David Harsanyi, writing in the Denver Post, reiterates a long-standing truism: the more things change, the more they stay the same:
As a social conservative ogling underage congressional pages, Republican Mark Foley was the poster boy for rank hypocrisy. Turns out, his successor, Democrat Tim Mahoney  “Restoring America’s Values Begins at Home” went the campaign slogan  has, evidently, been keeping the torch of sexual infidelity aloft.
Now, no one wants to be accused of sexual McCarthyism  your dalliances are your own business, unless, that is, you happen to be wide-stancing in the bathroom stalls of the Minneapolis International Airport  but it seems that Mahoney may have used taxpayer dollars to hide his extracurricular activities.
While infinite degrees less creepy than Foley’s offense, the fundamental difference between the two incidents seems to be the level of media coverage.
No worries. Rahm Emanuel, chair of the Democratic Caucus, had, according to an ABC News source, “been working with Mahoney to keep the matter from hurting the candidate’s re-election campaign.” Isn’t it heartening to see congressional priorities firmly in place in this new age of ethical government?
Let’s face it, after two years of rule, this Democratic Congress has been just as bitterly divided, just as malicious, just as unproductive, just as ethically challenged as the one it inherited.
Take Congressman Barney Frank, who was romantically involved for years with a high-ranking executive at Fannie Mae while serving on House Banking Committee, where he coddled and helped expand the lending practices that, in part, brought about the mortgage crisis.
Forget an investigation, Frank is now chair of Financial Services Committee.
Frank, in fact, is working closely with the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Chris Dodd, who was not only the beneficiary of a “V.I.P.” mortgage (not available to the public) from a pre-bankrupt Countrywide, but is the largest recipient of campaign cash from both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
But it’s nothing to get excited about. There’s worse.
You see, the legislator in charge of writing national tax code, Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel, doesn’t even know how to pay taxes. The House Ethics Committee is probably so busy sorting out Rangel-related issues it doesn’t have time for much else.
Rangel, chair of the Ways and Means Committee, apparently forgot about that villa in the Dominican Republic (claiming, laughably, that a language barrier kept him from paying up), and he also is accused of abusing his rent-controlled apartments, doling them out to his family, and other tax-related problems.
We all slip up sometimes. We don’t all run powerful committees. And if we did, we may have the decency to step down. Not Rangel.
It is instructive to note that the week Democratic congressman William Jefferson faces 16 charges  including bribery, racketeering, fraud, money laundering, yada, yada, yada  is the week Republican Sen. Ted Stevens is wrapping up his own trial on corruption charges.
Both Democrat and Republican lawmakers have lined up to vouch for the unimpeachable honesty of Stevens.
It’s nice to see bipartisanship at work. You know, on the important issues.
I say nuke the entire legislative branch from orbit: it’s the only way to be sure.
And then, when we start over, make sure that anybody volunteering to run for Congressional office is immediately disqualified from doing so on that very basis.
Hell, we use lotteries to pick juries. Maybe it’s time to use lotteries to select candidates. At the very least, we’re likely to frustrate the “political class” that has turned the notion that any boy or girl can grow up to be President into a sneer line, with Sarah Palin the objective correlative to the lie that is American representative democracy — at least, as many of our betters would like to see it practiced.
It’s been done, some SciFi story. People drafted to run the government, on the theory that the only people you can trust with the job are the one who don’t want it. Do it well enough, you get time off for good behavior.
The lottery idea might fly, although I would want to insist on a very strong opt-out clause for persons such as myself who are damned sure they don’t belong in the business of governing other people.
Thucydides was grove trash.
It’s in the Jefferson Mark III Constitution, standard issue to all outgoing colony ships in “Songs of Distant Earth” by Arthur C. Clarke. Not sure if it’s original, but that’s one place I’ve seen it.
We could always model it on the NFL draft, but the path to a sane selection process that doesn’t involve Congress setting the rules and making the decisions is…unclear.
Hari Kari is, sadly, out of vogue. Fucking jerks, every one of them.
only if the lottery has got one of those spinning thingys…
and bright colored balls that u can hold up in the air..
and a big titted side-kick
something I’ve been advocating across several threads.
