DEMOCRATS PUNT ON REAL ETHICS REFORM WHEN IT COMES TO CONGRESSIONAL CROOKS-- AND TOM DELAY CORRUPTION CASE MEANDERS THROUGH THE COURTS

Politicians shouldn't be allowed to make laws about themselves. It made me cringe to see these suit and tie crooks excluding categories of criminality from their ethics legislation and looking for ways to exclude their past and future crimes from punishment. I'll accept that Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney and Tom DeLay continue to get their pensions if their arms get amputated instead. How's that Steny? Any chance you could get that into the bill? Or how about if a politician is caught betraying the public trust, sentencing guidelines dictate that he automatically gets 25 years in prison and that no plea-bargaining is allowed-- except a year off his sentence for every fellow political crook his testimony helps convict?

The Post introduces the whole ethics debate so grandly-- and deceptively. "With the rhetoric of reformers bent on sweeping corruption from the Capitol, the House voted unanimously yesterday to deny federal pensions to lawmakers convicted of bribery, perjury and other related felonies." Uh, oh... unanimously usually means there's no bite, no substance and nothing to be worried about. "'Corrupt politicians deserve prison sentences, not taxpayer-funded pensions,' said freshman Rep. Nancy Boyda (D-Kan.), chief sponsor of the bill." The third paragraph starts with a "but": "But the punishment of those who betray the public trust will not be far-reaching. The measure is similar to one approved by the Senate last week and comes in the wake of major congressional scandals last year that led to the conviction of former Republican congressmen Randy 'Duke' Cunningham (Calif.) and Robert W. Ney (Ohio)... The bills passed by the House and the Senate are not retroactive, which means that Cunningham and Ney will collect substantial pensions for the rest of their lives, courtesy of taxpayers." (No amputations were discussed-- and the Senate version doesn't take effect until 2009, giving these crooks who voted plenty of time to... ease out of criminality slowly and gently? Do some last minute bribe-taking?) And no one mentions that the only way to insure an ethical Congress is to pass a bill guaranteeing public funding of elections so as to remove institutionalized bribery from our severely compromised democracy.


That said, today's Washington Post reports some more bad news for the baddest political hack of them all... no, not Rahm Emanuel-- Tom DeLay. Prosecutors are trying to reinstate financial conspiracy charges against DeLay and that is holding up his whole trial for the remaining felony and money laundering charges. DeLay's flack has been whining that by dragging out the trial-- as he puts it-- the law enforcement authorities are causing "maximum damage to Tom DeLay."