DOC HASTINGS FEELING THE HEAT AFTER PROTECTING DELAY

The House Ethics Committee is the one (and only) House committee run in a bipartisan manner. There are an equal number or Republicans and Democrats, although the majority party gets to name the chairman. Last year, in light of the most outrageous and blatant ethics violations by GOP House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay-- violations that should have landed him in prison-- even the Republicans on the committee backed some VERY MILD admonitions against DeLay. Predictably, DeLay went berserk and purged the committee, ridding it of the fair-minded chairman, Joel Hefley, and putting a dependably corrupt crook and strong ally, "Doc" Hastings in his place. Hastings immediately provoked a series of confrontations with Democrats on the committee by trying to tamper with the structure of the committee's work in a way to specifically protect DeLay. The committee deadlocked and ceased to function-- and crooked politicians like DeLay and Randy "Duke" Cunningham continue to run amuck.

Hastings is a right-wing hack from rural central Washington State (Yakima area). Howard Dean has suggested, rather mildly, that Hastings allow the investigation of DeLay to proceed from which he should recuse himself due to his close lobbying ties to The Hammer (the very root of why DeLay is being charged with criminal activities in Texas and why the House needs to expel him). Although Hastings somehow forgot to disclose it, newly-released documents show he had a lucrative financial relationship with lobbyists at a Seattle law firm that was part of the DeLay/Abramoff scam empire for financing DeLay's gangster empire. (And, predictably, the firm's star lobbyist, DeLay's consiglieri Jack Abramoff, has been another Republicrook arranger of lavish overseas trips for DeLay and pals.) Local Washington State newspapers are starting to scratch their editorial heads about Doc's apparent sleazy behavior. His hometown paper in Pasco, the Tri-City Herald, for example, went into details of Hastings' ties to Preston Gates & Ellis, the Seattle law firm linked to some of DeLay's shenanigans, and to one of its big lobbying clients in the 1990s, the government of the Northern Mariana Islands, an American colony. The law firm got Hastings to support efforts to prevent the federal minimum wage from being imposed on the Marianas' sweat-shop clothing factories. The headline on the article was "Hastings' Link to Islands Sullies Ethics Post." Taking advantage of and victimizing (like in bilking them for millions of dollars) American Indians as well as colonial natives appears to be a Abramoff/DeLay specialty. To have the chairman of the Ethics Committee involved in this fits right in with the Bush governing principles of having foxes watching the hen houses.

And now that Hastings is feeling the heat, he's ready to jump ship and run for cover. Painting himself-- as they always do-- as a "victim," Hastings is "threatening" to resign as committee chairman. One anonymous Republican committee staffer told the Associated Press that "Doc has had just about enough of this. He'd like to find a face-saving way out." I'm sure he would.