BOB NEY-- WHAT COMES FIRST, PRISON? MENTAL INSTITUTION? DEFEAT AT THE POLLS?

As the noose tightens around Bob Ney's scrawny throat, he's apparently flipped his wig lovely toupee. He accused one of the veteran reporters covering his outrageous criminal behavior of harassing his wife and daughter. Ney's avaricious bribe-taking in virtually every single scandal that has come to light so far around the Republican Culture of Corruption actually caused Dennis Hastert to demand that he resign from the Republican leadership-- and, believe me, to be asked to step out of that circle of cutthroats and crooks for ethical lapses is like a pack of Great White Sharks expelling one of its members for too much feeding frenzy at the beach. Ney, always the least classy thug and clownish gangster, also threatened to smear the reporter-- the way he has always smeared his political opponents.

Today's TIMES-REPORTER, a local newspaper in Ney's congressional district, carries Ney's latest temper tantrum and his threats against reporter Paul Krawzak. Although Ney is widely considered to be steeped in the worst kinds of corruption of any congressman short of Tom DeLay (and maybe Jerry Lewis) and certainly headed for indictment and prison, he never addresses the on-going U.S. Justice Department investigation into his criminal behavior. Instead, his flack says he's angry because the papers never talk about all the work he does on "housing and immigration and energy." As a public service, I've pulled up Ney's record on housing issues. He is tied for the absolute worst congressman in the entire United States for his voting record on housing issues and his score on funding housing programs and on preventing bank foreclosures on peoples' homes is a big fat zero. On bill after bill after bill, he votes against the interests of the middle class and for the interests of the big banks and corporations in their never-ending quest to rip off consumers to the full extent of the law-- and with lawmakers like Ney around, they have managed to increase that extent markedly over the last half dozen years.

"That is rarely reported by the media,” whined the flack, defensively. Instead, all the press ever covers is Ney's criminality... “seven different stories in 12 days” written by Krawzak “on the trial of an obscure Bush Administration official who has no ties to the State of Ohio but who happened to be on the trip to Scotland with the congressman four years ago, and not a single story on anything that the congressman is actually working on in Congress.”

I think Krawzak ought to take him up on the challenge and do a major piece on exactly what Ney has been up to in Congress. His constituents deserve to know. They also need to know more about Zack Space, the man who is working on removing the Ney blight from Ohio's 18th CD in November.