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I don't care what political party they are from, if they're taking money and gifts they shouldn't they should be held accountable. What bothers me more is that a sleazeball like Abramoff was influencing our politicians. I don't like how Cunningham took bribes in exchange for contracts, I'm pretty sure Jefferson did the same thing. I don't like that lobbyists have  more power then the people. I hope congress gets serious about reform, and serious about our tax dollars.

is he a republican?  At least with used cars you can get a warranty and you know beforehand neither the car or the salesman will last a lifetime. Plus if you can drive the car home and it makes it you know it works, something you can't say about the fedralguvmint.  Term limits with rotating congressional staff, six years and you stuff them in a garbage bag, pack them in a UPS truck, and send them home to infest their own neighborhoods where most of them will wind up on a sex offenders list or milk widows of their pensions.

Senate Minority Leader Harry ("I only took $60,000") Reid

Who did Reid get the money from?

Was it from Abramoff, from a lobbying firm employing Abramoff, or from an Abramoff client?

If not from Abramoff directly, was it at the direction or suggestion of Abramoff?

Is there any indication of a quid pro quo being provided -- a change in legislation, etc. -- in return for any money given to Reid?

Is there any indication that contributions made to Reid were in any way illegal or unethical?

For example, were contributions given to Reid a means of laundering funds intended for other purposes?

Just asking.

In other words, it's a big yawn. That's probably not because people don't care. It's just that their expectations concerning the behavior of members of Congress are so low. In the long run, that's not a good thing. The cynicism expressed by the public in this poll ultimately corrodes Americans' belief in the merits of representative democracy.

You're probably right.  Most folks will probably just say "they all do it" and move on to the next topic.

That's corrosive in more than just the long term.

sour lemon juice out of lemons. A Dem scandal gets wall to wall coverage and is further proof that all Dems are bad and GOP scandals get parsed and twisted into a larger problem involving all of Congress while strident republicans call to clean out the "bad republicans". Look, Congress sucks. It's controlled by pork-lovin', manipulative and dishonest people. That's not to say there aren't good members. There are. But there not in control and they're in both parties.

Those poll numbers are well deserved. Much like when the GOP stormed in 1994 after mounting stench from the Dems, the GOP is doing the same thing.

DC's problems are systemic: MONEY MONEY POWER POWER!

Until Americans put partisan BS aside and join to demand real change to undermine the cycle of corruption, very little will ever change. Philosophical differences are fine but they're secondary right now. As those polls imply, fixing the problems that make DC the out of touch, corrupt and broken institution that it is, is an important matter that everyone can agree on. Sadly, too many people need that positive change to come from their party or itsn't legit...and so the cycle goes: keep America divided and pointing fingures from left to right and vice versa while the red and blue snakes slither thru their feet.

I've been finding centrist blogs much fruitful lately. At least there, a pig is pig and the letter (D or R) is of little consequence.

minimizing scandals that hit close to home as "yawners" and saying nobody cares is blind partisanship at its worst. This partisan double-standard enables the continuation corruption.

This behavior is not unique to either party.

I'll back anyone whose willing to take on the corrupt DC status quo in a meaningful and real way.

"I'll back anyone whose willing to take on the corrupt DC status quo in a meaningful and real way."

This is why I started blogging, more or less.  I blogged the OK Sen race during the primary when I hoped Dr. Coburn would push aside the establishment choice Mayor Humphries.  He did and now he is in the Senate.  Despite being far more conservative than I, Dr. Coburn is the type of principled Senator that we need more of.

He is one of two Senators who don't brag about pork on their webpage (McCain being the other).  Even the Kerry-endorsing Economist has a bunch of good things to say about Sen. Coburn's effort to rid the feds of pork and corruption (which are two sides of the same coin).  We need more Senators like Coburn and McCain who are willing to start a scortched earth campaign shining light on the pork that exists in Washington.

Is there any indication of a quid pro quo being provided -- a change in legislation, etc. -- in return for any money given to Reid?

