Gee, wouldn't it have been nice if the Post and the
Pennsylvania papers had aired these stories before the
election, but I guess that would have interfered with the
whole "Republicans are the only corrupt party" around
message.
Now they tell us
Betsy's Page
For months, the media has lionized Jack Murtha. But, now after Pelosi has indicated her support for Murtha as the new Majority Leader over Steny Hoyer, the Washington Post has decided to weigh in and throw their support to Hoyer, the more moderate candidate. Not that they're actually editorializing in favor of Hoyer. Instead, they're doing to Murtha what they so often do to Republicans - review accusations of corruption against Murtha that supposedly other Democrats are bringing up.
<<< House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi's endorsement of Rep. John P. Murtha's bid for House majority leader set off a furor yesterday on Capitol Hill, with critics charging that she is undercutting her pledge to clean up corruption by backing a veteran lawmaker who they say has repeatedly skirted ethical boundaries.
Pelosi (D-Calif.) directly intervened in the heated contest between Murtha (D-Pa.) and House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) on Sunday by circulating a letter to Democratic lawmakers. The letter voiced her support for Murtha and put her prestige on the line in a closely fought leadership battle. Some Democratic lawmakers and watchdog groups say they are baffled that Pelosi would go out of her way to back Murtha's candidacy after pledging to make the new 110th Congress the most ethical and corruption-free in history.
Murtha, a longtime senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, has battled accusations over the years that he has traded federal spending for campaign contributions, that he has abused his post as ranking party member on the Appropriations defense subcommittee, and that he has stood in the way of ethics investigations. Those charges come on top of Murtha's involvement 26 years ago in the FBI's Abscam bribery sting.
"Pelosi's endorsement suggests to me she was interested in the culture of corruption only as a campaign issue and has no real interest in true reform," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a Democratic-leaning group. "It is shocking to me that someone with [Murtha's] ethics problems could be number two in the House leadership."
"People have known about these things for months," said one Democratic House member who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to anger the presumed incoming speaker. "I am sure they are going to become much more important in the next few days." >>>
Of course, conservative bloggers have written about these accusations of corruption against Jack Murtha since he emerged as the lead spokesman of the Democrats in favor of a pullout from Iraq. But, somehow, these stories that "people have known about these things for months," didn't make it to the front page of the Washington Post until after the election. Now they tell us about this story.
<<< At issue is Murtha's relationships with two defense lobbyists. Paul Magliocchetti of the PMA Group is a former aide to the lawmaker, and Robert "Kit" Murtha is his brother and was a senior partner at KSA Consulting from 2002 to 2005.
The PMA Group has become the go-to firm to approach Murtha as ranking Democrat on the Appropriations defense subcommittee, CREW charges. In the 2006 defense appropriations bill, PMA clients reaped at least 60 special provisions, or "earmarks," worth more than $95 million.
The PMA Group and its clients have been top campaign contributors for Murtha: $274,649 in the 2006 campaign cycle, $236,799 in the 2004 cycle and $279,074 in the 2002 cycle, according to CREW's tallies.
After Kit Murtha joined KSA Consulting in 2002, one of his first clients was a wireless networking company called Aeptec Microsystems Inc., which was seeking to build a business complex in Murtha's district with a Pennsylvania state grant. Aeptec executive Michael Hoban contributed $2,000 to Murtha's campaign that year.
In 2004, Murtha helped secure the grant. A few months later, the Appropriations subcommittee approved a $4.2 million earmark for the company.
Murtha may be the Democratic Party's consummate dealer in home-district spending. Taxpayers for Common Sense identified more than $103 million in earmarks in the 2006 defense spending bill that Murtha requested for his home district in southwestern Pennsylvania -- nearly $80 million of which cleared President Bush's desk. >>>
Gee, wouldn't it have been nice if the Post and the Pennsylvania papers had aired these stories before the election, but I guess that would have interfered with the whole "Republicans are the only corrupt party" around message.
betsyspage.blogspot.com
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