Bob Ney melts down

By Lee Russ

Friday, June 09, 2006 at 05:58 PM

Bob Ney, the Republican Congressman from Ohio appears to be about neck deep in the Abramoff scandal (not that you can always tell, since he's become invisible to Republicans).

Now, according to a piece in the Times Reporter of Ohio, has taken to publicly deriding and insulting a reporter for Copley News Service.

When the reporter, Paul Krawzak, published a piece based on testimony in the David Safavian trial about Ney's golfing trip with Abramoff, and failed to call Ney for comment before publication, Ney went what you might call either ballistic or Katherine Harris.  According to the news report:

That acknowledgment was not enough for Ney, who four days later - on June 3 - had his thumbs flying over the tiny keyboard of his Blackberry, with punctuation and spelling often yielding to his evident anger.

"Let me tell you paul-last week you did not call us for comment `you were under deadline,'" began Ney, who then reflected his belief that his critics just keep recycling the same story about the golf trip. "Print the same story-change it to reprint the same story-people in new philly - d's and r's call it `elk's politics.'"

He concluded his message with "Go for it - harass my wife and daughter a little bit more big man - maybe I will take out an add talking about your ethics." The reference to his wife and daughter reflected his continuing anger that earlier this year another Copley News Service reporter, based in Ohio, interviewed his neighbors and knocked on his door seeking comment from his wife.

Lest there be any doubt about either his anger or his desire to vent that anger, the congressman sent a separate note from his Blackberry later in the day. "Please-please-print this paul-you don't care about ohio-i am sick of your crap. You are a d c person who couldn't find ohio unless we gave you a map. You don't give two shoots about our people."

Increasingly, Ney has complained that reporters based in Washington do not understand the dynamics of Ney's district, explaining his jab at Krawzak as "a d c person."

It is indeed likely that Ney feels misunderstood and unappreciated.  If nothing else, he must know by now that he won't be getting any more freebies from Abramoff.  Then there's the whole need to re-elected thing.  And he probably doesn't like it much that he can't open an Ohio paper very often without running into a description of his pandering to Abramoff and receiving bennies in return.

Tough. Should have thought of that before disgracing himself and his office, and casting a pall over his family, to get a little more of the good life that can befall any unethical sleazo who manages to get elected to one of our two legislative houses.

Is he worth your sympathy.  Ney, I say, Ney he is not.