Bad Apples in the Political Establishment

Just in case people think I'm some sort of "liberal" I just want to point out that my disgust with politics and politicians goes far beyond the Republican Party. I'm a registered Independent. To have a free mind you have to have an independent one, which does not lend itself to creating a belief system reflecting a biased point of view.

Unfortunately, the Republican Party gets in trouble the most because a big part of their platform is pro-business. As such, many Republicans, expecially in the upper echelons of government, tend have more then friendly relationships with executives, corporate boards, business lobyists and the like. Much of the time, and it seems all of the time since the year 2000, these relationships tend to cross the line on a myraid of moral and ethical lines. Today Claude A. Allen, a former Domestic Advisor for Bush was indicted for buying items from a department store, putting away the purchased items in his vehicle, returning to the store, gathering up the same items he had purchased previously and then using the reciept from the previous purchase to get a refund. All told Allen collected over $5,000.00 over the course of the past year using this scam. I guess that saying that you can take the person out of the street, but not the street out of the person is more applicable than I had previously thought.

Allen joins a long list of politicians, mainly Republican, who seem to have problems recognizing that by virtue of the office they hold, they are responsible for following rules and and holding to stringent standards of decency, morality, and personal behavior. Everyone on the planet knows what a bum Lay is, but take a few minutes to do your own investigating of the following thieves, scoundrals, and moral midgets; and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Corruption in government is wide spread and contaminates the publics belief in government.

"Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) [1], a U.S. legislative watchdog group, has released a report attempting to document the unethical and illegal activities of who they are calling the "most tainted members of Congress". In describing the reasons for the report Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW said, "[CREW] was compelled to research and release a report on these corrupt members because the ethics committees in both the House and Senate are completely inert. The report calls for the House and Senate to act to investigate and take appropriate action against them for these violations of the rules." She went on to attack both parties regarding ethics, "Democrats are just as much to blame as Republicans for the current ethics deadlock. The Democrats won't file ethics complaints against even the most egregious violators like DeLay and Ney�. The Democrats are spineless."
The report is entitled "Beyond DeLay: The 13 Most Corrupt Members of Congress", seeking to capitalize on the current media attention on ethics that has come about due to the indictments of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

The report covers possible violations of federal laws, as well as congressional ethics rules. To compile the report, CREW drew upon Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports and audits, sworn testimony, emails, and personal financial and travel disclosure forms. By analyzing that information, CREW then attempted to determine if the member's activities violated federal laws, regulations, or congressional ethics rules. (excluding the obvious Republican Majority Leader Tom Delay) The 13 members of Congress covered are:

• Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT)
• Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN, Senate Majority leader),
• Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA).
• Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO, House Majority Whip)
• Rep. Randy Cunningham (R-CA)
• Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL)
• Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA)
• Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO)
• Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH)
• Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA)
• Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ)
• Rep. Charles Taylor (R-NC)
• Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)

Nobody had any faith in government anymore and this can be blamed on the widespread accepted corruption of our government leaders. Although there has been a lot of talk about reform and developing a non-partisian, private watch dog group to oversee congress, legislators themselves have decried such a group and have vowed to self-police themselves. Over the last few months we have seen a parade of politicians who have been dinged and indicted on dozens of ethic violations. Does anybody actually think they can regulate their own, when they are all sleeping together like an orgy of incestuous siblings?

There is much that we don't know and aren't privy too because we are just "Regular Joes" with no access to the political machinery needed to really grasp the extent this cesspool has spread . We get glimpses of our Great Leaders in newpaper articles and sound bites, but are clueless about what really is going on beyond these superficial glimpses of them we see here and there that communicate nothing of substance or value. I don't know if it's my age, my cynicism, or some other variable, but it seems that we have reached a new level of ethical and moral degredation in this country. I don't see or feel the outrage or the anger. It seems that it's been watered down by too many cafe lattes and 32 oz. Big Gulps or maybe people can't hear over the music playing on their i-Pod.

I think I've completly lost faith in the system.