Hines Must Fry A Lot Of Keyboards With His Spittle
When guys on Capitol Hill look like Beavis, Butthead (Cragg Hines, Houston Chronicle)
The ludicrous scene was live coverage of the U.S. House on C-SPAN. And it was not for the faint of heart. I certainly hope no impressionable children were watching.
The House Republicans' designated point man on lobbying "reform," Rep. David Dreier of California, was wending his way mendaciously through an opening statement.
Dreier said the bill he was trying to cudgel into consideration by the full House was "bipartisan." It is not.
He said it was "thorough." That's a joke.
He said it was "bold, responsible, common-sense reform." Wrong on all counts.
The House-managed cameras kept such a tight focus on Dreier that I couldn't see if members of either party were falling off their leather-covered seats in late-morning laughter.
Dreier, halest of fellows, talked a great game — with a straight face even — but for a single problem: He was lying. Baldly and badly.
It's really stunning that the Houston Chronicle continues to pay Hines what must be an exorbitant salary to rage at Republican politicians he watches on C-SPAN (let that sink in) a few times per week.
No Outcry About Lobby Scandal, Lawmakers Say: Republicans See Little Risk In Pushing Modest Ethics Bill (Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Thomas B. Edsall, Washington Post)
The scandal surrounding disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff has been a Washington obsession for months, but Republican lawmakers who returned from a two-week recess this week said they felt free to pass a relatively tepid ethics bill because their constituents rarely mention the issue.
The House is scheduled to vote today on ethics legislation to increase lobbyists' disclosures and require lawmakers to own up to the earmarks, or narrow projects, that they insert into appropriations bills. But the measure would not restrict the gifts or meals provided by lobbyists as House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) had proposed in January, nor would it expand the number of enforcers of lobbying rules and laws.
Lawmakers acknowledge that the bill is more limited in its scope and impact than the provisions promised by congressional leaders immediately after Abramoff's guilty plea to federal charges of bribery, conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud nearly four months ago. But they say they do not feel compelled to push more stringent measures partly because voters do not appear to be demanding them.
Meanwhile, the above story is how grownups report on the ethics package.
Granted, those grownups are reporters and not bigshot opinion columnists, but a more perceptive and subtle columnist than Hines (really, most any columnist) might have come to the conclusion that because most people find politicians in general a rather despicable lot when it comes to finance and influence peddling, there's no great outrage among the electorate over the latest "scandals" nor any great clamoring for another round of inconsequential (in reality) "far-reaching" (as described by the grousing class) ethics/finance/lobbying reform.
Isn't that more of a reason to rage at an indifferent citizenry than at Republicans, if rage one must?
Well, except that raging at Republicans is about all the Chronicle's D.C. columnist knows how to do.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/30/06 11:57 | American Politics | Technorati
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