Hastert Moves to Tighten Rules on Lobbyists
Hastert tasked House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) to head the GOP’s effort to draft new lobbying rules. The move comes months after House Democrats, led by Reps. Martin T. Meehan (Mass.) and Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), and Republican Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.), unveiled proposals to mandate more disclosure of lobbying contacts, ban most lobbyist-sponsored trips and lengthen the time former House members and staff must wait before taking up lobbying.
“Well, gee, now that we’ve been busted, we really have to look like we’re taking this $&!# seriously, right?” It seems a bit late in the game for the GOP to suddenly be getting religion on the issues of lobbyists and corruption, but I suppose they can’t be seen as sitting on their collective hands, can they? It would be nice to think that this sudden interest in holiness and transparency predates Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff, but let’s be realistic, shall we? These are, after all, Republicans we’re talking about here. Yes, these are the same folks who brought us Iran-Contra, facilitated Enron and WorldCom, and suck up to the Religious Right. Pardon me for seeming somewhat cynical, but the Machiavellian machinations of the GOP leadership doesn’t exactly lend itself to accusations of openness and transparency, do they?
The reality here is that Republicans and cynical corruption go together like peanut butter and jelly. Their only real regret here is that some of their fellow travellers got caught with the arms a wee bit too deep in the cookie jar. In the end, getting caught is the only real crime that catches the attention of a Republican. Corruption really only means that you were sloppy enough to get caught; otherwise is simply taking care of business.
With Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) formally removed from congressional leadership, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) took the next step yesterday in Republican efforts to distance the party from a growing corruption scandal, saying the House will move soon to tighten the rules governing lobbyists’ access to lawmakers.
Ah, better late than never, eh? It’s never too late to stake your claim to the moral high ground, especially when you know that the American sheeple aren’t really going to be paying attention for very long, anyway.
“Over the past several months, I have spoken with many members about the need for such reforms… . Now is the time for action,” Hastert said in a statement.
Uh, no…the time for action was years before any of this happened. The time for action was prior to Republicans once again demonstrating that ethics and political morality are for losers and Democrats. All you’re doing now is trying to clean up the mess your party has made and score some cheap PR points by feigning moral outrage.
It’s too bad that the GOP’s commitment to doing the right thing really only comes to the fore once their truly corrupt and venal nature becomes blindingly evident. Remember 1994? Remember Newt Gingrich’s “Contract On With America”? Things were supposed to be different. Government was supposed to work, and the People’s business was supposed to be attended to in an open, transparent, and unimpeachable manner. Yeah, right…. So how’s that working out for you?
The GOP has proven themselves to be even more cravenly hypocritical, corrupt, and venal than ANYTHING that they accused Democrats of prior to 1994. Well, at least they were right about one thing. Things ARE different; in fact, they’re infinitely worse. So much for Gingrich’s “Contract On With America”, eh? What a sorry collection of f——-g hypocrites.
