House G.O.P. Acts to Protect Chief

"the lawmakers agreed that a party steering committee would review any indictments handed up against the majority leader, Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, or any other members of the leadership team or committee chairmen, to determine if giving up a post was warranted. The revision does not change the requirement that leaders step down if convicted."

Clinton was indicted (articles of impeachment including charges of perjury and obstruction of justice) and did not step down.

The GOP still recognizes that potentially requiring a leader to step down may be appropriate.

The Dems have no similar rule as the more ethically inclined GOP has.

The fact remains they changed the rules to protect their "leader".
What rules the Dems have or do not have do not enter into it.

Of course they did.

And of course, the GOP still recognizes the potential need, where the ethically challenged Dems ignore it.

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: November 18, 2004


WASHINGTON

I went to see the magical "Pericles'' at the Shakespeare Theater the other night.

In ancient Greece, the prince of Tyre tires of all the yes men around him. He chooses to trust the one courtier who intrepidly tells him: "They do abuse the king that flatter him. ... Whereas reproof, obedient and in order, fits kings, as they are men, for they may err.''

Not flatter the king? Listen to dissenting viewpoints? Rulers who admit they've erred?

It's all so B.C. (Before Cheney).

Now, in the 21st-century reign of King George II, flattery is mandatory, dissent is forbidden, and erring without admitting error is the best way to get ahead. President Bush is purging the naysayers who tried to temper crusted-nut-bar Dick Cheney and the neocon crazies on Iraq.

First, faith trumped facts. Now, loyalty trumps competence. W., who was the loyalty enforcer for his father's administration, is now the loyalty enforcer for his own.

Those promoted to be in charge of our security, diplomacy and civil liberties were rewarded for being more loyal to Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney than to the truth.

The president and vice president are dispatching their toadies to the agencies to quell dissent. The crackdown seems bizarre, since hardly anyone dared to disagree with them anyway and there were plenty willing to twist the truth for them.

Consider George Tenet, who assured Mr. Bush that the weak case on Iraqi W.M.D. was "a slam-dunk.'' And Colin Powell, who caved and made the bogus U.N. case for war. Then, when he wanted to stay a bit longer to explore Mideast opportunities arising from Arafat's death, he got shoved out by a president irked by the diplomat's ambivalence and popularity.

Mr. Bush prefers more panting enablers, like Alberto Gonzales. You wanna fry criminals or torture prisoners? Sure thing, boss.

W. and Vice want to extend their personal control over bureaucracies they thought had impeded their foreign policy. It's alarming to learn that they regard their first-term foreign policy - a trumped-up war and bungled occupation, an estrangement from our old allies and proliferating nuclear ambitions in North Korea, Iran and Russia - as impeded. What will an untrammeled one look like?

The post-election hubris has infected Capitol Hill. Law-and-order House Republicans changed the rules so Tom DeLay can stay as majority leader even if he's indicted; Senate Republicans are threatening to rule Democratic filibusters out of order.

In 2002, Cheney & Co. set up their own C.I.A. in the Pentagon to bypass the C.I.A. and conjure up evidence on Iraqi W.M.D. Now Mr. Cheney has sent his lackey, Porter Goss, who helped him try to suffocate the 9/11 commission, to bully the C.I.A. into falling into line.

In an ominous echo of the old loyalty oaths, Mr. Goss has warned employees at the agency that their job is to "support the administration and its policies in our work.''

Mr. Bush doesn't want any more leaks, like the one showing that he was told two months before invading Iraq that such a move could lead to violent internal conflict and more support for radical Islamists.

Mr. Goss has managed to make the dysfunctional C.I.A. even more dysfunctional. Instead of going after Al Qaeda, he's busy purging top-level officials who had been going after Al Qaeda - replacing them with his coterie of hacks from Capitol Hill.

Mr. Cheney is letting his old mentor, Rummy, stay on. What does it matter if the Rummy doctrine - dangerously thin allotments of forces, no exit strategy, snatching State Department occupation duties and then screwing them up - has botched the Iraq mission and left the military so strapped it's calling back old, out-of-shape reservists to active service?

Condi Rice and Stephen Hadley did not do their jobs before 9/11 in coordinating the fight against Al Qaeda, and they did not do their jobs after 9/11 in preventing the debacle in Iraq. They not only suppressed evidence Americans needed to know that would have debunked the neocons' hyped-up case for invading Iraq; they helped shovel hooey into the president's speeches.

Dr. Rice pitched in to help Dr. No whip up that imaginary mushroom cloud. Condi's life story may be inspirational. But the way she got the State Department job is not.

Not only are the Bush officials who failed to protect the country and misled us into war not losing their jobs. They're getting promoted.

How, exactly, do you define "ethically-challenged?"

