Apparently Virginia Democrat Jim Moran’s commitment to fiscal responsibility is, let’s say, less then sincere. Says Moran, who stands to inherit a powerful position, if not an actual committee Chairmanship, should the Dems take the House in November,
“When I become chairman [of a House appropriations subcommittee], I’m going to earmark the shit out of it,” Moran buoyantly told a crowd of 450 attending the event.
I agree fully with Gaius of Blue Crab Boulevard who says,
The “culture of corruption” looks an awful lot like “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” to the average voter.
Dems truly believe that the “culture of corruption” talking point is a winner. The thing is, we don’t have to wait for November to see how it plays, The party threw that meme full force into the special election in California’s 50th District and, as Michael Barone notes, the Democratic candidate got only one more percentage of the vote that John Kerry did in the 2002 election. He also notes that the only reason the race was as cloe as it was is because the conservative vote split between the Republican candidate and two other who ran on an issue more important to voters: immigration.
We must remember that this is the district of former Congressman and current jailbird Randy “Duke” Cunningham. If the Dems couldn’t make the “culture of corruption” meme stick in the former district of the Poster Boy of Corruption, I can’t imagine there they will.
UPDATE: Further reinforcing the point:
With an eye toward charting the high road on ethics, House Democrats Thursday evening took the first step toward ousting Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) from the powerful Ways and Means Committee while he faces a government corruption investigation.
The 53-member Democratic Steering and Policy Committee voted in a secret ballot to recommend that Jefferson be temporarily removed from the panel, a move that prompted outrage from some of Jefferson’s colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).
“My worst day in my two years in Congress,” declared Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) after having joined Reps. Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.) and Don Payne (D-N.J.) and perhaps others in voting against the action in the steering committee. “Now the people of New Orleans will be deprived of representation on this important committee.”
If they can’t get a guy who is on videotape taking a $100,000 bribe, $90,000 of which was found packaged up in his freezer off of a Committee, there’s very little chance that they can make the “culture of corruption” meme stick only to Republicans.
Mind you, they’re not moving very quickly on this either, which doesn’t exactly say that they’re enthusiastic about “charting the high road on ethics”.
