An Ethically Challenged Congress

Washington Post ^ | May 16, 2005 | Howard Kurtz

[NCjim]

Newspapers and magazines have been hammering Tom DeLay over all kinds of questionable activities: foreign trips financed by lobbyists, flying on corporate jets, putting relatives on his political payroll.

Only now it turns out that -- guess what -- lots of members of Congress have been doing these things.

That doesn't let the House majority leader off the hook -- he has been admonished three times by the ethics committee and is headed for a fourth investigation -- but it raises the question of why journalists have been slow to discover such seamy behavior across Capitol Hill.

"There's no question that the higher the profile of the congressman, the better the story is," says Brooks Jackson of FactCheck.org, who has written about money and politics for decades. "If it's Congressman Schmendrik, a first-termer from Nowhere, Utah, that's a big story back in Utah but not a national story."

The recent slew of reports on congressional ethics (or lack thereof) brings to mind the long-ago observation by Michael Kinsley that the real scandal in politics is what's legal.

[strange1]

Two words that probably should'nt be together in one sentence...

Ethics

Congress

[Luigi Vasellini]

The libs in the media know they are being discovered as frauds. Delay wasnt even in the top 25 congressmen for getting free trips yet the agenda driven media is all over him. Barney Fag recently called off Howard Dean on his attacks on Delay. Could it be because barney Fag is in the top 5 for receiving free trips. NAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

[antiRepublicrat]

Two words that probably should'nt be together in one sentence... Ethics Congress

Yes they should: "Many members of Congress have shown a complete lack of ethics." :)

I say investigations across the board, both sides of the aisle. Time for a house cleaning (pun intended). Then on to the Senate.