Pendragon_6
01-11-2006, 09:58 AM
PACK OF JACKALS
By: Phil Brennan
This sniveling bunch of hypocrites who comprise the Democrat party must think Americans are too stupid to understand that the current furor over the alleged lobbying excesses of one Jack Abramoff is evidence of a so-called culture of corruption" afflicting the Republican Party and the Republican Party alone.
This pack of jackals wants Americans to swallow the canard that GOP members were lining up in droves to do the bidding of a corrupt lawyer who showered them with all sorts of goodies from lavish junkets to free meals and use of a luxurious stadium skybox.
Strangely, not a shred of evidence has yet to be forthcoming that anybody ever sold Abramoff his vote in return for the super lobbyist's largesse. Moreover, as any legal expert will tell you, proving a quid pro quo in this kind of case is nigh unto impossible.
Yet here we have the lovely Mrs. Pelosi pointing her dainty finger at the majority party, accusing Republicans of wallowing around in a pit of corruption when the only GOP member accused and convicted of actually taking bribes was Duke Cunningham, who was so inept a bribe taker that he all but stood in the doorway of his Capitol Hill office with his hands outstretched, waiting for the bribes to fall into his palms before he climbed in his limo and drove to the million dollar mansion he could somehow afford on his congressional salary. If stupidity was a crime he’d never get out of the slammer.
This is not the normal practice on the Hill. Anybody clever enough to get elected to the congress is clever enough to avoid even the appearance of selling their votes for a mess of potage. And lobbyists, hordes of whom are either former members of the House and Senate or former Hill staffers, have sense enough to realize that if they are to do what they are being paid to do, they can't do it by paying bribes, or for that matter, lavishing gifts and trips and skyboxes on members of Congress.
Let's have a little lesson on the subject of lobbying - one I am qualified to teach based on having spent a few years on Capitol Hill working for the House GOP leadership in the dark days when Republicans were seen by the majority as little more than a minor pestilence to be tolerated as long as we knew our place.
Lobbyists are paid by groups or companies or industries and sometimes even by individuals to plead for them in a place where the lives, fortunes and destinies of just about everybody are increasingly subject to the laws and rules and regulations enacted on Capitol Hill.
The Constitution provides for the citizen's right to attempt to seek a redress of his grievances and nowadays that’s all but impossible unless you have somebody who knows the ins and outs of the Hill to go to bat for you. These are the people we call lobbyists. Given the present accumulation of power on the Hill, we can't live without these dear people. Imagine yourself or for that matter the CEO of some corporation, coming up to the Hill hat in hand to plead their case. They wouldn't get in the door of most member's offices.
Lobbyists know where members of Congress stand on issues - they don't waste their time talking to members who they know are not on their side. Instead they plead their case with members and their staffs who are most apt to be sympathetic to their causes.
And because most of them are Hill veterans who are dealing with members who were their colleagues or associates before they became lobbyists, they tend to pal around with each other on and off the Hill.
And since the really big time lobbyists such as Jack Abramoff represent clients with very deep pockets, they have no problem picking up the check and most members of Congress whose pockets are shallow are not apt to protest. Nor are they apt to sell their votes because somebody paid the dinner check. It's there, why not take advantage of the generosity - they can afford it, we can't.
That generosity may provide access, and there's the rub. Joe Lobbyist can get close to members of congress to plead his case, Joe citizen can't. Former members of the House can mingle with their former colleagues in the cloakrooms and even on the House floor when their causes are being debated. That's the way things work - and always have.
Does access guarantee results? I recall a very powerful member of congress who had enormous influence over the fortunes of a certain group of industries. He was shameless in taking advantage of the lobbyists for those industries, even to asking to use their corporate planes to fly back and forth to his district or to go on pleasure trips.
But all that bought the lobbyists nothing. Most of the times his sympathies were with their clients because his clients were serving the national interests. If they weren't, they got the back of his hand. In other words, access didn't get them a damn thing, except the pleasure of picking up the check.
Now with that out of the way let me discuss for a moment the Democrat hypocrisy in babbling on about a culture of corruption and of selling votes in return for contributions of free dinners or what have you.
Let's be very clear on this: the Democrat party, on and off the Hill, is for sale - openly, blatantly and unapoligetically. Moreover when bribed they deliver, openly, blatantly and unapoligetically.