Is there any indication that contributions made to Reid were in any way illegal or unethical?

For example, were contributions given to Reid a means of laundering funds intended for other purposes?

There is no evidence of that with respect to anyone right now. The torch and pitchfork wielders chanting "Lynch them now!" are way ahead of the evidence on this one. Quid pro quo is extremely hard to prove.

You would be correct to say that no member of Congress has been tried and convicted of any crime in connection with Jack Abramoff as of yet.

You are incorrect to say that no evidence of criminal and/or unethical behavior exists.  In many cases, it does exist, and at the moment a handful of Congressmen are either under investigation or have been made to step down from positions of leadership.  It's likely that more will follow.

To my knowledge, no such evidence either exists or has been claimed in the case of Senator Reid.  Hence my questions to Nick.

Cyncism about government is, in fact, corrosive and destructive.  By smearing guys like Reid, where to my knowledge there is no cause for doing so, Nick contributes to that cynicism.  And, he does so for partisan advantage.  

So, I'm calling him on it.

I could be misjudging them but I like Collins, Snow but less than McCain ans Coburn. In Congress I like Paul from Texas and Sanders from Vermont. opposites? yes, in terms of philosophy but they're both on the right side of fighting the corrupt status quo and that appeals to me more right now.

On the dem side I like Kucinich and Howard Dean (GASP!). Say what you will about his PR skills, and you'd be right but a look below at the sunstance shows that he's commited to grassroots politics, fiscal repsonsibilty and citizen-responsive politics that trumps big money.

If you get these guys to put aside their politics, you'd have a good group that likes the "scorched earth" tactic that you speak of.

McCain/Coburn and Dean are opposite sides of the same coin IMO. and that coin is much cleaner than most of the currency in DC.

I think if Congress was made up of people more like the ones I've mentionned and of less of the Delay, Frist, Kennedy and Clinton types, we'd be better off regardless of philosophy.

It looks like a 6th Grader photoshopped it.  we should aim higher.

I think you're right, whether it's a dem or a republican if they are being unethical they do not belong in congress. My favorite politicians are Snowe, McCain, Smith (my wonderful senator from Oregon), Obama and I also like former Senator John Edwards. I think Edwards has some real good ideas to help alleviate poverty. If he runs and gets the dem nomination I just might have to vote Democratic, but we'll see.

By smearing guys like Reid, where to my knowledge there is no cause for doing so, Nick contributes to that cynicism. And, he does so for partisan advantage... So, I'm calling him on it.

It warms the cockles of my heart to see you perform the Mexican hat dance on the pate of Harry Reid. It's about time you guys on the left learned to hop around a bit.

When our guys take money, it's a big scandal. When your guys take money, there's no evidence and no quid pro quo. Am I ever tired of that act.

Back when unreported travel expense was the big hoo-hah, during the initial smearing of Tom DeLay, the WaPo went over to the Capitol and dug through old expense reports. They found out that Nancy Pelosi had unreported travel expense. Rather than write it up, they called her office to tip her off before they went to press, so she could clean it up before they ran their story about Tom DeLay.

You have your media, now we have ours. Welcome to the 21st century.

On March 5, 2002, Harry Reid sent a letter to Interior Secretary Norton urging her to reject the Jena tribe of Choctaw Indians' request for a new casino. The next day, the Coushattas issued a $5,000 check to Reid's tax-exempt political group, the Searchlight Leadership Fund. But of course, the $5,000 did not come directly from Jack Abramoff, so it's not part of the scandal. It's just a Nevada Senator taking a generous donation from an Indian tribe in Louisiana whose casino would have faced competition from the Choctaw's proposed casino.

It just sucks when this stuff gets out in public despite the best efforts of the Washington Post to spike it, eh?

Not only has nobody been convicted, nobody has even been indicted. Just because Abramoff made a plea deal (on unrelated charges) doesn't mean that anyone who ever knew him is guilty of something. Anybody that even knew the guy should just be locked up without a trial I guess, or maybe hanged from a sturdy oak tree. Obviously anyone who associates with a con man and tax evader must they themselves be criminals.

