correuption

The Sestak Affair, the White House, and the Corruption of America

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The Rep. Joe Sestak affair, still playing out, is a depressing reminder of how the process of corruption works, and more depressingly, how corruption spreads like a virulent flu, leaping from individuals  to organizations to institutions and finally to our culture itself.

Back in September, the Denver Post ran a well-sourced article stating that in order to protect Democratic Sen. Michael Bennett from the threatened primary challenge of popular former state Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, the White House, in the person of Jim Messina, President Barack Obama’s deputy chief of staff, told Romanoff  that a plum position in the administration would be his if he avoided the primary. The Post’s sources said that Messina offered specific suggestions, including a job at USAID, the foreign aid agency.  Romanoff, who apparently turned down the deal and is currently opposing Bennett in Colorado, refused to answer any questions.

This was treated as a local story, and the national media ignored it. Then, last month, a similar story surfaced, this time from a Congressman. Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak, gearing to to run against party-switching  U.S. Senator Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania primaries, told a Philadelphia TV news anchor that “someone” at the White House tried to discourage him from running, and also offered him a job (rumored to be Secretary of the Navy)  if he would back off. Like Romanoff, Sestak refused.

Again, hardly anyone paid attention, because all the national media wanted to do is talk about health care reform, the economy, and really important stuff like how Ellen was going to do on American Idol. Continue reading →

Nancy Pelosi and Forced Virtue

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

I’m sure my friend and colleague Bob Stone will forgive my picking on a casual phrase he used in a comment on the previous post, for it is the inspiration for this one, and it involves the important issue of forced virtue.

Bob alluded to Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally doing “the right thing” when, as reported in the morning media, she told House Ways and Means Committee Chair Charles Rangel that he had to resign his post because of multiple ethics violations. Pelosi, we now know, had avoided this for as long as possible, first ignoring Rangel’s actions, then making the dodge that the Ethics Committee first had to make its ruling (Rangel’s egregious violations have never been in doubt), then suggesting that the violations were not significant (knowing that among them was a failure to pay taxes on $75,000 of income as well as acquiring hundreds of thousands of dollars of unreported—that is, hidden—income, all on the part of the reigning chair of the committee that oversees tax legislation) because the country wasn’t “jeopardized” by them. But now the press is calling for Rangel’s head, the Republicans are making accusations that seem, for once, reasonable, and other Democratic House members have joined the chorus demanding that Charlie must go. And this is all occurring as Pelosi is trying to martial her House majority as she attempts to ram the latest health care reform package past the nation’s gag reflex.

In short, Pelosi isn’t really doing the right thing. She’s doing the only thing. Continue reading →