Culture of Corruption Making a Comeback

Over the last few weeks, I've definitely noticed that the culture of corruption is back, with a vengeance. When the Democrats set out to cement that meme in the public consciousness, it was actually a strategic move for them (I know, I'm surprised too), as every subsequent story that leaked out could be neatly pegged into that narrative. And the stories are coming out.

Let's see: Bob Ney becomes the second convicted Representative in this Congress, and DoJ hints that more are on the way:

Ney is the eighth person convicted in the continuing federal investigation into Abramoff's activities. A federal task force that includes a dozen Justice Department prosecutors is investigating Abramoff's dealings with other congressional offices, including those of Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) and Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.), according to lawyers and witnesses involved in the probe.

Then Curt Weldon goes and has his daughter's house raided by the FBI, along with FIVE OTHER SITES, suggesting a wide-ranging investigation. Earlier today, the Justice Department (who had better be getting overtime) accused Bush's former head of the FDA with failing to disclose stock holdings in companies the FDA regulates. He's about to plead guilty, according to the article:

The criminal charges were outlined in court papers known as an "information," a legal document which ordinarily precedes a guilty plea. The Justice Department's fraud and public corruption section filed the papers in U.S. District Court in Washington. Crawford was scheduled to appear before a federal magistrate Tuesday afternoon. The former FDA chief was accused of making a false writing and conflict of interest.

Then there's this first in a four-part series on the unseemly tactics of the man who, if the Republicans hold the Senate, would be the new Majority Leader:

In the early 1970s, Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr., a young and intense Republican lawyer, strode into the political science class he taught at the University of Louisville.

He didn't introduce himself to his students. He went straight to the chalkboard and scribbled.

"I am going to teach you the three things you need to build a political party," he said, and backed away to reveal the words: "Money, money, money." [...]

A six-month examination of McConnell's career, based on thousands of documents and scores of interviews, shows the nexus between his actions and his donors' agendas. He pushes the government to help cigarette makers, Las Vegas casinos, the pharmaceutical industry, credit card lenders, coal mine owners and others.

Critics, including anti-poverty groups and labor unions, complain that McConnell has come to represent his affluent donors at the expense of Kentucky, the relatively poor state he is supposed to represent. They point, for example, to his support last year for a tough bankruptcy law, backed by New York banks that support him.

This looks to me to be a case not of shock with what's illegal, but what's legal. McConnell plays by the ugly money rules in Washington, and he threatens retribution against any attempt to sensibly change the rules. And it doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on, if you're against paying to play:

In 1998, Rep. Linda Smith, R-Wash., challenged first-term Democratic Sen. Patty Murray. McConnell's job as NRSC chairman was to assist GOP Senate campaigns. But Smith called for campaign-finance reform and assailed "the old boys and the old establishment." McConnell limited her funds to about $17,000, while others received hundreds of thousands of dollars. Smith was defeated.

"We ended up with no money to put on any kind of TV or radio advertising," Dale Foreman, who was chairman of the Washington state Republican Party, said recently. McConnell gave him a frosty reception when he flew east to plead Smith's case, Foreman said.

"He clearly had strong opinions on campaign-finance reform, and anyone who disagreed with him, Republican or not, was not going to get any help," Foreman said.

So Mitch continues to shill, particuarly for Big Tobacco, who has lavished gifts upon him ranging in the millions. In fact, all this moneymaking takes up most of his time.

Pressed for time, McConnell regularly skips daily Senate business. In 2005, for example, he missed 83 percent of his assigned committee hearings about government spending and agriculture. He said it's "absurd" to question the hearings he misses, given his busy leadership schedule. "Every day is a series of choices about how to spend your time," he said.

However, he attends myriad receptions in Washington and around the country. These events are scheduled by McConnell's fund-raising office, run by former banking lobbyist Alison Crombie Kinnahan out of a corporate lobbying firm a quick walk down the street from McConnell's Capitol office.

McConnell says his coast-to-coast collections are appropriate because he is no longer a mere Kentucky politician. He is "a United States senator."

It should be mentioned that McConnell's wife, spouse of the man who never shows up for work, is the US Labor Secretary.

And speaking of the executive branch, perhaps the most obvious example of the Republican culture of corruption comes out of that White House, through the men most directly charged with bringing political victory to the GOP, Karl Rove and Kenny Boy Mehlman:

For five years, Allen Stayman wondered who ordered his removal from a State Department job negotiating agreements with tiny Pacific island nations — even when his own bosses wanted him to stay.

Now he knows.

Newly disclosed e-mails suggest that the ax fell after intervention by one of the highest officials at the White House: Ken Mehlman, on behalf of one of the most influential lobbyists in town, Jack Abramoff.

The e-mails show that Abramoff, whose client list included the Northern Mariana Islands, had long opposed Stayman's work advocating labor changes in that U.S. commonwealth, and considered what his lobbying team called the "Stayman project" a high priority.

"Mehlman said he would get him fired," an Abramoff associate wrote after meeting with Mehlman, who was then White House political director.

The exchange illustrates how, more than two years after the corruption scandal surrounding the now-disgraced Abramoff came to light, people are still learning the extent of the lobbyist's ability to pull the levers of power in Washington. The latest revelations provide more detail than the Bush administration has acknowledged about how Abramoff and his team reached into high levels of the White House, not just Capitol Hill, which has been the main focus of the influence-peddling investigation.

This is all happening not because of Abramoff, but because in Republican Washington, this is how business got done. It's an insidious game of cash-for-access, perks-for-policy, an ethical-free zone of rewarding yourself and your friends and punishing your enemies. The culture of corruption is back because, for the GOP, it never left. They literally know of no other way to govern than this.