Snowe, McCain, Smith (my wonderful senator from Oregon), Obama and I also like former Senator John Edwards.

And you aren't voting for the Democrats anyway?

Are you referring to the photo of the senior Senator from West Virginia or the one above him?

I couldn't imagine a worse sentiment amongst the electorate. Politicians less ethical than used car salesman. What has America come to?

I feel this way, but had no idea the percentage was this high. Given the current MO of our government, I'd wager that this was certainly not what the Founders had hoped for (nor what that kid on Tiananmen Square thought he was standing in front of a tank to get).

and you respond by smearing the Washington Post. That's just digging yourself in deeper.

You don't provide a source for your claim about Nancy Pelosi's travel expenses, but it's a safe bet that your information came from the Washington Post. It is hardly likely that the Washington Post reporter gave the story to a competing news organization. So your objection isn't that the Washington Post didn't run the story; it's that the Post asked Pelosi for comment before running the story. The fact that you find that reprehensible rather than commedable says more about your ethics than it says about the Washington Post.

You also don't provide a source for your story about Harry Reid, but if you Google it, the top ranked newpaper article is this editorial from the Washington Post, titled "Don't Bet on Coincidence," which says

On the Senate side, Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), now the Senate minority leader, also wrote Ms. Norton in opposition to the casino. The letter was dated March 5, 2002. On March 6, 2002, one of Mr. Abramoff's tribal clients wrote a $5,000 check to Mr. Reid's Searchlight Leadership Fund. "There is absolutely no connection between the letter and the fundraising," said Mr. Reid's spokesman, Jim Manley. Another coincidence!

That's right; the Washington Post ran an editorial containing the exact information you give. That doesn't stop you from claiming, with no evidence whatsoever, that the Washington Post tried to spike the story.

And that would seem to capture the difference between what you call Amos' media and your media. The Washington Post at least attempts to do fair and balanced reporting; you don't seem to care about the truth. The Washington Post attempts to inform its readers; your goal would seem to be to mislead yours.

But don't you remember that when it was DeLay, it was constantly on day after day after day.  I don't get the WaPo, but on the cable news shows, it was repeated over and over.  Once Ds were implicated in identical 'scandals' there was a single mention, then the issue disappeared.  Off we went to Ronnie Earle.

You might have been willing to spend the time to Google it and find out if it was a serious charge or not, but 99.9% of the electorate never gets beyond the headline and maybe the first couple paragraphs.  Slant comes in the form of exposure as well, not just whether or not they have eventually given the truth.

I've bought used cars and I have Congresscritters.  The car salesmen were definitely more ethical.

Power corrupts.  Money corrupts.  Congresscritters have both, which makes it a double whammy.

It's the reason I support term limits in spite of the efforts of many intelligent people to sway me otherwise.

...I think the problem is that the federal government just has too much money to spend. And we have no one to blame for that but the successive electoral majorities that favor programs like SocSec and Medicare. In other words, us. Pat Cleary has argued (I think convincingly) that a term-limited Congress could be worse than what we have now because the decisions would get made by the people who don't face term limits, namely Congressional staffers and lobbyists.

If we hadn't made Congress responsible for so much of our lives, then their inevitable corruption wouldn't hurt nearly so much. I'm not trying to change your mind, but I think we have a deeper problem to solve than plain old corruption.

That's just digging yourself in deeper.

Yep. Someone 'calls me' on smearing Reid and I respond with a quid pro quo in which Reid writes a letter and a check arrives the next day. To hear you tell it, that makes my smear even worse.

So quick, you change the subject.

Like I said, it warms the cockles of my heart to see you guys put the defense on the field. That's what the New Media is all about: we'll shoot at your guys for a change.

Ah yes, the Washington Post "asked Pelosi for comment" before running the story. She didn't comment though, did she? She ran down and filed the missing report, quick-like-a-bunny. The Post reporters are so fair they make our heads spin.

