She Flunked
Ruth Marcus assesses Nancy Pelosi's first test as leader of the House Democrats and gives a failing grade to the performance. Funny how after the elections are over, the Washington Post finally notices the damning Abscam video of John Murtha. The grainy images prove without a doubt that the only way he dodged an indictment was that he didn't take the envelope right then and there. Instead, he held out for more.
The videotape is grainy, dark and devastating. The congressman and the FBI undercover agents — the congressman thinks they represent an Arab sheik willing to pay $50,000 to get immigration papers — are talking business in the living room of a secretly wired Washington townhouse.
Two other congressmen in on the deal "do expect to be taken care of," the lawmaker says. But for the time being — and he says repeatedly that he might change his mind and take money down the road — he'd rather trade his help for investment in his district, maybe a hefty deposit in the bank of a political supporter who's done him favors.
"I'm not interested — at this point," he says of the dangled bribe. "You know, we do business for a while, maybe I'll be interested, maybe I won't, you know." Indeed, he acknowledges, even though he needs to be careful — "I expect to be in the [expletive] leadership of the House," he notes — the money's awfully tempting. "It's hard for me to say, just the hell with it."
This is John Murtha, incoming House speaker Nancy Pelosi's choice to be her majority leader, snared but not charged in the Abscam probe in 1980. "The Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history," Pelosi pledged on election night. Five days later she wrote Murtha a letter endorsing his bid to become her No. 2.
Not the most promising start.
His corruption has not decreased over time, as Marcus details. This man is an old school deal maker. He trades votes for earmarks so often that he has a spot named for him in the back of the room in the House chamber, 'Murtha's Corner'. That's where the trading gets done. You know, if the WaPo calls it lose-lose, Pelosi made a huge blunder here.
UPDATE: News flash: "Because it worked so well with John Kerry". Shields up!
Other Links to this Post
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Wake up America — November 15, 2006 @ 1:26 pm
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The Anchoress » New blog, old blueprints, Victory & other tales - UPDATED — November 15, 2006 @ 2:26 pm
By TC@LeatherPenguin, November 15, 2006 @ 8:46 am
I love all the Abscam nostalgia Murtha’s generating. It was Abscam that turned Staten Island into the lone Republican stronghold in NYC, when John “Travelin’ Jack” Murphy (who earned that nickname for all his lobbyist-paid junketteering) was sent up the river, leading to Republican Guy Molinari gaining his Congressional seat, then building a machine that annihilated everything in its path.
Today, the Dems are allowed to control a couple of local positions that the Republicans don’t really care about (they never run a credible candidate on the Island’s North Shore), but have an absolute stranglehold on that Congressional seat, even though the Dems have a 4-1 edge in registered voters.
Electing Murtha as Majority Leader is dropping a steak in front of every pork fighting organization in the country and saying “dig in.” He’ll be a huge distraction for Pelosi if she’s serious about cleaning up the kind of corruption someone of Murtha’s background could be considered “Exhibit A.”
By Arlo, November 15, 2006 @ 12:40 pm
The Washington Post has a lot of responsibility for getting our country into this Iraq disaster. Physician heal thyself. It’d be hard for the Washington Post to get me to care about Abscam!
There is an interesting corruption story that might be worth a post here since Barack Obama is in the news so much. If it had blown national before the election, I think the Republicans would have held the Senate and probably lost a few less House seats. From reading Obama’s answers to the questions, you can see he’s not comfortable about this and theres a guy under indictment now who might be able to use Obama in a plea deal. Several interesting links in this:
blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/11/obamas_house_de.html
By TC@LeatherPenguin, November 15, 2006 @ 1:15 pm
Arlo? If the WaPo and a couple of other MSM sources had played it straight previous to the election, and told the populace that doesn’t really play “inside baseball” when it comes to politics, I think the whole “throw the bums out” thing would have came down to “which brand of bums?”
Now that the Dems have a leadership position, all these stories (like Barack’s real estate deal; and Pelosi’s Presidio/Treasure Island finagling, and Reid’s Nevada chicanery) will suddenly bubble up, and turn everything into a morass that I think will just turn most of the country off to everything and anything tagged as “political” that doesn not strike them directly.