But apparently, moderation and respecting the tone of the voter's sentiment as expressed by so many new middle of the road members is not the way it's going to work.
This report from The Hill should cheer the hearts of Republicans everywhere who were worried that Democrats in the House might actually try and continue fooling voters with their newfound conservatism:
So it's "courage" when Pelosi plays hardball? Remember all the unkind appellations tossed at Tom Delay when he lived out his role as the "Hammer?" The word "courage" was never used.Pelosi pulls out the stops for Murtha
By Josephine Hearn
The Hill
November 15, 2006
...But by yesterday, her intent was clear, several lawmakers said; she hopes to oust her onetime rival Hoyer from the leadership.
"She's committed. If they thought she was just going to endorse his candidacy, they were mistaken," said Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), a Murtha ally. "She didn't have to do this. It's called courage."
...
[N]ine other incoming full committee chairmen are supporting Hoyer. Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.), Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.), Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), John Spratt (D-S.C.), Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) signed a letter yesterday backing Hoyer.
...
Rep.-elect Tim Walz (D-Minn.), [...] was "still undecided" but appeared to be leaning toward Murtha. "To be honest, I was waiting for the Speaker," Walz said. "When the Speaker speaks, you listen. I take that into heavy consideration."
...
Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), a Murtha supporter, said Monday night that Pelosi is playing for keeps.
"She will ensure that they [the Murtha camp] wins. This is hardball politics. We are entering an era where when the Speaker instructs you what to do, you do it," he said. "Yes, she's making calls to people. She is contacting people and letting them know that it's an unequivocal letter."
...
Another House Democrat supporting Hoyer was incensed that Pelosi was exerting her influence in the caucus, asserting that it will further divide House Democrats.
"It's an incredible display of hubris," the member said, using a phrase Pelosi herself sometimes employs. "It's incredibly egotistical. We all got us here. We all got us to the promised land and Steny's not going to the promised land?"
The member said regardless of who ultimately wins the Thursday election, the effect of Pelosi actively getting involved in the race would reverberate for some time.
"Either way, it's damaging," the member said. "She will have a tremendous road to hoe to repair the damage she's done."
And what about that bit "when the Speaker instructs you what to do, you do it?" Didn't the Dems just get through running a campaign where they called the House GOP a "rubberstamp?"
Murtha: Leader of the Culture of Corruption
Pelosi "House Cleaning" or Sweeping Under the Rug?
During the campaign, Nancy Pelosi speculated that "maybe it takes a woman to clean the House." Could it be that she was misquoted and meant to say "Clean only the GOP side of the House and leave the garbage in the living room on my side?"
It certainly seems that way. But then, Mike's America readers are among only a handful of Americans well enough informed to know that Congressman Murtha is no Mr. Clean. As the only unindicted co-conspirator in the infamous ABSCAM bribery scandal which broke in 1980 (Google timeline with archive source material) Murtha's unpunished involvement ranks righunindictedith another infamous uninindicted co-conspirator, Richard Nixon, pardoned for his role in Watergate.
Murtha may have escaped prosecution because he was not, as so many were, actually videotaped accepting bribes, but questions remained why he wanted the mysterious Arab sheik to deposit money in banks in Murtha's district. There are also numerous questions regarding Murtha family members enriching themselves as defense lobbyists.
John Fund has the rundown in today's Opinion Journal. And as we're talking about a Democrat here and not Tom Delay, it's unlikely the average American is going to hear too much about this:
Don't expect the American people to know anything about Murtha's ethical cloud. While stories on the Mark Foley page scandal topped 3,000,000 hits in the Google database, A count of search terms: "Murtha Abscam scandal" currently turns up less than 30,000.Meet the New Boss
John Murtha and Congress's "culture of corruption."
By John Fund
Opinion Journal
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
...[S]everal members are privately aghast that Mr. Murtha, a pork-barreling opponent of most House ethics reforms, could become the second most visible symbol of the new Democratic rule. "We are supposed to change business as usual, not put the fox in charge of the henhouse," one Democratic member told me. "It's not just the Abscam scandal of the 1980s that he barely dodged, he's a disaster waiting to happen because of his current behavior," another told me.
As for Abscam, a recent book by George Crile, a producer for CBS's "60 Minutes," provides damning evidence that Mr. Murtha escaped severe punishment for his role in the scandal only because then-Speaker Tip O'Neill arranged for the House Ethics Committee to drop the charges, over the objections of the committee's outside prosecutor. The prosecutor quickly resigned in protest.
Outside observers are equally aghast that Mr. Murtha could win tomorrow's election. Thomas Mann, a Brookings Institution scholar who is co-author of "The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track," told the Los Angeles Times that "John Murtha is not the right poster child" for a Democratic House that says it wants to sweep away corruption.
Melanie Sloan, the liberal head of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, was cheered on by Democrats six weeks ago when she helped reveal the Mark Foley scandal. Now she says that "Ms. Pelosi"s endorsement of Rep. Murtha, one of the most unethical members of Congress, show that she may have prioritized ethics reform merely to win votes with no real commitment to changing the culture of corruption."
Former members are also speaking out. Chris Bell, a former Democratic House member from Texas who was his party's unsuccessful nominee for governor this year, told the Washington Post that Mr. Murtha was instrumental in making Rep. Alan Mollohan of West Virginia the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee. Mr. Bell says Reps. Mollohan and Murtha both helped to slow ethics reform to a crawl for much of the last two years. This spring, Mr. Mollohan was forced to step down from his Ethics Committee position after The Wall Street Journal reported that he had underreported personal assets and steered earmarks to various West Virginia entities founded or controlled by his close political allies.
