where he puts the 101st Airborne.

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leejo

Yep. And any story that surfaces about some Democrat's alleged improprieties will be regarded as fishing and covered with significant skepticism and reserve.

leejo

Or he's just a good Christain and tries to forgives others' sin.

AMosely

I love it when republicans claim the moral high ground, only to end up saying "oh, well I was not aware of that at the time."

What about the most recent situation involving Republican officials personally pocketing money from illegal or otherwise questionable means - the Jack Abramoff case? This wasn't even covering up side business, this was flat out bribery and corruption at the highest levels of government. Wikipedia has a fine summary at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff.

Granted, Tom DeLay was easily roped into it and suffered because of his supposed naivity.

But how about David Safavian, former chief of staff of the General Services Administration? Not only did he participate in bribery, he then lied to cover it up. He's now fighting off a prison term. http://www.wstm.com/Global/story.asp?S=5531648&nav=2aKD

Richard Pombo, republican congressman from California, has lied about every connection that he had with Abramoff (including monetary) only to be consistently proven wrong by exposed records. http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/12/abramoff-pombo/

I do not believe that schemes such as these are remotely comparable to private real-estate dealings involving politicians, republican or democrat, President, senator or representative. Because let's face it - they all have a scheme.

Buck Fush

So the new term for adolescent males is "subordinates"?


So you're going to retry this case now? Kennedy was never convicted of vehicular manslaughter.



Every time a republican ANYTHING gets caught doing ANYTHING the defense seems to be "Hey!, Look at what <Insert-democrat-evil-doer's-name-here> did!" It's downright annoying. You know when I want to see politician's removed from office? When they do something I wouldn't do. How can I fault them for something I WOULD do.


Here are some of the things I(and most American males) would do and so therefore shouldn't be considered a national emergency:
1) Have sex with a female, other than my wife, in the oval office. (Matter of fact, she's been warned that I WILL do that if I ever get elected.)
2) Lie about committing adultery.
3) Lie about lying about committing adultery


Here are some of the things I(and most American males) wouldn't do and I would like to see people removed from office for:

1) Soliciting sex from adolescent boys.
2) Soliciting sex from adolescent boys.
3) Soliciting sex from adolescent boys.


Exactly what part of justice needs to know about the sex with an intern? The part of justice where the biased prosecutor is looking to shame his victim?


Keep digging, these scum bags are going to need more than a (possible) small ethics violation to take the spotlight off of their behaviour and failings.

leejo

No, it's a generic term that can apply to any situation in which a representative should resign immediately. Since allegation has tended to be much more wild than fact in the Foley case, I chose to use language that supports the reasons for his leaving office but does not imply more than I know to be true.

That's right. It is a fact, though, that he drove a car off the road into a river , left the scene, and did not report it for hours. When it turned out the body of one of his female subordinates was in the car, he claimed not to have known there was anyone in the vehicle. As punishment for this act of vehicular manslaughter, he has been dutifully re-elected ever since. He was even a viable candidate for the presidency once.

No, everytime a republican gets caught doing anything he immediately resigns , is investigated, and if necessary indicted and tried. The "hey look at" response comes when the Democrats inevitably overplay their hand and act like they're anything resembling ethical.

If you WOULD do these things then that is your problem. Don't assume that I'm not ethical just because you give yourself free reign, or that I would cheat on my wife, anywhere.

I'm not sure where you get your statistics regarding how "most American males" behave, but the behavior you describe is despicable and not worthy of anyone's support.

I agree, but would drop the "boys" as that is unneccessary and bigoted against homosexuals. It's interesting that apparently when a gay man wants to run a troop of little boy scouts he's a hero but when a republican turns out to be homosexual the rhetoric gets very close to very ugly.

When a Democrat rep. from MA was convicted of screwing a 17-year-old boy, something Foley has not even been accused of, his constituents returned him to office for another 12 years. When a Democrat Rep was convicted of screwing a 16-year old female subordinate in the 90s, Clinton pardoned him.

The part where it says if you're sued and put under oath in a deposition, you can't choose to lie. The deposition was part of the civil lawsuit that what's her face brought against Clinton. You don't get to lie just because you think the lawsuit is bogus, either. Which part of that don't you understand? Or do I get to play by those rules too?


I'm not digging, I play them as they lie. If Senator Reid keeps obliging me, that's his problem.

SmokingTarpan

From what I can tell, Reid violated the ethics rules and should be punished. If he says, "Well I wasn't sure" or "Well I didn't know", the rule of common sense should have kicked in: When in doubt, report.

Having just taken my ethics exam due to being a state university worker (scored a 100%, I'm ethical!), I feel no shame in saying this dude is less than smart, and likely more than a little corrupt.

That's just my viewpoint though. I'll let everyone get back to their regularly scheduled "Oh yea? Well your democrat/republican/zulu party member did this!" argument. :P

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