Congressional Corruption Congressional Corruption

As noted earlier, the House leadership is up in arms about the FBI raid of "Dollar Bill" Jefferson's offices. It wasn't making sense that the Republicans would be protecting a Democrat here, until I listened to Rush today, and he made some sense. He theorized that it had more to do with the White House ignoring the House on immigration than anything. The Republicans in the House are facing extremely vocal demands by their constituants for border control without illegal immigrant amnesty, while the Administration is twisting their arms to do accept the Senate deal - which includes amnesty.

But the problem with this is that this gives the Democrats a pass on their claim that the Republicans have fostered a Culture of Corruption. Never mind that more Democrats are being caught at being corrupt - including today, Senate Minority Leader Reid being caught accepting free ringside seats at boxing matches, and then pushing a national boxing commission for his Nevada constituants.

Wm. Jefferson is the most visibly corrupt person in Congress today, thanks to the video tapes of him accepting $100k in bribes, and then finding $90k of that in marked bills carefully wrapped in foil in his freezer to look like left overs. To add insult to injury, he tried to hide evidence right in front of the FBI when they searched his house. He would be a great poster boy to trott out whenever the Democrats cry "Culture of Corruption" - except that the Republican House Leadership has thrown this away on the grounds of Separation of Powers.