As noted above, the MSM often buries news about Democratic troubles in the middle of one-time stories. That way, they (and you) can always say they covered it. But they sure didn't "cover it" the way they covered DeLay's troubles. Or Rove's. Or Lott's. Those were all-day-every-day stories for weeks.

You guys got any more stuck pigs over there? I'm liking this squealing noise.

You have them by the waddle.

Don't let go.

Not only are these engagements educational and entertaining - but also a new spectator sport is developing from watching the left and the MSM hoist, kicking and screaming, upon their own petard.

Fight on.  Fire at will.

If that's your best shot against Reid, I think you should look for someone else to use as a poster boy for Democratic corruption.

Abramoff has, apparently, admitted to bribing Ney.  That is evidence.  Ney has stepped down as chair of the House Administrative Committee until the matter is cleared up.

David Safavian, a high-ranking Republican appointee to the GSA, has been charged with lying and obstruction of justice in connection with the Abramoff investigation.  Evidence is involved.

Other congressmen who are currently under investigation in connection with Abramoff include Delay, Burns, and Doolittle.  Also Ralph Reed and Grover "drown government in a bathtub" Norquist.  If you're under investigation, there's evidence.

Is this only a Republican issue?  Probably not.  Byron Dorgan isn't looking so great.

Is it, by far, a primarily Republican issue?  Yes it is.  Abramoff is your boy.  Good luck.

From your comment, it seems you'd like to see me as calling for the abolition of due process in this situation.  If you read my posts, you'll see that I'm not.

I have one and only one point to make here.  In a post talking about how the Abramoff scandal is "no big deal" in the eyes of the public, Nick tossed off a smear of Harry Reid.  As far as I know, no credible evidence has been given that Reid was involved, in any way, with Abramoff's illegal activities.  It would be great, from Nick's point of view, if he were, but he hasn't been.

So, I called Nick on it.  You can look above to see the best shot he could come up with.  It ain't much.  Maybe there's more to charge Reid with, maybe there ain't.  If there is, he should go down with the rest of them.  But, so far it looks there ain't.

Why make an issue out of it?  Because Nick's smear of Reid occurs in a post that, among other things, at least appears to see public cynicism about Congress as a regrettable thing.  Comments like Nick's are one of the ways that public cynicism is created.  So, I call BS.

That's about all I have to say on the topic.

Thanks

Ah, Norquist. Originator of the strangle-the-government idea that does not, to any detectable degree work; and before this came over the hill, already dirtying his hands with Saudi money. If we can arrange to have him strangled in his own bathtub, so to speak, I think we'll be the better for it.

I have no interest in having Norquist strangled.

I would, instead, like to give Norquist the chance to live his dream.  I'd like to present him with a survival kit consisting of a small tarpaulin, a fishhook and 50' of good line, a camping knife, a book of matches, and $20.00 US.  Then, I would like him to be dropped off, blindfolded, with that kit and the clothes on his back, someplace where, in fact, the government has been drowned in a bathtub.  Somalia perhaps, or the Sudan.  Perhaps a remote corner of the Balkans.  Maybe even the ninth ward in NOLA.

There, Grover, newly released from the unbearable burden of government, will thrive and prosper, and show us all the way to a life of self-determination and freedom.

Did you see where the dean flunked the bar exam?

I don't know if I'd put used car salesment in front of Congress.  I think that the car salesmen would be worse if they had the same amount of power.  Lord Acton was right, its the power that corrupts.  If you think its not, then why are there no reform proposals that restrain power?  ...from either side.

It also depends on the car salesman.  Ironically, I just bought a used car last night.  I was at one dealer who has a 2004 Toyota Highlander with 38,000 miles and a dirty interior and he wanted $28,000.  I  asked for his best deal and he would not throw out a lower number unless I made the first offer.  I walked across the street to another dealer and found  the same vehicle with half the miles and a much cleaner interior with more options and the sticker was already at $24,500, and when I asked the salesmen for his best offer, he threw out $22,000.

what's the point?  there are good and bad apples everywhere.  But we should not lose sight of the fact that R's have controlled the House for 10+ years now and they went in with a promise to the public to clean the place up.  Its **VERY** disapointing to see that 10 years later, they have even more problems than the D's they replaced.  We must hold them accountable and vote out the guilty parties.  Period.

