Senate Ethics Reform again. It's like a nightmare

[TayTay]

I am forced to quote from the damn Prince of Darkness himself, Robert Novak. (Ack, yuck.)

Reid inspires earmark reformers

January 15, 2007
BY ROBERT NOVAK Sun-Times Columnist


Harry Reid last week basked in the adoration of the Democratic Party's leading Senate reformers and its nine freshman senators. They extravagantly praised the new majority leader as the exemplar of ethical reform. But within 48 hours, Reid was opposing full transparency of earmarks. This week, Republican reformers will target Reid with an amendment to the Senate ethics package.

Sponsored by Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the proposal is called the "Reid amendment" because he inadvertently inspired it. Coburn would tighten loose anti-earmark restrictions in the ethics bill by prohibiting senators from requesting earmarks that financially benefit a senator, an immediate family member of a senator or a family member of a senator's staffer.

The proposal follows the revelation that Reid's four sons and his daughter's husband all have been lawyers or lobbyists for special interests. While Reid has declared they are barred from lobbying for their clients in his office, there is little doubt they have taken advantage of their close proximity to a powerful senator.

An example are earmarks that have sent millions of federal dollars to the University of Nevada at Reno. Reid's son-in-law, lawyer Steven Barringer, was a paid lobbyist for the university. In general, Republican reformers see Reid illustrating the nexus between legislators and special interests, in his case mainly real estate, gambling and mining.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/novak/210683,CST-EDT-novak15.article

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

There, I just needed to get that off my chest. Next, I need a long shower with disinfectants because I just quoted Robert Friggin Novak who once had an interview with a South American leader and indiscriminate butcher of the helpless in that country and Novak proclaimed what a swell guy that leader was and such a strong anti-communist. So, he killed a little. That didn't make him a bad guy, right? His heart was in the Right place, after all.

Harry, for the love of God, buy a friggin clue. Mitch McConnell is no Bill Frist. He is one shrewd and completely partisan bastid. He eats people like you for breakfast. Stop feeding this horrible example of a human being softballs. Please stop. You are embarrassing me. I know Coburn and DeMint have their names on these amendments, but that's because McConnell is too smart to do so, he wants to be the Saint who sponsored the BiPartisan Ethics Bill with Harry Reid. (McConnell: "What? Me, play politics? Why I was over here polishing my halo. This is something that those two brain-dead morons Coburn and DeMint cooked up on their own after they got out of Senate Special Ed classes. Really, it was their class project." Yesh, sure it was Mitch. If you believe that, I got a Bridge to Nowhere to sell you, dirt cheap.)

Harry, you are outmatched and outwitted so far in this session. Find someone, anyone, who can play this game or get the hell out of leadership. Yeesh. This is embarrassing.

This is what we come back to tomorrow on 'As the Senate Turns.' Sigh. What a friggin nightmare. Oh yeah, and the original DeMint Amendment, with minor tweaking that I talked about last week comes up tomorrow night for a vote. Oh Goody. (For the love of God Harry, just stop enabling these bastids.)

[Inuca]

1. Very infuriating, I agree, but...

... what a wonderfully written post, Tay :-)! And I fully agree that McConell is no Frist, I kept thinking of that as I watched him last week. Frist was... well.... kind of dumb. I do not care how many wonderful degrees he may have, he is not a very smart person. McConell on the other hand is one sly fox, and looking over his shoulder is the possibly even slyer Lott. I have no idea who could be better at these games than Reid (putting aside for he moment that he does indeed seem to be somewhat lacking in he purity department). I doubt that Durbin, much as I like him, would be better, he seems at least to be too straightforward a person.

[karynnj]

7. I think Durbin would be better

the problem here is not craftiness. It's that Reid demonstrates that the corruption that comes from power is bi-partisan. It will also always be worse in the party in power. Last year, it wasn't that the Democrats were saints. It was that there was little reason to bribe people with no power.

I have never heard of any corruption around Durbin.

[ProSense]

2. Agree. Arrrrrgh! There is a word for this display of timidity:

bipartisanspit.

[whometense]

4. heh.

I love that. May I quote you?

[ProSense]

5. Sure.

:)

[sandnsea]

3. Sometimes earmarks are good

This is the problem with lumping all earmarks together. I don't know what the University earmarks are for, but education earmarks are generally not the same thing as building a road to benefit a mining company or some such. The difference matters. Of course it also matters when family members are paid lobbyists, but these accuations were made against Daschle too. Yes we need to get ethics reform right. But it doesn't matter what legislation is on the floor, Republicans are going to use every trick in the book to distort and smear. That's what they do. I hope we can step back and look at legislation as a whole before we assume what Republicans say about Democrats is true.

