Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer
This is a beautiful thing! Democratic Senators hit Republicans hard for their six year ethical lapse during today’s ethics reform news conference. While it’s too early to get excited about anything yet, especially with Iraq looming large, even the prospect of a government for the people is exciting. Plus, my smile made an appearance for the first time in recent memory.
The video (8:44) starts with Harry Reid (D-Nevada) laying out some of the key points of the proposed legislation followed by Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin), Barack Obama (D-Illinois), Claire McCaskill (D- Missouri), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) who kills, Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Benjamin Cardin (D-Maryland) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). Magical.
This really does sound like actual lobby reform and it’s music to the ears. A lot of Americans don’t realize how closely tied the corruption is to this out-of-control lobbying.
The thing that bothers me is that the democrats seem to be going head long into real reform while ignoring the need for punishment. That is the long term problem. It’s fine if you want to make corrupt people stop doing wrong by uncovering the scheme and putting a stop to it, but that doesn’t stop them from coming up with a new scheme.
We need reform, but we also need to see the obvious law breaking of their friends prosecuted. Biden kept calling Lindsey Graham his friend on “Meet The Press” last week and we’re very happy for them, but I’m pretty sure Mr. Graham broke the law when he falsely claimed to have said something on the senate floor that somebody couldn’t find on the C-SPAN coverage. Let’s investigate!
Just do it.