What He Said: Josh Marshall Edition

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: June 19, 2005 - June 25, 2005 Archives

Word for word ... I second it. Truce be damned, take an axe to the other side and let the blood fall where it may.

The Republicans are running the most corrupt Congress in any of our lifetimes. I don't care if you're a hundred years old. Still applies. I'm not just talking about law breaking -- just as much, it's the practices that are actually legal but no less corrupt for that.

On Wednesday, the Post's Jeff Birnbaum had a story on the explosion in the lobbying trade since 2000. If the Dems want their knock-out campaign cudgel for 2006, Jeff provided it: "The number of registered lobbyists in Washington has more than doubled since 2000 to more than 34,750 while the amount that lobbyists charge their new clients has increased by as much as 100 percent."

In explaining these developments Birnbaum writes: "The lobbying boom has been caused by three factors, experts say: rapid growth in government, Republican control of both the White House and Congress, and wide acceptance among corporations that they need to hire professional lobbyists to secure their share of federal benefits."

Now, a daily newspaper man works under different constraints and has a different brief than someone in my shoes. And this is what my late advisor Jack Thomas would have called a crackerjack piece. But I think I can cover this ground even more simply.

How's this? In Washington today, everything is for sale so there are a lot more salesmen. And there's so much to sell they're all getting higher commissions.

It may lack the granularity of Jeff's explanation. But that is the essence of the matter. That's why there are so many more lobbyists. The whole place is corrupt to the core. It's Tammany on the Potomac.

And here's the most pitiful thing of all. The Republicans are running a wildly corrupt Congress -- particularly on the House side. And the Democrats are so shorn of power that they couldn't even manage to be very corrupt if they tried. After all, this kind of corruption is about selling access and power. And the Democrats have no access or power!

So how is it exactly that the Democrats should be afraid that the Republicans are going to be able to give as good as they get if there's an 'ethics war' in the House when that is the case. Some are just scared. Others, particularly some of the veterans, don't want to clamp down too much because they've spent ten years out of power and they don't want all the fun to be over if and when they finally get back in the saddle.

If elected Democrats aren't able or willing to take a stand against the cash-n-carry legislative ethos of Tom DeLay's Washington they're simply not doing the job anyone sent them there to do. And they should be replaced too.