[Robert A Cook PE]

But, the Grant and Harding administrations were 140 and 80 years ago.

The corrupt democrat administratiors are still selling their books, collecting the retirements, and re-running for office.

EVERY national democratic official has been lying, cheating, evading the truth and receiving corrupt money and votes.

[Wallace T.]

I think we ought to recognize that the Republican Party can at times breed the same brand of disreputable politics for which the Democrats are notorious. I live in a suburban county north of Dallas that is overwhelmingly Republican. The court house has been in GOP hands for over 20 years, as the shift of party allegiance among white Texans and an influx of middle class voters with conservative leanings from out of state (mostly the Midwest) overturned the traditional Southern Democrats that had held sway since Reconstruction in this formerly rural county.

In spite of the Republican character of the area and the GOP monopoly on county offices, party politics are far from clean. The county is rife with nepotism in elective office, with several instances of second generation politicians. The sheriff was caught DWI in another county, yet remained in office and the charges were not pursued. The county commissioners failed to push for desperately needed widening of the county's main Interstate on account of party loyalty related to NAFTA. (Rather than press for Federal and state highway money, they were told by party bosses in Austin and Washington to wait for NAFTA related funding, which never came.)

It is not as bad as Daley's Chicago or Pendergast's Kansas City, but it is far from the "Honest Abe the Rail-Splitter" image the Republicans like to project. Ronald Reagan, an extraordinarily good man, ran a clean shop. The Bushes, father and son, are independently wealthy and are the inheritors of the old Yankee characteristic of selfless public service, which is a virtue all but gone from the country. But below the top levels, Republicans are subject to the same temptations of money and power as are Democrats.

I suspect Pinellas County may be an area of GOP corruption. The business links connecting Greer to the hospice and to Felos cast doubts about the former's objectivity. Furthermore, Senator Alexander, House Republican whip, who was one of the nine RINOs who voted against legislative relief for Terri Schiavo, received a considerable portion of his re-election campaign funds from the medical industry, a party interested in improving the efficiency and profitability of medical businesses.

The Democrats are worse, no doubt. But the GOP is far from sinless relative to corruption.