I don't need a "best shot against Reid." Didn't you read the poll? The Mexican hat dances aren't working. The public knows "they all do it," and no amount of detailed parsing is going to convince people otherwise.

All attempts to turn this into — as Senator Osamabama put it today — a "Republican sin" are doomed to failure. Nobody's buying it. The more the Democrats try to do this, the more disingenuous they look.

The truth is, this is one of few issues on which there could and should be bipartisan cooperation, because all of them suffer from this image of being less ethical than used-car salesmen.

As I have stated here, I am all for the wholesale replacement of the Republican leadership. That includes Hastert in the House and Frist in the Senate. While my partisan instincts tell me that it would be a Good Thing if the Democrats continue to pretend that their leaders don't stink, it would be better for the country if you Dems would stop the hat dancing and clean up your side of the aisle.

This:

Senator Osamabama

makes the answer to this:

Is it really about "taking shots"?

seem like "yes" from your point of view, as far as I can tell.

it would be better for the country if you Dems would stop the hat dancing and clean up your side of the aisle.

I'm not a Dem.  Never have been one.  The Dems have a lot of homework to do before I'd ever consider being one.

I'm all for crooks getting tossed out on their behinds.  I don't care if their name is followed by an R or a D.  Feel free to demonstrate otherwise from anything I've written here or anywhere else you care to look.

I don't give tinker's damn what the polls say.  My guess is that Abramoff will do time, a couple of congressmen will get a bloody nose, and business will go as usual.

I'd like to see public financing of all federal elections.  That would take special interest money out of the mix.  Anyone here wanna sign up for that?

My point to you, Nick, was that including Reid in a discussion of public perceptions and/or lack of concern on the topic of Abramoff et al was a cheap shot.  This is an explicitly partisan site, it's your sandbox, do whatever you like.  If I think it's crap, I'll say so.

Thanks

"Osamabama" is a shot at Kennedy, who coined the term. There can never be enough fun made of Kennedy, for he is a buffoon.

I make no pretense about being objective. I am a partisan, writing on an explicitly Republican blog. If it gets your goat, imagine how I feel reading the New York Times. At least here we admit up-front that we're partisans.

I don't see public financing of campaigns as being that effective. The Supreme Court has already ruled that an individual can spend as much of his own money as he wants running for office, so all we'd be doing is tilting the playing field in favor of those who are out to buy themselves a seat in Congress. Plus, our recent experience with "527s" shows us that financing the campaigns per se does not really clean up the mess.

put money in the kitty will create more corruption. The more money...the more corruption.

I guess if the government is going to pay for every one's campaign, 300 million Americans can travel around on tax payers money while they campaign for office this year.

What was that Reagan quote I saw on the bottom of some one's blog?  "Any one climbing in bed with the government will get more than a good night's sleep."(That's close to the real quote.)

They've managed to screw up their archives, but use Google to search samizdata.net for "Somalia" and check out the cached pages, particulary the "Utopia: Anarchy or State?" thread. Satirists, again, slit their wrists in despair...

I don't watch cable news channels much, so I can't comment on their coverage of DeLay. I do watch enough cable news to know of its propensity to give wall to wall coverage to what are at best minor news stories, such as the Petersons (man allegedly murders wife), the Michael Jackson trial (OK, the man is a celebrity, but still), and Aruba (someone files a missing persons report). I don't think that anti-Republican bias is behind this--just ask Gary Condit. CNN once aspired to be a television news channel for people who read newspapers; now it aspires to be a television news channel for people who read supermarket tabloids.

How much coverage to give a particular topic is a judgement call, and so it will always be possible to argue that a particular topic should have received more or less coverage. That's assuming that the original decision of how much coverage to give a topic was not totally wacky; I admit I cannot imagine anyone arguing that cable news should have given more coverage to Aruba. What we do agree on, I think, is that similar 'scandals' should receive similar amounts of coverage, regardless of whether the scandal involves Democrats or Republicans.