[karynnj]

8. The earmarks may be good

but having entities that want them hire family members of politicians at minimum gives an appearance of conflict of interest. (As it may be hard to affort 2 residences for many Senators - these high paying jobs dangled in front of relatives could be consider temptation. "Don't put a stumbling block in front of the blind"

[sandnsea]

9. I support the family legislation

"Just because" But I don't support the idea that Reid is doing something unethical anymore than I did Tom Daschle, or even every single Republican. It's a political ploy and when they do this stuff, I think we should call them on it. I like how Nancy Pelosi handled the American Samoa attack, she just readily agreed and said she'd put the legislation on the table. That's all Reid needs to do in these kinds of situations. They're playing partisan games because they coul have changed this law ages ago and didn't, but thanks for bringing it to our attention and we'll get right on it. And then move on.

[TayTay]

11. That's the thing though, Reid is not doing that

He is letting these things come up and then twisting slowly in the wind in agony on them. The earmark bill is one example. Reid was horrible on that one. He allowed it to become about him and that is simply not good politics. There are reasons for earmarks. However, that stuff needs to stand up on it's own. We can't continue to have these Omnibus spending bills that are 1,000+ pages long and that are negotiated without real oversight. They are abuses of power.

McConnell is the guy who took John Kerry's Withdrawal Amendment last June and suddenly called it up for a vote before Kerry was even ready. This was done to embarrass the Dems and Kerry and show Democratic disunity. (It's a signature move for McConnell.) We need to be smarter in dealing with this guy. He is no Frist, he is much smarter and much more ruthless than Frist ever was.

[sandnsea]

12. I hear you

So let's turn this on McConnell. Even after Republicans are voted out resoundingly, they continue to play partisan games. That needs to be the message.

Yes, we've got to get control of pork spending but it isn't just a problem of earmarks. Remember Kerry's plan of having a committee to pull out all the pork and give it an 'upperdown' vote? We could be calling for some of that kind of reform too, to take the attention off the games McConnell is playing.

That's what I'm saying. Let's not make the mistake of helping the right during this transition. They will always find something to pick at, just like a teen-ager who tries to deflect the attention of their bad behavior by nit-picking at ever little thing their parents do. We need to let them know they aren't going to get away with that, we have an agenda and once that's through, we'll deal with whatever the Republicans want.

[Inuca]

13. I think Frist would have liked...

... to be more ruthless, but did not know how :-). In any case, I fully agree, while having as little corruption as possible is definitely the goal, the politics and maneuvering that take place in the Senate are also important, and I have no idea why Reid fumbled things like that, he seems pretty canny to me these last couple of years. Personal involvement? Not knowing yet how to handle being the MAJORITY leader (McConell seems to do a swell job at being the minority leader, unfortunatelly...)? I don't know...

[whometense]

6. Seems like cutting his leadership teeth against

Frist did Harry no favors.

I honestly don't know what to make of Reid - one minute he seems on-the-ball, the next he looks like a complete idiot.

And if these are his reasons for trying to water down ethics reform he shouldn't be leading the dems. Let Durbin do it, for god's sake.
As far as I'm concerned, bipartisanship is DEAD, as long as Bush is president.

[MBS]

10. you said it all : )

When he opposed the nepotism bill , too, I figured he might have an issue about his own family.. .well, yessirree. .

[beachmom]

14. Reid is corrupt and a slimeball

Sorry, one too many scandals have come out involving him. He puts himself before the people's business. I'll still never forget every single time he screwed over Kerry in the last Congressional session. At the time I thought it was a power play with him being threatened by the former presidential nominee, and propping up Hillary. But I'm wrong -- Kerry is fighting for the people while Reid wants the elite status quo. Kerry is fighting for what's right, and Reid is trying to do the least possible without looking bad. Well, it's now caught up to him. The Republicans are corrupt scumbags, but . . . this is what a 2 party system is for. And Coburn has been well known for trying to eliminate pork and corrupt inside deals (as well as being a religious right looney, but I digress).

Earmarks are fine (or rather federal spending for one's own state), but they need to be TRANSPARENT. They need to see the light of day, and who's doing them. And they're the first on the chopping block when we're in a fiscal crisis -- like now.

And this family stuff is ridiculous.