You know, Murphy Brown's look more red-state all the time.

March 23, 2006 11:05 AM

Remember back in the '90s when the GOP was still the party of fiscal conservatism, and the shiny new code word was "family values"? Well, they still believe in family values part: Exhibit 1. Exhibit 2. Exhibit 3.
posted by hwestiii (31 comments total)

Yeah, I know. GYOFB.
posted by hwestiii at 11:05 AM on March 23, 2006

Yeah really. It's not like democrats don't do this sort of thing as well. And honestly, who cares?

A little corruption is good; the only way we'd ever stamp it out is to elect only obnoxious moralists.
posted by delmoi at 11:12 AM on March 23, 2006

Remember back in the '90s when the GOP was still the party of fiscal conservatism

No, I remember when they used to claim to be the party of fiscal conservatism and family values. Big difference.
posted by Pollomacho at 11:12 AM on March 23, 2006

Man, just think of Kathrine Harris in a womans prison...

NICE!
posted by delmoi at 11:13 AM on March 23, 2006

Let me clarify: big difference.
posted by Pollomacho at 11:15 AM on March 23, 2006

I underestand that most posters and most of those who comment are Liberals, Left of center, but they ought to know that BOTH parties are guilty of those things this post suggest, even though it may well be the conservatives (GOP) who mouth one thing and do another. In fact, one might blame the capitalist system but then other systems also have corruption and favortism etc. Then one could turn to what Nader and Perot some time ago pointed out: American democracy is in the hands of the corporations and their lobby folks. They make the laws and Congress mostly carries out the will of the coroporations. You can see a very good and recent example of this in the attempt to protect pensions: the bill got so watered down by members of BOTH parties that it is now a bill to protect the interests of the corporations--big business.
Is there a moral then? Yes. We can dislike what the GOP is doing now but then they are in power now. But the Dems will and have done the same thing. Until something significant is done about the power of lobbies and corporations (look at the friggin tax structure for them!), nothing is going to change except the party labels involved in such unseemly things.
posted by Postroad at 11:18 AM on March 23, 2006

And obviously we have a bunch of obnoxious moralists in power right now, who are also hypocritical, but we shouldn't set the bar so high, otherwise when dems get power back, and become corrupt, people will call us hypocrites for complaining about these things.

What we can't have is corruption at the level where it damages the country, for example, bribing congress to support one weapons system over another one which might be better for the troups.
posted by delmoi at 11:19 AM on March 23, 2006

I agree with postroad.
posted by Pollomacho at 11:19 AM on March 23, 2006

In other words there's a diffrence between 'damaging' corruption and every-day run of the mill corruption, which is just a bunch of BS people use to smear their political enimes without thought or rational.
posted by delmoi at 11:29 AM on March 23, 2006

so, this doesn't suck because Clinton the Democrats did that too!
it's all OK then!
*chuckle*
posted by matteo at 11:43 AM on March 23, 2006

so, this doesn't suck because Clinton the Democrats did that too!
it's all OK then!
*chuckle*

Trying to rid all government of all corruption is no diffrent then trying to rid all the world of prostitution or drug use. It's not going to happen, and the only want to even attempt it is to elect crazy people to government, which will make things much worse in the end.
posted by delmoi at 11:47 AM on March 23, 2006

I agree delmoi, and in fact have been advocating the position that humans are inherently inefficient and corruptible, the degree is what matters in the end. However, if people break these types of rules you should nail them to the wall (D or R). It keeps things in check to a certain degree, otherwise you end up with different rules for people who have money/power and who do not. (which may be the case unofficially, but is something to strive against)
posted by edgeways at 11:55 AM on March 23, 2006

To put to put to rest the idea that Neil Bush's educational multimedia effort might actually be worth something--because, you know, maybe it's a great program--I offer you this, and this, and this direct from his company's servers. (all require Realplayer)
posted by nonmyopicdave at 11:56 AM on March 23, 2006

The GOP has been the party of "family values" since Reagan demonized urban black women in 1980. Also, what postroad said.
posted by psmealey at 12:01 PM on March 23, 2006

Trying to rid all government of all corruption is no diffrent then trying to rid all the world of prostitution or drug use. It's not going to happen, and the only want to even attempt it is to elect crazy people to government, which will make things much worse in the end.

Perhaps that's the logical result of the extreme, but the complacent result of declaring inevitable failure is just as bad. We're all going to lose the battle against death eventually but in striving we extend our lives and live better. Doing too little is as bad as doing too much and the same goes for pointing out corruption.
posted by phearlez at 12:03 PM on March 23, 2006

Yeah really. It's not like democrats don't do this sort of thing as well. And honestly, who cares?