Mr. Murtha has also been front and center in the controversy over earmarks, the individual portions of pork members of Congress often secretly secure for their districts or favored constituents. Mr. Murtha is the ranking Democratic member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and for the past three years has been the House's top recipient of defense industry cash. Few in Washington are surprised that his lobbyist brother, Robert "Kit" Murtha, was until his retirement this summer an enormously successful "earmark specialist" for the Beltway firm KSA Consulting. In recent years, Kit Murtha brought in a mother lode of earmarks for at least 16 defense manufacturers with business before the Appropriations Committee.
Last year, the Los Angeles Times reported that "most of KSA's defense contractor clients hired the firm in hopes of securing funding from Rep. Murtha's subcommittee, according to lobbying records and interviews. And most retained the firm after Kit Murtha became a senior partner in 2002." Kit Murtha told the Times that he saw Rep. Murtha only infrequently, but said the congressman knew he was a KSA lobbyist. "I don't think that influences him," Kit said of his brother. "I certainly would hope not."
...
Mr. Murtha was among those who were offered the Abscam bribe money. He declined it, but the late columnist Jack Anderson said the Pennsylvania congressman's conduct was "perhaps the saddest scene on the secret Abscam videotapes. He refused to take the money, but his reason was hardly noble."
The 54-minute Abscam tape shows Mr. Murtha functioning as a cynical backroom operator, telling the FBI undercover agents: "You know, you made an offer. It might be that I might change my mind someday." Later, he explained how that might happen: "I want to deal with you guys awhile before I make any transactions at all, period," he told the fake sheiks. "After we've done some business, well, then I might change my mind. I'm going to tell you this. If anybody can do it--I am not BSing you fellows--I can get it done my way. There's no question about it."
...
A few moments later in the tape, Mr. Murtha continues his discussion of how "a business commitment" in his district would be structured: "A business commitment that makes it imperative for me to help him. Just, let me tell you something. I'm sure if--and there's a lot of things I've done up here, with environmental regulations, with all kinds of waivers of laws and regulations.
...
It appears that what Mr. Murtha was referring to was a form of investment not for the sake of investment, but because "that's the secret" to how you can take a bribe and get away with it. Mr. Murtha was never indicted for his role in Abscam, even though he testified in federal court that he had called his "immigration guy" to determine what could be done to help the fake sheik with his immigration problems.
But in 1981, the House Ethics Committee became concerned that Mr. Murtha had, at a minimum, violated House rules that required he report any attempt at bribery, which he had not. A special prosecutor, Barrett Prettyman, was appointed to oversee the committee's investigation. He soon expanded his probe beyond the six House members who were directly involved and began moving against Rep. Murtha. He was also rumored to be offering deals in exchange for testimony that would take the scandal inside the office of Speaker O'Neill.
That was the final straw from the irascible O'Neill. He determined to shut the investigation down, and the story of how he did it makes up a fascinating part of Mr. Crile's book, "Charlie Wilson's War" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003).
...
Crile reported that in early 1981 Speaker O'Neill called Rep. Wilson into his office and told him he wanted him to join the Ethics Committee right away. The Texas congressman had been pestering him for years to get a lifetime seat on the board the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. "It's the best perk in town," Mr. Wilson told Crile. "It means that I get the box right next to the president's box for the ballet when I want it. I get to go to all the cast parties, meet all the movie stars, and I get an extra invitation to the White House every season."
O'Neill made it clear he would appoint Mr. Wilson to the board he coveted, but that he would have to join the Ethics Committee to take care of the Murtha matter. "It's a package deal, Chally," O'Neill is said to have told Mr. Wilson.
"The word on Charlie was that he didn't talk," ex-Rep. Tony Coelho, who became majority whip after O'Neill's retirement, told Crile. "From time to time the speaker needed to mount irregular operations, and Wilson was one of those irregulars Tip could count on." Mr. Wilson didn't need any prodding for his task: "He was a happy warrior as he raced to the rescue of his imperiled friend John Murtha," Crile wrote.
Crile reported that prior to Mr. Wilson's arrival on the Ethics Committee, it had largely given Mr. Prettyman, the special counsel, a free hand in his probe. That quickly changed: "Before Prettyman could fully deploy his investigators to move on the Murtha case, he was informed that the committee had concluded there was no justification for an investigation." The Ethics Committee chairman, Rep. Louis Stokes of Ohio, suddenly declared "This matter is closed."
Mr. Prettyman, who had already likened the Ethics Committee to "a misdemeanor court faced with a multiple murder," was furious at the dramatic change of course. He abruptly resigned his post the same afternoon the committee voted to clear Mr. Murtha.
One scandal involved a relatively obscure Congressman, the other a man who stands to be the second most powerful Democrat in Congress. Which is more important?
And for those spinmeisters out there who may wish to insist that the ABSCAM case is old news, we might ask if they were among the chorus who trumpeted President Bush's 1976 arrest for DUI in the final week before the 2000 election? And we might also point out that the search term "Bush DUI" gets 1,580,000 hits in Google.
Good job cleaning the House Nancy! What's next? How about a former federal judge impeached for bribery, corruption and obstruction of justice as head of the House Intelligence Committee? Looks like a safe bet, as only 76,100 stories on Google mention it.
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