Posted on 09/08/2001 8:33:02 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
In the coming days, disgraced Congressman Gary Condit is expected to announce that he's ready to retire from the House -- in 2003.
Democratic Party leaders are praying that his promise to depart the scene in the distant bye and bye will tamp down interest in Condit's Chandra Levy cover-up and thereby take the heat off the party.
Nice try.
The embattled congressman's January 2003 retirement means that for the next fifteen months, Washington, D.C.'s most suspicious politician will not only continue to serve in the House of Representatives, it looks like he'll retain his highly sensitive post on the House Intelligence Committee.
That's right. While House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt made some noises last week about bouncing Condit from the intelligence post when Congress returns from its summer recess, the top Democrat seems to be moving slower than molasses.
On Friday, five days into the new session, Gephardt was still consulting with his colleagues over how he should handle their Condit problem, with Party flacks complaining there's no precedent for stripping him of his committee post.
Neither is there any precedent for a congressman continuing in office while stonewalling police and the FBI over the fate of his missing and presumed dead mistress, but that doesn't seem to bother Party faithful too much.
Democratic spinmeisters insist that all the scandal-scarred congressman's secrets are out; and that means he's no longer blackmailable while he remains privy to the nation's most sensitive national security information.
But that notion goes up in smoke if it turns out there's anything to the account of Susan Borges Rossi -- who told the National Enquirer last week that during her own relationship with Condit he told her he had a "fix it" team on his staff to dispose of dead bodies.
(NewsMax.com's efforts to reach Ms. Rossi this week were unsuccessful. That could mean she's doesn't want to subject her account to further media scrutiny. Or that she's talking to the FBI and they've asked her to hold her tongue.)
Then there's the account of former California Congressman Bob Dornan -- a one-time Intelligence Committee member himself who still has well placed sources in the state. He blurted out on Fox News Thursday night that Condit had an affair with a female House colleague and was currently blackmailing other colleagues with their own sex secrets in order to save his political hyde.)
Meanwhile, a Stanislaus County grand jury is expected to announce its decision on whether to indict the politically radioactive Democrat in a day or two.
Gephardt and company better hope they drop the case -- and that there's nothing to either the Rossi or Dornan accounts -- or the Democrats' summertime Condit nightmare will haunt them all the way through the midterm elections next year.
No, just their own House Ethics rules.
BOTH GUYS are skatin
Leading a prayer session in one's office.
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