MS. PELOSI & MR. PAYOFF
NEW YORK POST
Editorial
November 16, 2006
Was it only a week ago that a triumphant Nancy Pelosi, presumptive new speaker of the House, crowed to an Election Night crowd that "Democrats intend to lead the most open, the most honest and the most ethical Congress in history"?
Well, so much for that promise.
Obviously choosing not to lead by example, Pelosi has thrown the prestige of her new position behind the ethically tainted Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania for majority leader, spurning the man who's in line for the job, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland.
A bitterly divided House Democratic caucus votes today - and if it goes with Murtha, it'll have selected one of the most ethically dubious members of the entire Congress.
Indeed, many of the good-government groups that decried the state of ethics in the GOP-controlled Congress have long complained that Murtha represents just about everything that's wrong with Washington.
Groups like the National Legal and Policy Center - whose chairman, Ken Boehm, warned that Murtha's selection would "be a clear sign that the new Congress has no intention of ending the culture of corruption."
In the '80s, Murtha escaped ignominy - and probably worse - in the Abscam scandal only through the personal intervention of then-Speaker Tip O'Neill, it was reported in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. (More below.)
More recently, he has become a master of the congressional "earmark" - federal bucks steered to a legislator's pet projects and/or pals back home.
Reciprocity typically comes in the form of campaign contributions. In Murtha's case, defense contractors have been especially generous, donating some $179,000 in the current campaign cycle - more than they gave to any other member of Congress.
Over the past three cycles, Murtha has gotten more than $300,000 from former staffer Paul Magliocchetti - whose company and clients got 64 earmarks worth $95 million in 2006 alone.
Similarly, funds have been allocated by the House Appropriations Committee, on which Murtha is the top Democrat, to KSA Consulting, one of whose top officials is a longtime Murtha staffer, and one of whose registered lobbyists is the congressman's own brother.
And it's not as if this is something new on Murtha's part.
He was named as an undicted co-conspirator in the notorious Abscam sting after he was videotaped being offered a $50,000 bribe by FBI agents posing as Arab sheiks.
Yes, Murtha turned the money down - while saying he first wanted "to deal with you guys awhile before I make any transactions."
To save his skin, Murtha quickly flipped, appearing as a government witness against two congressmen who went to prison for bribe-taking.
Then the O'Neill-controlled House Ethics Committee rejected - on a party-line vote - an attempt to bring misconduct charges against him. That caused the committee's special counsel, the much-respected E. Barrett Prettyman Jr., to resign in protest.
And Pelosi is expending her political capital on Murtha?
As the executive director of the liberal reform group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington noted, "Pelosi's endorsement [of Murtha] suggests . . . that she was interested in the culture of corruption only as a campaign issue and has no real interest in reform."
If House Democrats go along with Pelosi's cynical ploy today - and who's to doubt that they'll do just that - they'll be endorsing her hypocrisy.
Hell of a way to start a House-cleaning.
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