Abscam Jack: Still Dirty After All These Years

I sure hope the Democrats in the House have a better plan for Iraq than they appear to have for getting their leadership elected. With a new WSJ piece, Pelosi's support of Jack Murtha is starting to look like a real quagmire. With even more revelations breaking today, it might not be too long before the Speaker-to-be of the Cut and Run party has no choice but to cut and run on dear ol' Jack.

There may be several corrupt members of Congress. But very few of them qualify to be memorialized in a book as Murtha apparently has been. And according to John Fund, people are talking - and not just about the past, but about Murtha's reputation today.

As for Abscam, a recent book by George Crile, a producer for CBS's "60 Minutes," provides damning evidence that Mr. Murtha escaped severe punishment for his role in the scandal only because then-Speaker Tip O'Neill arranged for the House Ethics Committee to drop the charges, over the objections of the committee's outside prosecutor. The prosecutor quickly resigned in protest.

The so-called Swift Boaters Murtha has accused of attacking him appear to be circling like sharks around Murtha's corpulent, politically bleeding frame.

Former members are also speaking out. Chris Bell, a former Democratic House member from Texas who was his party's unsuccessful nominee for governor this year, told the Washington Post that Mr. Murtha was instrumental in making Rep. Alan Mollohan of West Virginia the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee. Mr. Bell says Reps. Mollohan and Murtha both helped to slow ethics reform to a crawl for much of the last two years. This spring, Mr. Mollohan was forced to step down from his Ethics Committee position after The Wall Street Journal reported that he had underreported personal assets and steered earmarks to various West Virginia entities founded or controlled by his close political allies.

With a vote pending, House Speaker to be Pelosi hasn't abandoned Abscam Jack just yet. But with new allegations and suggestions of current troubling behavior, how long can she hold out and retain any measure of credibility on the anti-corruption front?

"We are supposed to change business as usual, not put the fox in charge of the henhouse," one Democratic member told me. "It's not just the Abscam scandal of the 1980s that he barely dodged, he's a disaster waiting to happen because of his current behavior," another told me.

Gary Ruskin, director of the liberal Congressional Accountability Project, told Roll Call that "when it comes to institutional policing of corruption in Congress, John Murtha is a one-man wrecking crew." Now with the support of Ms. Pelosi, that "wrecking crew" stands just one ballot away from becoming House majority leader. Should he win the sealed-ballot election of his peers tomorrow, Democrats may have a hard time explaining just what has changed regarding the Congress's "culture of corruption."

Bruce Kesler at The Democracy Project weighs in here.

And as for the Senate, who knows what Democrat Senators Jack Abramoff might be able to take down with him.

The culture of corruption ... apparently it's a bi-partisan thing.

Comments

[Steel]

Cheer them on, Dan.

Applaud them.

The old adage about giving someone enough rope to hang themselves has never been more relavent or appropos.

Mark my words, amigo, there will be an attack upon us, the voters will demand certain and absolute security.

The Left will be cast aside as litter.

There will then be moderates and neocons.

The Left will be consigned to a rubber-lined playroom somewhere in our uncomfortable recent past.

If not?

I am trying to learn Farsi.

[Rhod]

Whoever gets too close to Murtha and the gang better be careful. He'll be samcooked some dark and stormy night, and then vincefostered.

[Yawn]

Another 26 year old scandal. That's all you cons have. OLD NEWS. Any indictments? Any convictions? The fact is that you chumps lost and are irrelevant. Your whining and digging up ancient history is just sour grapes. Nice call on the Allen/Webb race btw.

[Matt]

Hey yawn, the Mollohan scandal is still unfolding. Murtha is still tied at the hip to lobbyists. Jack Abramoff is going to take down "6-8" Democratic Senators (Reid, Dorgan, I wonder who the others are?) Democratic control of the Senate is not going to last very long.

[Rhod]

Old scandals to the Yawns of the world are unimportant, unless it's Watergate. Watergate gives them a permanent boner.

[Phoenix]

Abramoff has his own desk at the FBI. It's his 'job' now to talk......and talk.......and talk..........

Old news? ha. ha. ha. It's news that is just beginning to see the light of day. The only difference is the actors who strut and fret their hour upon the stage are clad in donkey costumes. They're already learning their lines with their braying and 'but...but....but's.........

[ed]

Hmmm.

I've got to ask if this is at all possible:

Could House Republicans throw their votes to a Democrat for Speaker of the House?

Do all members of the House vote for the Speaker of the House?

The reason I'm asking is because the most amusing political maneuver I've heard yet has the House Republicans throwing their votes, for Speaker, to Steny Hoyer. Who would then only need a few Democratic votes to become the Speaker.

Which would throw Pelosi into the background as just another member of the House and cut Murtha's support off at the knees.

Any opinions?

[Ed Muntin]

The full quote

"Sources close to the federal investigation say Abramoff has offered testimony about his contacts with "six to eight seriously corrupt Democratic senators" and an ever larger number of Republican members of Congress."

...and an ever larger number of Republican members of Congress

[Dan Riehl]

Any opinions?

Would work for me, but they won't do it. They aren't that bold.

[Phoenix]

So, while Pelosi and her henchmen ponder impeachment proceedings and multi-investigations of Republicans, the FBI will be servicing the entire gang of thieves with their own subpeonas. How just. How sweet.

[Phoenix]

Only the Democrats (whichever party is in power) vote for the new Speaker. But the votes are anonymous. Seems to me anonymity emboldens one better than anything else on the planet. According to news reports today, Murtha came unhinged in a meeting. That might make some who were bent to doing Pelosi's bidding change their anonymous minds.