A little corruption is good; the only way we'd ever stamp it out is to elect only obnoxious moralists.
posted by delmoi at 11:12 AM PST on March 23

Bullshit. While Democrats are no stranger to corruption - Chicago comes to mind - the Republican party has of late excelled in both back-room dealings and straight-up bribery. It is an affront to democracy and a slap in the face of all Americans, right, left, and moderate.

Corruption is treason and should be treated exactly the same way. Cunningham should be hung by the neck until he is dead, as should his co-conspirators and all the other petty men and women who see public service as only another way to make a buck.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 12:05 PM on March 23, 2006

the complacent result of declaring inevitable failure is just as bad

Amen to that. I was listening to Brian Lehrer from last week. He was interviewing David Brooks (who I mostly think is an idiot), but he had something really interesting to say about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. He thought, or so he said, in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, that the whole fiasco would trigger a national dialogue on poverty in the United States. It never happened in any serious way.

He said, that the reason for this, was that we have basically given up on poverty in this country. That people in the middle and upper classes look at it as something that is beyond us to handle. It's pointless to try, because it is a losing battle. Why bother?

I think more than anything, this is the tragedy wrought by the rise of the counter establishment, the Reagan revolution, or whatever you want to call it. It's defeatism with regard to federal government being able to do anything about this, has allowed us to be completely indifferent to it.

By the same token, we have squandered TRILLIONS on needless armaments, wars and death and destruction.

I am sure that it would be quite difficult to fix this problem at the Federal level, even with billions of dollars to spend. But we gave up mostly because our family values conservatives let us off the hook, but a pox on our house for not even trying.

Lyndon Johnson was a motherfucker, there's no doubt about that. His eternal soul (if he has one) will always bear the burden of three million Vietnamese who died more or less meaninglessly, but... he did take on the cause of civil rights. And because he brought the full weight of his political will to bear on it, nearly forty years later, American society has transformed.

Clearly, we have a long way yet to go, but that's one example of an idea (institutionally ingrained racism) that can be defeated by activism at the Federal level.
posted by psmealey at 12:13 PM on March 23, 2006

I'll be holding my breath until the IRS audits Barbara Bush and her Katrina "donation".

It was nice knowing everyone.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 12:16 PM on March 23, 2006

Man with no anus holds breath



Sighs of relief from other quarters
posted by Kirth Gerson at 1:48 PM on March 23, 2006

What? Neil Bush doesn't count as a charity case?
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 1:50 PM on March 23, 2006

The Cunningham case - yeah that's corrupt. But since when is donating private money that benefits a relative and/or hiring relatives with private money considered corrupt or immoral?
posted by wabashbdw at 1:57 PM on March 23, 2006

He said, that the reason for this, was that we have basically given up on poverty in this country. That people in the middle and upper classes look at it as something that is beyond us to handle. It's pointless to try, because it is a losing battle. Why bother?

I think this is the tragedy you get when you make things a black and white fight, and why I am opposed to either side making sweeping generalizations and demonizing the opposition. In the poverty issue we've reached the point where one side believes that poverty is a choice and that people down at the bottom have made a decision in their actions to get there and the other side sees poverty as almost a communicable disease that people suffering from it cannot be blamed for their condition and must be helped to survive it and overcome it.

Both sides are right to an extent and both are wrong. However they're both so entrenched and their political fortunes so intertwined with how they handle things that you will see polar bears in hell before a democrat admits that there's a lot of personal responsibility issues involved in being poor or republicans admitting that the poor may need a lot of assistance before they are equipped to make the decision to not be poor. Ditto on democrats admitting that some financial bailouts may be unhealthy for us as a country or republicans seeing situations where simply giving someone a buck is the only resolution to a problem.

It could be my conclusions and what I think are solutions are completely full of shit, but it's hard for me to know - years go by in between my finding people who are interested in the dialog and not the defeat or increased funding of existing solutions.
posted by phearlez at 2:03 PM on March 23, 2006

The Cunningham case - yeah that's corrupt. But since when is donating private money that benefits a relative and/or hiring relatives with private money considered corrupt or immoral?
posted by wabashbdw at 1:57 PM PST on March 23

That's not necessarily corrupt, but it is immoral. She is getting the benefit of being seen as a sweet lady who donates to disadvantaged kids when in fact that money will only go to buying her drug-addicted, whore-chasing, Moonie son's bullshit products.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 2:05 PM on March 23, 2006

A little corruption is good; the only way we'd ever stamp it out is to elect only obnoxious moralists.

