Monday, May 22, 2006

William Jefferson

I supppose I should say what ought to be obvious. If the bribery allegations against William Jefferson -- a Democratic congressman from Louisiana -- are true, then he deserves something worse than removal from office. Something worse than jail time. He deserves to be kept in a public stockade and spat upon by every decent Democrat. And the same fate should await any other Dem who asks for or receives a bribe.

Especially now. We are trying to make the case that the Republican party is the party of corruption. Meanwhile, the G.O.P. spin machine has fallen back on the "everyone does it" line. The rightwingers keep repeating their Big Lie about Democratic involvement in the Abramoff scandal, even though Jack Abramoff paid nothing to any Democratic causes. That lie has been heard so often, a large segment of the American population has come to believe it, despite the total lack of evidence.

And now we have these ghastly stories about William Jefferson. Although the allegations against him seem small in comparison with the charges brought against Cunningham and his comrades, Jefferson's crimes -- if and when they are proven to be crimes -- add to the wrongheaded perception that political perfidy crosses party lines on a roughly equivalent basis.

If Jefferson cannot offer a real good explanation real damn fast, he must go.

5 comments:

Admin said...

Yeah, of course there are corrupt Dems. This jefferson thing will get a lot more ink than Abramoff or Scooter Libby or any of the numerous Republicans who've been caught, and this will give the NeoCons more ammunition. Might even prop up their poll numbers enough to slip through another rigged election.

It's got to end, folks. The ONLY way to end the NeoCon menace is to expose the rigged voting system. It's the only chance we have of taking America back from the NeoCons. And right now, the ONLY Democrat willing to take it to the Republicans on this issue: Clint Curtis.

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Anonymous said...

One party with 2 faces.


What this country needs is a SCEOND party.

Failing that, a revolution.

Joseph Cannon said...

Nah. I still think of the Democratic party as my party. Look, Clinton wasn't my first choice in 1992 -- but things sure were a hell of a lot better back then. Not perfect -- but SCREW perfect. I'm too old these days to go scraping after utopia. I will settle for 1999.

And we won't reach that point by taking the attitude of "Hey, they're ALL bums..."

Anonymous said...

Joseph? Again, I LOVE YOU.

Anonymous said...

Speaking about Utopia, and our Saviours, the Democrats:

http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr81.html