I. Want. Fucking. Legislative. Term Limits. Ric Locke may have the suggestion. 12 years total between all national offices (House, Senate, President). Me. I’d take 2 terms senate, 4 terms house, 12 years maximum legislative service. Let’s get back to the founder’s idea of government service as a short term altruistic burden rather than a pocket stuffing career.
John Murtha? 17 FUCKING YEARS?!?! I rest my case.
how about just castrate them all.
You want to be a congressmen- please volunteer for a castration…
You have to add Charles Wexler
we should have little babies elected
a burp means -yay-
a poop means-nay-
whooping cough -debate-
we could elect them in a baby ‘crawl off’..
elect their leaders by the ‘dangling of keys’
I rested mine a long time ago. Ted Kennedy, you see, has been in office one less year than I’ve been alive. And 46 more years than he ever should have been.
The 17-term Democratic congressman
34 years, not 17.
(Can we keep Tom Coburn?)
Sorry Sdferr, but that attitude will only get you a second term.
filibuster=more diapers
well-it COULD happen
Seconding term limits. And limits on lobbies.
This zoo is really getting out of hand.
holy crap, sashal and I agree with something in principal.
Actually, pulling the uber-nerd card out of the deck, in the manga Kujibiki Unbalance, political position is determined by random drawing.
Someone mentioned seppuku, Pat, don’t tempt me.
“Ted Kennedy, you see, has been in office one less year than I’ve been alive. And 46 more years than he ever should have been.”
Um, I was told there wouldn’t be any story problems on today’s exam.
In a just world, Ted Kennedy would be a mere obscure footnote in history as he spent his final days shunned by all good people after he spent 15-18 years in prison for manslaughter.
The idea presented elsewhere that Obama is going to go to Washington and clean up the Pelosi, Reid, Hohner, Stoyer, McConnell, Delay, Frist, Emmanuel mess is a fucking joke. There is no one in this campaign who has a prayer of reining in Congress and, as a result, spending. We are now awash in debt because of “compassionate conservatism” and all of those Republican intellectual elites (Brinkley, Will, Parker, Brooks. etc.) now bemoaning the loss of party values can kiss my semi-brown ass. ALL OF YOU ARE TO BLAME FOR FUCKING UP MY COUNTRY. Yea, let’s vote for the guy who has not a whit of experience in fiscally conserving ANYTHING and all get around the slogan of “cleaning up eight years of Republican mismanagement.”
I’m just pissed off today and may have to go sit in a corner with a box of Ring Dings, bitterly clinging to my bible.
i find that when i call my city rep-i get more of a response/
we should just harass the sh*t out of ’em-tell them-pass it on up the food chain
Psst, BJT. Stay away from the last chapter in the NT today. Just a tip, good buddy.
Plus, this serial sneering at Sarah Palin who actually accomplished cleaning up spending and corruption within her own party by these prissy, snotty, snot nosed, vacuous blue bloods is making me physically ill. I don’t give a crap how she talks or what college gave her a degree. RESULTS SPEAK LOUDER THAN SHEEPSKINS AND ACCENTS, BITCHES!!! The next person (like my brother) who references Palin and the “death of Republican Intellectualism” in the same sentence is going to get a 35″ Louisville slugger crammed up their ass. I’M NOT FOOLING AROUND ANYMORE!!!!!
God, I’ve got go lay down or I’m going to give myself a stroke.
Kelly: bullcrap! I’M CALLING DOWN THE PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS ON ALL OF THESE MISERABLE PRICKS!
Ohhh … dizzy …
Any of you folks spend much time at your statehouses? Its an option.
I mean, apart from seeing sausage made, it’s an option for, well, seeing sausage made.
Sorry. I’ll be with BJTexs…
While infinite degrees less creepy than Foley’s offense,
Wait. Sleeping around on your wife and your mistress, then using public funds to cover it up and buy off your mistress is not just less creepy but infinitely less creepy than emailing a dude naughty letters? What’s more creepy about that? Because he was 19 years old or because it was gay? How is this so much more creepy? Were there spiders involved?
Heh. I’ve been entertaining the idea of a lottery for a while now.
And no lobbyists. Or at least don’t permit them to give anyone so much as a pencil. Or allow them within a country mile of a legislator. Microsoft and the NEA can be limited to writing letters and making phone calls just like the rest of us.
