Wednesday, February 08, 2006

The new Grand Old Party- the corrupt leading the corrupt

The current situation reminds of an old campground song - Bluejay - the content isn't important here but the transition between verses is. Basically, after each verse, the person leading the song would shout, louder each time,

"Next verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse"

And I think that that's the situation with our new GOP - same as the old GOP but perhaps a little bit worse. And if Mehlman and McCain are any indication, they're certainly planning on getting louder.

To recap: amidst a far-reaching set of ethical scandals besetting the Grand Old Party, Republicans take a bold new direction and appoint a new majority leader who:
1) was the most connected to lobbyists of any of the contenders
2) is living in an apartment that he rents from a lobbyist when he's in DC. Sure, it's not a yacht, but I seem to remember that the last time we heard this "market rate" stuff, it turned out to be a load of hooey covering a whole lot of underhandedness.
3) immediately kills what was already a totally miniscule attempt by the GOP to combat the ethical and legal cloud surrounding the party.
4) is so far in the pocket of Big Tobacco that he's practically a human sock garter.

And at the same time, they replace felon Duke Cunningham on the Appropriations Committee, one of if not the most powerful committees in the House with .... wait for it ... Tom Delay!, the guy who was ousted as Majority Leader because he's been indicted and has been dogged with a variety of ethical and legal questions surrounding his handling of, you guessed it, money.

Is the Republican well of leadership so dry that the best they can do is replaced a confessed felon with someone who is simply holding on to an increasingly slim chance that he won't soon be meeting his former colleague in the pokey. And the best they can do in replaceing someone covered in the stink of lobbyists is just to change the flavor of the stink? Sheesh.

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