Where Ethics Go to Die

Rep. Bob Ney confessed (R-OH) today to criminal activity for which he could receive up to 10 years in jail. When the leisurely schedule of the House resumes after the November elections, it is likely that Ney will be asked to leave if he doesn’t resign. He pled guilty to “depriving the government of honest service” and lying. He had wisely decided not to run in the upcoming election.

Ohio, besides conducting some of the most corrupt elections in the nation, is a regular cesspool of scandal. Ney could also be implicated in the Coingate scandal that cheated workers out of their Worker’s Compensation Money to the tune of $250,000,000. Ohio Governor Taft has confessed to wrongdoing and his ratings are predictably in the toilet.

A year ago, CREW, Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington, drew up ethics complaints against Rep. Ney. They asked constituents to deliver these complaints to their respective congress people, with a request that they filed them with the House Ethics Committee.

According to House Rules, a complaint filed by any House member automatically triggers an ethics investigation.
Not one cowardly House member of either party filed CREW’s complaint or one of their own.
Members of the House from both political parties have agreed not to
investigate each other, hoping that silence about House Rules, energetic finger pointing and hand wringing will suffice.

Let’s look at how this is playing out in the more recent Foley sex scandal.
Speaker Hastert, one of the accused in covering up Foley’s lusting after fresh young boys under pressure from Democrats and constituents has ordered an ethics investigation that leaves he and his co-conspirators out of the picture. Instead investigating the people covering up Foley’s improper behavior, they are investigating how the page program is run, the behavior of the pages and how information is “processed”.
A third grader could spot this as an exercise in damage control rather than a real effort to deal with the problem and assign responsibility.

Is one House member of either stripe filing complaints against Hastert, Boehner, Reynolds, Alexander, or head of the page program, Shimkus; the more highly placed members of the conspiracy to cover up? Don’t think so.
Has Nancy Pelosi filed one ethics complaint since being minority leader? No. She has asked Hastert for investigations. Predictably he has said no. She had an alternative to Hastert’s no and has failed over and over again to use it; deliver her own ethics complaint to the supine head of House Ethics, Doc Hastert.

Granted, the bad behavior is coming from the GOP. But what have the Democrats done to stop it? Nada. Could they have done something? Perhaps or perhaps not. The fact is, they didn’t even try.
If the Democrats had shown any signs of being good strategists, I’d think they had taken into account the GOP penchant for overreaching and lured them to their doom by doing nothing to restrain them.
In reality, they have pushed responsibilities for policing their own onto other government agencies.

I suggest we take it one step further. Neither the House or the Senate have shown any signs of being willing to police themselves. The FBI, the CIA, the SEC and other organizations have plenty to do besides arresting our representatives.
The House and the Senate need an independent outside committee, with the power to act, policing both Houses of Congress. Citzens and qualified experts should preside, rotating afer a few years.

Tony Snow, Bush’s press secretary, stated that Ney’s confession is no reflection on the Republican Party.
Perhaps not, but the behavior of incumbent party members and their associates certainly is a reflection on the Republican Party. It isn’t a pretty picture.

Snow’s statement isn’t surprising. Just consider the source. Snow is, for all intents and purposes, Bush’s public voice.
The President with his signing statements, his penchant for illegal wars, snooping and torture, his confessed criminality is no poster boy for respect for the law or the rights of others.
Ask anyone who has worked for a large organization; whatever the leader does sets the tone for the rest of group.

What Bush/Cheney and their hired hit man Karl Rove have done by their own highly questionable behavior is effectively send out a memo that anything goes and you’ll never pay for what you do
It should not be surprising that large numbers of the rank and file are falling in with the program.

Sorry Tony. The GOP is the party of colossal criminality, greed and corruption.
Voters, a huge majority of whom are dissatisfied with the direction the country is headed are unlikely to forget who is in charge.

Carol DW