That's pretty much the gist of an editorial from the Fort Wayne Sentinel:
"Both Republicans and Democrats in the past few days have revealed, with great fanfare, reform proposals that include new ethics rules and tougher restrictions on how much lobbyists can spend and how much access to members of Congress they get in return.
"It is in a way a silly exercise. Do members of Congress need new rules telling them to obey the existing rules? They are under no obligation to accept gifts from lobbyists and it already is against the law to accept a gift to vote yea or nay on a particular piece of legislation. Think about it. Congressional members who have been accepting questionable gifts from lobbyists are proposing new ethics rules to stop the practice. It's kind of like a serial killer writing a "stop me before I kill again" note.
William Blum's Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower was ranked 209,000 on Amazon.com's sales list before bin Laden mentioned it in an audiotape released on Thursday. By yesterday, the book was number 30 on the Amazon.com list.
There's a literary term from the Ancient Greeks (although why the words are LATIN is a mystery, I guess...)
Deus ex Machina
I've been giving this whole FISA snafu a lot of thought, and I've finally been convinced. My neocon, liberty-hating friends are absolutely correct!
So where the heck did the billions go? You know, the billions that we spent to rebuild Iraq. Lots of people are wondering now. According to Buzzflash, the Iraqis themselves have some questions. The Washington Post has some questions.
Remember the old Pepsodent jingle?
"You'll wonder where the yellow went,
when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent."
Time for a 21st century update:
"You'll wonder where the billions went,
when you elect George Bush your president."
Continuing the semantic absurdities that Rove wove into a speech on Friday, Reuters reports that Rove said the following:
"Let me be as clear as I can be: President Bush believes if al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interests to know who they're calling and why."
According to Rueters, in his Saturday radio address response to Bush, Democratic Senator Harry] Reid accused Republicans of using "doublespeak" to sell their agenda.
So the White House's hopes that there are no pictures of the president together with Abramoff have been dashed. The Washingtonian claims to have "seen five photos of the President with Abramoff or his family. One photo shows the President and Abramoff shaking hands at a meeting in the Old Executive Office Building, where a bearded-Abramoff introduced Bush to several of the lobbyist's native-American clients."
In addition, the paper claims that "Abramoff would tell prosecutors, if asked, that not only did he know the President, but the President knew the names of Abramoff's children and asked about them during their meetings. At one such photo session, Bush discussed the fact that both he and Abramoff were fathers of twins."
George W. Bush and his administration are in cahoots with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
There. I said it.
Ohio seems to have slid further into the 21st century crevice of corruption than most states. You have the questionable 2004 election. You have Governor Taft convicted of a crime related to unreported gifts and outings. You have the "coingate" scandal where state workers' compensation funds were practically handed over to a big Republican fundraiser for "investment" in rare coins that seem to have disappeared. You have Congressman Bob Ney front and center in the Abramoff scandal. You have Howard Dean announcing that Ohio is "the center of Republican corruption scandals."
It ain't limited to the political arena, either. Witness a report from the Toledo Blade about fraud in connection with a nuclear plant.