There is, as far as I know, only one instance of DeLay failing to report the payment of travel expenses. One of Abramoff's companies arranged and paid for a DeLay aide to fly a private jet to Florida, where the aide among other things attended the Super Bowl and visited an gambling ship owned by Abramoff. The Post says:

No one on DeLay's staff filed a report disclosing the trip, a task required by House rules for "the receipt of travel expenses from private sources" but not for government-funded or political travel.

DeLay spokesman Allen said: "The staffer went down to participate in a National Republican Congressional Committee party, so it was considered political travel. The staffer never saw Abramoff during the trip."

As far as I can tell, the Washington Post never mentioned this failure to report again.

So in both instances, the Washington Post ran the story exactly once. And in both instances, it asked the subject for comment before running the story.

I am amazed that Nick still insists that asking Pelosi's staff for comment was wrong. If the Washington Post had failed to ask DeLay's staff about the story, the Washington Post's readers would never have learned that the trip included a political component, and would have been left with the impression that the falure to report was a violation of House rules. This would have been unfair to DeLay and a disservice to the Post's readers. How anyone with an ounce of decency could advocate such an outcome is beyond me.

Recall that Amos wrote:

You are incorrect to say that no evidence of criminal and/or unethical behavior exists. In many cases, it does exist, and at the moment a handful of Congressmen are either under investigation or have been made to step down from positions of leadership. It's likely that more will follow.

To my knowledge, no such evidence either exists or has been claimed in the case of Senator Reid. Hence my questions to Nick.

When Amos talks about evidence, he's talking about the sort of evidence that places people at risk of indictment, evidence which comes near to meeting the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And you don't have that or claim to have it.

If Reid were a corrupt politician, you would expect to see a pattern of corrupt deals. You don't present that; you present exactly one instance where an act by the Senator is immediately followed by a contribution. To explain this lack of a pattern, you could hyphothesize that Reid is a basicly honest man who fell from grace just that one time, but that's what's known as an ad hoc hypothesis tailored to fit the data. Sure, it's possible, but "possible" doesn't cut it in any forum where the burden of proof is on the accuser.

So if you had chosen to stick with the topic, you would have had to admit you didn't have the sort of evidence that Amos was asking for. Which is, presumably, why you responded with an incoherent reference to the Mexican hat dance and then attacked the Washington Post. Sure, you mentioned an incident with Harry Reid, but only in the context of your attack on the Washington Post. Your point was that the Washington Post had, according to you, attempted to "spike" the story. (You were lying about that.) You didn't argue that it justified your orignal article.

With regard to Pelosi, the substantance of your comment is just a repeat of what I said. Yes, when Pelosi (actually Manansala, a member of Pelosi's staff--but that's a nit) learned that he had misunderstood the rules, he quickly corrected the error and apologized for the mistake. And yes, the coverage of this by the Post was fair. But the tone of your writing makes it clear that you are mocking them for it.

That's my cue to write that I believe that people should take responsibility of their actions, and that they should treat other people fairly. And that's your cue to double over in laughter at the fact that I believe that moral values are something one lives by, rather than something one uses to manipulate people who are dumb enough to believe in them. Then you get to claim that I'm squealing like a pig again. I must say that your idea of entertainment is pretty juvenile.

When Amos talks about evidence, he's talking about the sort of evidence that places people at risk of indictment

Oh. You two must be lawyers.

I'm not. When I talk about evidence, I mean the kind used to smear people in the media.

I don't care about indicting Harry Reid. I care about defeating his party at the polls.

It gets tiresome to watch your media smear our guys all the time. We've barely started smearing your guys, and already you're tired of it. Now all of a sudden you want to play by lawyer rules.