Personally, I would think changing one's rules to suit the current circumstances to be pretty morally bankrupt. I suspect we can find cases of this on both sides of the isle.

Lest we forget the republicans are attempting to change the rules of filibuster inorder to push for their dictatorial rule in our courts. The rules were adopted to preclude the tyranny of the majority. I wonder what is next a resolution to make King George president for life?

Lest we forget, the Democrats have insisted on abusing fillibuster rules to prevent a vote on judges that won't answer unethical questions. Judges aren't allowed to answer, "How would you rule on .... [insert your own topic here]" Fillibuster is a procedural issue, NOT a legal issue anyway and the Senate can change its own procedures at any time.

Neither side will change the filibuster rule. It is too useful when you are in the minority. Republicans use it when it suits them; Democrats do the same. I don't think either side has a monopoly on "abusing" the filibuster.

You bet the Senate rules will be changed to eliminate filibustering as a means to block the Senate from doing its job and voting on the confirmation of nominees sent out of committee to the floor for an up or down vote.

Why does anyone object to a fair vote on a nominee?

Define "fair." The reason for the filibuster is so that 51% of the people cannot oppress the other 49%.

If a (nominee, budget, bill, etc.) is so abhorrent that the other side will resort to filibuster, then you should rethink your (nominee, budget, bill, etc.).

Regressive Ethics in the House


Published: November 19, 2004


Having picked up a handful of seats in this month's election, House Republicans seem to think they have a mandate to eradicate Congressional ethics standards.

On Tuesday, House Republicans unanimously elected Tom DeLay to serve another term as House majority leader, despite his unsavory record when it comes to abiding by accepted Congressional standards of conduct. He received two separate bipartisan rebukes from the normally timid ethics committee this fall.

Just in case Mr. DeLay gets into more trouble, G.O.P. lawmakers have followed up by repealing their wise party rule that barred indicted members from holding leadership positions. Only a handful of Republicans had the moral compass to object.

The Republican conference's worry about Mr. DeLay's relationship with the forces of justice stems from the same events that nailed down his current popularity. He muscled an egregiously partisan redistricting plan into Texas, and that helped Republican candidates pick up five Congressional seats there.

It is far from certain that Mr. DeLay will be charged with a crime in connection with the redistricting. During that effort, he strong-armed federal authorities into joining a search for Democratic state legislators who had left Texas to keep the plan from coming to a vote. But Mr. DeLay is plainly worried. Three of his aides were recently indicted on charges that they illegally laundered campaign money to help Texas Republicans, and prosecutors are said to be scrutinizing his own actions.

The Republicans also seem bent on reining in the ethics committee for having had the temerity to rebuke Mr. DeLay for some of his more outrageous conduct. The party's Rules Committee chairman, David Dreier, recently sent a letter to House members signaling that he plans to make it even harder than it already is for members to file an ethics complaint, and for outside groups to be heard in the process. Rumors also abound that come January, when the next Congress is seated, all five Republican members of the ethics committee, including its current chairman, Representative Joel Hefley, may be replaced.

The Republicans originally adopted the rule requiring indicted G.O.P. leaders to step down from their posts during the 1990's. At the time, the party was trying to demonstrate that it had firmer ethical standards than the Democrats, who then held the majority in the House.

Now it will be left up to party insiders on the Republican Steering Committee to recommend on a case-by-case basis whether a party leader should step aside after a state or federal felony indictment. The old era is clearly over, as are any doubts that the Republican House leadership has lost interest in the high moral ground now that it has further consolidated its power.

Tom DeLay is an idiot.

McG
What would you call the house republicans that support and protect him?

Politicians.

Wouldn't it have been great if Tom had called everybody up and said "No, we passed that rule because it's a good thing for our party. Let's stick to our principles."

Find me a principled politician and I will produce Santa Claus.

DeLay is a thug. I'm sure the Dems have had equally thuggish politicians--Dan Rostenkowski comes to mind--but his arrogance eventually brought him down.

The same will eventually happen to DeLay.

As for the filibuster issue, oh come now! It has been used by the party out of power since time immemorial. Again, the shoe will be on the other foot one of these days. Anyone saying the GOP wouldn't use it to block nominations is naive or dishonest.

Back in 1993, when they were trying to gain control of Congress, House Republicans adopted the indictment rule for their party to highlight the ethical lapses of Democrats such as then Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois, who eventually was sentenced to prison for mail fraud.
The fact that Republicans abandoned that standard as soon as it came close to having an actual impact on one of their party leaders says much about the party's commitment to ethics. No wonder so many Americans are cynical about politicians in general and members of Congress in particular

As for the filibuster issue, oh come now! It has been used by the party out of power since time immemorial

Not to obstruct votes on judicial nominees, it hasn't.