Jesse Jackson, Jr.-- Why The Case Of Selective Persecution?

Several Republican congressmen are extremely concerned with House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon's immense and unreported gambling debts to Organized Crime figure-- and possible agent of at least one foreign power-- Sheldon Adelson. More than a few Democrats are concerned that their party caucus is about to elevate one of its most corrupt members, Joe Crowley (R-NY), to an important leadership position. Crowley, who was recently let off the hook for the House Ethics Committee-- along with Republican Tom Price in an apparent tit-for-tat deal-- after he was caught trading votes on the House Ways and Means Committee for K Street lobbyist cash. In the middle of the intense fight over the Wall Street reform bill, Crowley and Price left the House to attend a fundraiser thrown by Wall Street lobbyists and then, pockets bulging with checks, returned to vote against the amendments opposed by Big Business. One member of the committee told me that Crowley was the sleaziest Democrat on the committee and that he was consistently looking for ways to undermine the bill in ways that would please his Wall Street paymasters.

Generally speaking, when someone wants examples of the most egregiously corrupt Members of Congress, there are some outstanding examples. Staten Island Republican Michael Grimm is connected to a Mafia Crime Family. Miami Republican David Rivera, everyone's first bet for the next congressman to wind up on trial, has so many pending criminal investigations that no one is even paying any attention to the ethics investigations any longer. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Vern Buchanan (R-FL), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), Aaron Schock (R-IL), and Norm Dicks (D-WA), to name just a few ethics-free Members under scrutiny, have far more serious matters outstanding against them than Jesse Jackson, Jr. Yet on Wednesday, Jackson was forced into resigning his congressional seat and now faces a plea bargain that is rumored to include prison time.

What happened to someone who was looked at as a potential first African-American president at a time when people were just hearing the name Barack Obama for the first time and trying to figure out if he was a Barack from Israel or an O'Bama from Ireland? The first I ever realized Jackson, Jr. was a serious figure was just over a decade ago when a friend gave me a book he had written, A More Perfect Union-- Advancing New American Rights, which lays out, chapter by chapter, a vision of American governance advocating constitutional guarantees for quality health care, housing, education, a clean environment, fair taxes, full employment, equality for women and the right to vote.

Is there another shoe about to drop or was Jackson forced to end his political career because of financial improprieties involving campaign contributions that went into redecorating his house, improprieties that are common among congressmen and dwarfed by activities by serial offenders like almost every California Republican in Congress, particularly Buck McKeon, Ken Calvert and Jerry Lewis? We've got to get to the bottom of this.