Two words: jury duty. OK, maybe three words: grand jury duty.
Because he was chickenhawking a young man, who was an underling. Both are creepy, and that is creepier. Yes, homosexuality adds to the creepiness. Sorry , but it is so.
Locusts? Isn’t that a little more OT? (I keed)
The narcissism/stalkiness of it all was the big creep-out, though.
gay democrats are ok though/it’s their natural state/cuz that’s what i find creepy-a dem hasslin’ a woman-who da’ thunk?
Dear Mr. President – Thanks for the lottery ticket. I need to opt out of Congressional duty this term because I can’t take the pay cut. Maybe next time?
As an American I don’t have any betters.
And that just sticks in their craws.
That’s just mean, Mikey.
#23 BJTexas:
Now calm down – you’ll only scare Kate/matoko/nishi/qf/whomever again.
#36 kelly:
Telling the truth is mean? Then I guess I am mean. IIRC there was a little scrap about 230 years ago, then another about 140 years ago, and another just over sixty years ago, to establish that no human has a ‘better’.
Some need to be reminded.
I must have misplaced my sarc tag, mikey. I agree with you. There’s just a depressingly large cadre of people in this country who a) don’t give a rip about 230 or 140 or 60 years ago and b) really do believe they are better than us and remind us whenever they can.
The only problem with term limits is that you can still game the system.
Let’s say it’s for 2 terms. For the first term, you have to appear to be just ethical enough to be elected for the second term. For the second term, you to appear to be just ethical enough to not be impeached or recalled.
I think it would be better to:
1) Revert election of US Senators back to the individual states, who can select their 2 senators any way they wish.
2) Set the population to representative ratio to no greater than 20,000 to 1.
Point #1 gives the state governments representation in the federal system. Point #2 requires someone to bribe ~5,500 odd people to ensure that a given piece of legislation will pass. (From 2006 voting data, that ratio would give us 11,030 odd representatives.)
Plus it should be hard to get that many of the fuckers to agree to anything, which is kinda of a plus.
Foley’s girlfriend is complaining?
Look, hon – did’ya ever think that “if he’ll cheat on her, he’ll cheat on ME”? Common sense. No? Go figure.
I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol in almost a decade, and my last smoke was over a year ago.
But every once in a while I admit a tumbler of single malt accompanied by a cigar would be sweet.
Followed with a revolver and one round, of course.
I keep looking for Groucho to pop out of the wings so I can know that everything is going to be okay.
Instead, it’s just another bolshevik or other flavor of Democrat, one right after another.
#38 kelly:
First, I meant #35. Second – missed the sarc tag. My apologies.
Tcah, TmjUtah. You don’t want to check out yet. This is going to be lots and lots of fun. Remember – history happened to a whole lot of people who had no clue what was going to happen next (but likely grumbled ‘no good will come of this’).
I don’t know what will happen, but I bet I will be surprised at times. This game is never over until the last human falls down dead.
We got what – seven billion humans?
Sounds like extra innings to me.
Unless Glenn ‘asteroid boy’ Reynolds is right. Then the game board gets really, really re-set.
(Based on my family I’ve got forty to fifty years left. Such a short amount of time!)
It’s a big moon night tonight TmjUte, it rises yellow, just over there.
So….. just hypothetically speaking now… so if there was like two.. allegedly.. smokin hot Dominican hookers who ummmm had a video made with someone who may look like me although I do not recall what I looked like at that point in time and besides that girls ass is in the frame most of the time… on what looks like my video camera (credit card receipts be damned to hell)… could I tell my wife that it was all no harm no foul because the hookers purring “dame tu jarabe” and I had a language barrier?
OK then
Because he was chickenhawking a young man, who was an underling.
INFINITELY more creepy?
I’d take two terms in the House, one term in the Senate, with the provision that candidates must not have served in elective office, held a government job or served as a lobbyist for an amount of time equal to the length of the term before the election.
In other words, if I wanted to run for the House in 2008, I would have to worked in the private sector between 2006 and 2008. If I wanted to run for the Senate, make it 2002-2008. I’d also add the same requirement for the presidency.