Could there have been… any reaction that would have been more damaging to the Republican Party, President Bush, the Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate, than Dennis Hastert’s response yesterday to the news of Rep. William Jefferson’s outrageous freezer-foil bribery scandal?
Could there have been… anything that would have helped the Democratic Party more than Dennis Hastert’s response to the news of Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-LA) outrageous freezer-foil bribery scandal?
Could there have been… anything that the democratic media would have rather heard than Dennis Hastert’s response to the news of Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-LA) outrageous freezer-foil bribery scandal?
Could there have been… anything that would have played better into the Democratic mantra of a corrupt and executive power-abusing Bush White House more than Dennis Hastert’s response to the news of Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-LA) outrageous freezer-foil bribery scandal?
Just wondering.
Yesterday, Dennis Hastert was able to diffuse the swarm of media attention surrounding one of the most outrageous bribery cases in US history by taking the focus off of the perpetrating freezer-cash-stashing democrat, William Jefferson (D-LA), and placing the focus squarely on the back of President George Bush. The New York Times was only too happy to report out:
After years of quietly acceding to the Bush administration’s assertions of executive power, the Republican-led Congress hit a limit this weekend.
Resentment boiled among senior Republicans for a second day on Tuesday after a team of warrant-bearing agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation turned up at a closed House office building on Saturday evening, demanded entry to the office of a lawmaker and spent the night going through his files.
The episode prompted cries of constitutional foul from Republicans — even though the lawmaker in question, Representative William J. Jefferson of Louisiana, is a Democrat whose involvement in a bribery case has made him an obvious partisan political target.
Speaker J. Dennis Hastert raised the issue personally with President Bush on Tuesday. The Senate Rules Committee is examining the episode.
Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House majority leader, predicted that the separation-of-powers conflict would go to the Supreme Court. “I have to believe at the end of the day it is going to end up across the street,” Mr. Boehner told reporters gathered in his conference room, which looks out on the Capitol plaza and the court building.
Thank you, House Speaker Hastert and Majority Leader Boehner!
Big Lizards says that it is all about priveleges.
The Strata-Sphere appropriately calls it a “circular firing squad.”
Roger L. Simon is pushing for:
Legislation making any convictions for law-breaking by Members of Congress subject to penalties vastly more extreme than those suffered by the general public.
I’m in! …and please include any corrupt CEO’s in that legislation.
Dr. Sanity is happy, sort of, that there is at least one issue that Dems and Republicans can see eye-to-eye on.
Update: Hastert could have gone to his own freezer, pulled out $120,000 worth of frozen gold coins in a Crown Royal cloth bag, slammed it down on an investigator’s table, confessing it was from a lobbyist for the liquor industry, and he would not have done as much damage as his thoughtless statements did yesterday!