Americans are now witnessing a sordid example of the Democrats play-for-pay schemes. It's on open display in the Senate Judiciary Committee where such Senate luminaries as Teddy Chappaquiddick and Chuck the Mouth Schumer and sundry other members of the party of the people are championing the cause of the abortion industry which pays a very large chunk of the Democrat party's bills with massive contributions of cash to the party and its candidates and supplies muscle in political campaigns. They have bought the Democrat Party lock, stock and barrel and the Democrat party is delivering the goods.
This is true with the other special interests who can declare ownership of the Democrat party and its members in Congress. The Teachers Unions, for example, crack the whip and the Democrats fall into line, doing everything they can to keep those unions in power and able to perpetuate an educational system which is both the best financed in the world, and the very worst in terms of results. Kids in Uganda get better educations.
When the Trial Lawyers of America play their tune the Democrats dance to it, guaranteeing that the cost of medical care and just about everything will continue to skyrocket thanks to the junk lawsuits that are bankrupting doctors and hospitals and health insurance companies and patients faced with ruinous costs of medical care and prescriptions. As a result of the Democrat s sellout, badly needed real tort reform remains blocked and Americans get stuck with the bill.
Then there is big labor, long the lord and master of the Democrats and source of enormous financial windfalls. What they want, the Democrats labor to provide.
I could go on and on. The for-sale sign has been posted on the door of the Democrat National Committee and the doors of the Democrat leadership on Capitol Hill. And everyday we see the Democrats paying off their obligations of the people and groups who have purchased the party.
Finally, talking about lobbyists who Nancy Pelosi and her crowd are now casting in the role of demons, how about former Senate Democrat Majority leader Tom Daschle whose wife and daughter in law were big-time lobbyists when he ruled the roost in the Senate, and who, having lost his bid for re-election, became, guess what? - a lobbyist. Talk about access, he has the key to the Senate chamber and every Democrat Senator's office. And for that matter, how many lobbyists are former Democrats members of Congress? What a bunch of sniveling hypocrites.
"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."
ETHER ZONE (http://www.etherzone.com/2006/bren011106.shtml)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor & publisher of Wednesday on the Web and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He also served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is also a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. Phil Brennan is a regular columnist for Ether Zone.
Phil Brennan can be reached at pvb@pvbr.com
We invite you to visit his website at Wednesday on the Web
By: Phil Brennan
This sniveling bunch of hypocrites who comprise the Democrat party must think Americans are too stupid to understand that the current furor over the alleged lobbying excesses of one Jack Abramoff is evidence of a so-called culture of corruption" afflicting the Republican Party and the Republican Party alone.
This pack of jackals wants Americans to swallow the canard that GOP members were lining up in droves to do the bidding of a corrupt lawyer who showered them with all sorts of goodies from lavish junkets to free meals and use of a luxurious stadium skybox.
Strangely, not a shred of evidence has yet to be forthcoming that anybody ever sold Abramoff his vote in return for the super lobbyist's largesse. Moreover, as any legal expert will tell you, proving a quid pro quo in this kind of case is nigh unto impossible.
Yet here we have the lovely Mrs. Pelosi pointing her dainty finger at the majority party, accusing Republicans of wallowing around in a pit of corruption when the only GOP member accused and convicted of actually taking bribes was Duke Cunningham, who was so inept a bribe taker that he all but stood in the doorway of his Capitol Hill office with his hands outstretched, waiting for the bribes to fall into his palms before he climbed in his limo and drove to the million dollar mansion he could somehow afford on his congressional salary. If stupidity was a crime he’d never get out of the slammer.
This is not the normal practice on the Hill. Anybody clever enough to get elected to the congress is clever enough to avoid even the appearance of selling their votes for a mess of potage. And lobbyists, hordes of whom are either former members of the House and Senate or former Hill staffers, have sense enough to realize that if they are to do what they are being paid to do, they can't do it by paying bribes, or for that matter, lavishing gifts and trips and skyboxes on members of Congress.
Let's have a little lesson on the subject of lobbying - one I am qualified to teach based on having spent a few years on Capitol Hill working for the House GOP leadership in the dark days when Republicans were seen by the majority as little more than a minor pestilence to be tolerated as long as we knew our place.
Lobbyists are paid by groups or companies or industries and sometimes even by individuals to plead for them in a place where the lives, fortunes and destinies of just about everybody are increasingly subject to the laws and rules and regulations enacted on Capitol Hill.
