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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill who wrote (122481)	1/18/2001 11:58:58 AM
From: Mr. Palau	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769667

How about these righteous Republicans? In 1982 fellow Illinois Republican Rep. Dan Crane was accused of having an affair with his 17 year old page. Crane confessed and it seemed he was going to be kicked out of the House until Hyde came to his rescue: We sit here not to characterize the crime, the breach, the transgression, because we all know that the transgression…is stipulated as reprehensible…He is embarrassed, he is humiliated, he is displaced…It will be with him, and it will be with his family as long as they live…Mr. Speaker, I suggest to the members that compassion and justice are not antithetical; they are complimentary. The Judeo-Christian tradition says, ‘Hate the sin and love the sinner.’ We are on record as hating the sin…I think it is time to love the sinner. (Bernstein, 69). First of all, Hyde obviously felt that Crane too was still capable of serving in office, despite that what he did was 2-5 hard time for statutory rape in some states. Hyde, Clinton, and Crane had all committed adultery, and yet according to Hyde’s scale, Clintons crime weighed heavier for some reason (though it would seem that Clintons was actually the most harmless offense, because Hyde had a public affair with a married woman for eight years resulting in the break up of her family, and Crane had had sex with a minor, as compared to Clintons ‘covert’ affairs). And once again Hyde used the argument that the effects of exposure were punishment enough for "him [Crane], and it will be with his family as long as they live" and that warranted "compassion and justice," which required bending Hyde’s precious rule of law to protect a fellow Republican. Whatever, right? debate.uvm.edu

To: Bill who wrote (122481)	1/18/2001 12:00:21 PM
From: Mr. Palau	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Or this conservative protector of American family values? Burton, they said, was damaged goods. Stories were circulating on the Hill that the fiery Hoosier Republican, a known womanizer, had fathered a child out of wedlock and that it was only a matter of time before it surfaced in the media. Gingrich dismissed the allegations as trivial and unimportant. The Speaker was engaged in an illicit affair of his own with a House Agriculture Committee staff member and had little stomach to punish another member of his own party for extra-marital dalliances. But Burton had a more serious problem. He had approved nearly $500,000 in payments and salary to a former model named Claudia Keller, who was also listed as his campaign manager, and who appeared simultaneously on his political and official House payrolls. It is against the law for lawmakers to use their office budgets to subsidize their campaigns, or vice versa. In Burton's case, the dual payments to Keller, mostly over a nine year span, were often made during the same periods of time, according to federal records. In one year, according to House Finance office documents and FEC records, Keller received almost $22,000 for working at Burton's Indianapolis and Greenwood district offices an average of two days a week, along with nearly $44,000 for her full-time campaign job. The Burton campaign had also paid Keller $250 a month to rent office space in her Lawrence, Ind., home, which is outside Burton's district, by declaring it the campaign headquarters. And Keller also received more than $50,000 in campaign-related expenses, including payments for appearances by her clown service, FEC records show. Keller was well known in Burton's district as a longtime girlfriend. Denise Range, a neighbor, said she often saw Keller wearing lingerie when Burton came to visit. Melissa Bickel, another neighbor, said Keller would send her daughter over to their house when Burton came calling, which was three or four times a week. When asked about this at the time, a Burton spokesman said he was not sure what Keller's duties were, but would "look into it." Keller later moved to Washington to become the Congressman's scheduler. Burton eventually went public about his out-of-wedlock child just before the Indianapolis Star was about to break the story. Even reluctant Democrats agreed he handled the issue well, admitting the affair and expressing regret about the damage it inflicted on his marriage. capitolhillblue.com