Oh come on delmoi, you are smarter then this. Don't you know a little corruption is exactly what is needed to slowly erode the rule of law ? Because if you accept that there is an authority that should apply law, but doesn't because is corrupt, you shoud similarly accept to reduce that law so that he is no longer corrupt.

Slowly, steadly, a little more corruption is accepted and sooner then later you will be asked to completely discard the law and you no longer remember why the rule was there in first place, because human memory isn't that good

You are right when you predict there will NEVER be a total eradication, but only because you can't eradicate perfectly permanently ignorance, fear and greed from human nature ; yet this isn't a good enough reason to declare forfait as if a little unrestricted greed was acceptable.

Indeed people will not complain if they are not immediately affected by the corruption, because most of them don't know where it starts and how it operates. Here in italy we could materially see some of it effects, but the most brutal ones are harder to see and escape cognition.

For instance, the educational system has been many time brutalized and reduced by law from an excellent one to a mediocre semiprivatized one with the goddamn faith based school substracting resources, but also with noticeable interference of private system who demanded high skill worker at comparatively low cost : they were satisfied for a while..even now US steals some very excellent researcher from Italy.

Yet the best and brightest teachers suffered from two point: market not being slightly interested in teachers, State not having enough resources to employ all the good teachers we produced. Private sector didn't want to spend a dime on school, as State always did...so few went into religious school ,which constantly pay LESS then State and screw the best teacher with indoctrination.

What happened is Italy lost a significant number of excellent teachers with predictable consequences ; enter corruption and interference from markets that paid our politicians to reduce the quality of our schools even more and more importantly, to MORE QUICKLY release kids into workforce, regardless of qualty.

In a "surprising" reversal now private companies complain about the education of workforce, but don't want to spend a dime on them so they keep the wages extra-low with excuses of work force incompetence. But there is little to corrupt right now...or no ?

No there still are pensions ! Take the pension away or reduce them significantly and you'll have a strong motivator to work more for less and more financial stability....so the politicians were corrupted to say us more financial risk, more financial instability is GOOD for the masses.

A little corruption can also backpedal us to 1900 I guess.
posted by elpapacito at 2:32 PM on March 23, 2006

There are a couple of things about these particular items that really bug me. First of Mrs. Rhymes-with-witch isn't just putting money in her son's pocket, she's doing a charity as a pass through. This is just high society money laundering.

With respect to the Congressmen, as I understand it, their wives are both fund raising consultants who work on commission. Regardless of whether or not they are good at what they do, the net effect is that X% of the money dontated to the Congressmen's reelection campaigns effectively go into the Congressman Y family budget. That is just utterly transparent to me, and I don't see how they can either get away with it or justify it with a straight face.
posted by hwestiii at 2:47 PM on March 23, 2006

I hope you people all take a real close look at the hijinks your elected officials play, and make sure you know exactly what sort of person you're electing to office.

'cause, y'know, it's becoming extremely obvious that however y'all have been choosing your reps before, it didn't work.
posted by five fresh fish at 4:45 PM on March 23, 2006

It amazes me that Barbara Bush thought she could get away with this. Not that it's necessarily 'evil' or even illegal in any way, but just because of the sheer audacity, of having your one son fuck up the Katria situation so badly, and then you 'donate' money to another's son's crappy program?
posted by cell divide at 4:52 PM on March 23, 2006

It amazes me that Barbara Bush thought she could get away with this.

Her idiot first-born managed to get installed as President of the United States and go to war on false pretenses with hardly any fuss from our faithful media watchdogs. I don't blame her for thinking a little tax-deductible donation to the third of her hell-spawn would escape notice.
posted by longdaysjourney at 6:19 PM on March 23, 2006

I don't think it's the hallmark of any particular party. The party in power tends to be more corrupt. Particularly now - no oversight. But I don't know things would be different under the Dems.
Still, something we should really stomp on. It's irritating that they just get away with it.
posted by Smedleyman at 7:12 AM on March 24, 2006

I don't blame her for thinking a little tax-deductible donation to the third of her hell-spawn would escape notice.

You know what's great about this country? It's that we are a nation of laws and not of men, so her little deduction (pass through of allowance money to her son) is every bit as likely to be challenged by the IRS as my contributions to Act Blue or the ACLU.

Right.
posted by psmealey at 7:49 AM on March 24, 2006

Yeah, I know. GYOFB.

get your own fuckwit blog?
posted by quonsar at 11:36 AM on March 25, 2006