The Constitution provides for the citizen's right to attempt to seek a redress of his grievances and nowadays that’s all but impossible unless you have somebody who knows the ins and outs of the Hill to go to bat for you. These are the people we call lobbyists. Given the present accumulation of power on the Hill, we can't live without these dear people. Imagine yourself or for that matter the CEO of some corporation, coming up to the Hill hat in hand to plead their case. They wouldn't get in the door of most member's offices.
Lobbyists know where members of Congress stand on issues - they don't waste their time talking to members who they know are not on their side. Instead they plead their case with members and their staffs who are most apt to be sympathetic to their causes.
And because most of them are Hill veterans who are dealing with members who were their colleagues or associates before they became lobbyists, they tend to pal around with each other on and off the Hill.
And since the really big time lobbyists such as Jack Abramoff represent clients with very deep pockets, they have no problem picking up the check and most members of Congress whose pockets are shallow are not apt to protest. Nor are they apt to sell their votes because somebody paid the dinner check. It's there, why not take advantage of the generosity - they can afford it, we can't.
That generosity may provide access, and there's the rub. Joe Lobbyist can get close to members of congress to plead his case, Joe citizen can't. Former members of the House can mingle with their former colleagues in the cloakrooms and even on the House floor when their causes are being debated. That's the way things work - and always have.
Does access guarantee results? I recall a very powerful member of congress who had enormous influence over the fortunes of a certain group of industries. He was shameless in taking advantage of the lobbyists for those industries, even to asking to use their corporate planes to fly back and forth to his district or to go on pleasure trips.
But all that bought the lobbyists nothing. Most of the times his sympathies were with their clients because his clients were serving the national interests. If they weren't, they got the back of his hand. In other words, access didn't get them a damn thing, except the pleasure of picking up the check.
Now with that out of the way let me discuss for a moment the Democrat hypocrisy in babbling on about a culture of corruption and of selling votes in return for contributions of free dinners or what have you.
Let's be very clear on this: the Democrat party, on and off the Hill, is for sale - openly, blatantly and unapoligetically. Moreover when bribed they deliver, openly, blatantly and unapoligetically.
Americans are now witnessing a sordid example of the Democrats play-for-pay schemes. It's on open display in the Senate Judiciary Committee where such Senate luminaries as Teddy Chappaquiddick and Chuck the Mouth Schumer and sundry other members of the party of the people are championing the cause of the abortion industry which pays a very large chunk of the Democrat party's bills with massive contributions of cash to the party and its candidates and supplies muscle in political campaigns. They have bought the Democrat Party lock, stock and barrel and the Democrat party is delivering the goods.
This is true with the other special interests who can declare ownership of the Democrat party and its members in Congress. The Teachers Unions, for example, crack the whip and the Democrats fall into line, doing everything they can to keep those unions in power and able to perpetuate an educational system which is both the best financed in the world, and the very worst in terms of results. Kids in Uganda get better educations.
When the Trial Lawyers of America play their tune the Democrats dance to it, guaranteeing that the cost of medical care and just about everything will continue to skyrocket thanks to the junk lawsuits that are bankrupting doctors and hospitals and health insurance companies and patients faced with ruinous costs of medical care and prescriptions. As a result of the Democrat s sellout, badly needed real tort reform remains blocked and Americans get stuck with the bill.
Then there is big labor, long the lord and master of the Democrats and source of enormous financial windfalls. What they want, the Democrats labor to provide.
I could go on and on. The for-sale sign has been posted on the door of the Democrat National Committee and the doors of the Democrat leadership on Capitol Hill. And everyday we see the Democrats paying off their obligations of the people and groups who have purchased the party.
Finally, talking about lobbyists who Nancy Pelosi and her crowd are now casting in the role of demons, how about former Senate Democrat Majority leader Tom Daschle whose wife and daughter in law were big-time lobbyists when he ruled the roost in the Senate, and who, having lost his bid for re-election, became, guess what? - a lobbyist. Talk about access, he has the key to the Senate chamber and every Democrat Senator's office. And for that matter, how many lobbyists are former Democrats members of Congress? What a bunch of sniveling hypocrites.
"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."
ETHER ZONE (http://www.etherzone.com/2006/bren011106.shtml)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor & publisher of Wednesday on the Web and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He also served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is also a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. Phil Brennan is a regular columnist for Ether Zone.
Phil Brennan can be reached at pvb@pvbr.com
We invite you to visit his website at Wednesday on the Web