Valuable Families :)

["Robert L Bass" <robertbass1@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

A note from the past....

Republican Ethics
By Molly Ivins, AlterNet. Posted November 18, 2004.

DeLay is one of the leading forces in making "Republican ethics" into an oxymoron.

My, my, gonna be a long four years.

House Republicans have rewritten the ethics rules so Tom DeLay won't have to resign if indicted after all. Let's hear it for moral
values. DeLay is one of the leading forces in making "Republican ethics" into an oxymoron.

The rule was passed in 1993, when Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, was being investigated
for ethics violations. And who helped lead the floor fight to force him to resign his powerful position? Why, Tom DeLay, of course.
(Actually, it's sort of a funny story. The D's already had a caucus rule that you had to resign from any leadership position if
indicted. The R's changed their rules to match the D's, except they deliberately did not make their rule retroactive, so the highly
indicted Rep. Joseph McDade, senior Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, could, unlike Rostenkowski, retain his seat.)

DeLay has already been admonished by the House Ethics Committee three times on separate violations of ethics rules. Please note,
that is the Republican-dominated Ethics Committee. The hilarious rationale offered by the R's for the new rule to exempt DeLay is
that no one can accuse them of taking the moral low road here because, "That line of reasoning accepts that exercise of the
prosecutor in Texas is legitimate."

Uh, that would be Ronnie Earle of Austin, who is a known Democrat. On the other hand, Earle is quite noted for having indicted more
Democratic officeholders than Republicans, so it's a little hard to argue that this is a partisan political probe. Or it would be,
if facts made any difference these days to talk-show screamers.

Showing his usual keen sense of ethics, DeLay has already started a legal defense fund and raised $310,000 since last summer.
According to the Austin American-Statesman, half the money has come from Republican House members, who are all dependent on the
Republican Steering Committee for their committee assignments and chairmanships.

DeLay has three votes on the 28-member committee and, of course, more clout than anyone else in the House. (See Lou DuBose and Jan
Reid's new book, "The Hammer," for more charming details on DeLay's House dictatorship). The other half of the contributions for
DeLay's legal defense has come from political action committees, corporations and individuals.

Hey, no worries about corrupting influence there because DeLay already does favors for big contributors to his plain old political
action committees, even without additional contributions to his defense fund. Moral values. DeLay is going to give born-again
Christians a bad name.

In furtherance of moral values, Congress now has to raise the debt limit by another $800 billion. We actually reached the debt
ceiling in early October, but obviously the R's didn't want that vote coming up before the election. Then after they finish spending
a staggering amount of money, the R's will return to make Bush's tax cuts permanent.

Now I realize that the Bushies consider it a point of pride to pay not one iota of attention to what the rest of the world thinks
about us. But I would like to point out that the rest of the world is holding our paper. And foreign investors have demonstrated
elsewhere that they are quite capable of taking alarm over unsound fiscal practices and pulling out completely, leaving bankrupt
countries behind.

Speaking of what the rest of the world thinks of us, the matter was nicely summed up by Britain's Daily Mirror with its classic
tabloid headline, "How Can 59,054,087 People Be So DUMB?" The Guardian just put a tiny, white-on-black headline: "Oh God."

I realize the "liberal elites" are not allowed to even quote the word "dumb" lest we be accused of "cultural condescension" toward
our salt-of-the-earth red-state compatriots. Since I'm a populist happily living in the midst of a quite red state (some of my best
friends are named Bubba), I never pay any attention to such horse poop. But I do resent it when the people running the country think
we're so dumb they can rip us off and then tell us to pray.

Molly Ivins is a best-selling author and columnist who writes about politics, Texas and other bizarre happenings.


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