No sale. Harry wrote the letter, Harry took the money, Harry can live with whatever people think about that, whether you like it or not. That's how this works. No judge required; the public decides for itself how to interpret those events. Scream your head off; I don't care. It was good enough for the goose. Now the gander gets some. Enjoy.

It's how little it takes to corrupt a Congressperson. And this is not a new phenomenon. People have been complaining about corruption in Congress since we've had a Congress. Public financing is precisely what Congress wants, because someone has to decide whose campaigns get funded, and the incumbent will always be first on the list, ahead of any challengers.

Special pleaders will always try to corrupt politicians: that's a fundamental feature of democracy. The real problem is that it's so rewarding to do so. As long as the government has its fingers in such much of our economy and our lives, it will be worth corrupting them.

Make the government far smaller than it is, and we can all go back to laughing about corruption scandals rather than screaming about them.

Nick, I agree that this is a systemic problem, which is reaching critical levels.  I do think that it affects the Republican party more than the Democrats, for the simple reason that the Republicans are now in power, have their hands on the levers of power and are best positioned to dispense favors.

Readers who want to look at this from a deeper perspective should take a look at "public choice" theory relating to "rent-seeking" behavior - the incentives private individuals and groups have to abuse government assets and power, and the incentives that legislators and bureaucrats may have to extract for their own benefit some of the value of the services for sale.  Check out CATO on this.

Here are some relevant quotes:

Economist Dennis Mueller: "The entire federal budget can be viewed as a gigantic rent up for grabs for those who can exert the most political muscle."

George F. Will referred a decade ago to "a perpetual incumbency machine" that "has become today's swollen government operating with no limits on the incontinent spending and regulating that is undertaken to perpetuate in office the spenders and regulators."

Economist Randall Holcombe:  "Political markets are divided in the same way that cartels would divide markets in order to make each member a monopolist in his own territory to help enforce the cartel agreement. Because of increasingly sophisticated gerrymandering, running for office is harder for newcomers because the redistricting process strengthens the advantages incumbents enjoy."

The Wall Street Journal's John Fund: "Incumbents are using high-powered computers to create lifetime sinecures for themselves. That kind of privilege and protection is certainly not what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they overthrew a monarchy to form a republic."

This problem was certainly foreseen:

Mankind soon learn to make interested uses of every right and power which they possess, or may assume. The public money and public liberty...will soon be discovered to be sources of wealth and dominion to those who hold them; distinguished, too, by this tempting circumstance, that they are the instrument, as well as the object of acquisition. With money we will get men, said Caesar, and with men we will get money. Nor should our assembly be deluded by the integrity of their own purposes, and conclude that these unlimited powers will never be abused, because themselves are not disposed to abuse them. They should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when a corruption in this, as in the country from which we derive our origin, will have seized the heads of government, and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay the price.

Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1784

We need redistricting and other reform to deal with this, as I have noted elsewhere, with a number of links: http://www.redstate.com/comments/2005/12/13/10116/504/50#50

blackhedd -

Thanks for the reply.

1.  Over the course of the country's history, we've had periods of time when government involvement in the economy was quite minimal, and times when it was greater.  At none of these times has Congress been immune from corruption.  In fact, offering incentives for government to stay out of particular sectors of the economy, regardless of the public interest, is a very popular lobbying parlor game.
   
2.  The criminal issues surrounding Abramoff and, allegedly, members of Congress extend well beyond the buying of access and influence, and include money laundering and fraud.  The Abramoff scandal is only in small part about lobbying excesses.

Thanks

At none of these times has Congress been immune from corruption.

That was my point.

To your point 2: my post was a response to the suggestion that we finance campaigns with public money.

I stand corrected.

But, either way, the comment applies.

I might suggest that forward movements afoot made by the likes of one Senator Edward Kennedy might  signify those of a duck, as well.

Nonetheless, wattle, it is.  Thanks for the correction.

I think they're an excellent idea, but hasn't the Supreme Court said we need a constitutional amendment to achieve them for Reps/Senators?

Here's a link to some of my other thoughts:  http://www.redstate.com/comments/2006/1/21/171117/088/41#41