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You are here: Home / Politics / I Concur

I Concur

by John Cole|  August 15, 200512:34 pm| 24 Comments

This post is in: Politics

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Sometimes when I read the Daily Kos, I am just shocked by what I find. This is one of those times:

Some day, once the current GOP dominance collapses under the weight of their corruption, we’ll have Dems playing the same dirty game. Republicans rally around their sleaziest bad-government practicioners, as we know the elephant flies above the Stars and Stripes to the typical Bush/DeLay apologist.

The moral imperative behind a “clean government” crusade is self-evident. But there’s also a practical reason to oppose corruption even amongst Democrats — it’s a sure-fire way to lose elections. Rampant Democratic corruption cost us Congress in 1994, and we’ve yet to recover. And continued Democratic corruption has made House Dems wary of charging ahead with the “corruption” theme to hard, lest some of the current members get snared in the web.

Good. Let those who sit in Congress enriching themselves go down. They are supposed to be doing the people’s business, not their own. Unlike the GOP apologists, I consider corruption a non-partisan issue. I’d like to see them all thrown out with the Capitol trash.

I concur. And for extra fun, it even comes with a dig at Kerry at the end.

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Reader Interactions

24Comments

  1. 1.

    Mr Furious

    August 15, 2005 at 12:45 pm

    Amen.

  2. 2.

    Steve

    August 15, 2005 at 12:51 pm

    One-party rule always leads to bad things. The Democrats call most of the shots in New Jersey – and look at all the shameful conduct it has wrought, from McGreevey to the Lautenberg-Torricelli switch. Only pure hubris keeps them from realizing that they will end up exactly like the Ohio or Kentucky GOP if they keep it up.

  3. 3.

    KC

    August 15, 2005 at 12:53 pm

    I saw that yesterday. You know, DKos has been pushing anti-corruption for a while. His frustration with Dems on this issue isn’t new. I think his goal is to get a new breed of Dem elected to Congress. I’m basically with him on that all the way around. Whether Congress is Republican or Democratic, I think there needs to be more public openness, better standards for bill amendment procedures, and generally, anything else that can make members more accountable to their districts. Just read the latest Rolling Stone to see why these changes must be made.

  4. 4.

    Brad R.

    August 15, 2005 at 12:55 pm

    Y’ever notice that the most corrupt politicians seem to come from Texas? I mean Jim Wright, the Dem leader who got us in trouble in the mid-’90s, was a Texan. DeLay is, of course, a Texan. And then when you think of the lowest, sleaziest presidential campaign ads (Lyndon’s “Daisy,” Bush I’s Willie Horton, Dubya’s Swift Boat Vets), they’re all done on behalf of Texas politicians.

    Bottom line: Texans should be banned from holding leadership positions in Washington. Now, I’m sure some whiny-ass Texan will read this, choke on his cheeseburger fries and say, “But that’s discrimination!” To which I’ll reply, “Yes. Yes it is.”

  5. 5.

    Brad R.

    August 15, 2005 at 12:56 pm

    And for the record, even though I find many of his readers to be insane and tin foil-y, this is one of the reasons I like Kos.

  6. 6.

    Demdude

    August 15, 2005 at 1:06 pm

    I agree completely

    At this current time, there is no oversight of money spent by our govt. We can’t account for 8 billion in Iraq. WTF?

    Our members of Congress have no problems getting their transportation and lodging paid for by Lobbyist. I don’t care how the hell you spin, it is not right.

    Democrats doing it too? Throw their asses out on the street. Corruption is corruption.

    I’ve always thought that oversight of Defense Contracts should be done by Liberals and oversight of Social Programs should be done by Conservatives. It helps keep the process honest.

    Time to clean house and it is obvious the folks knee deep in the garbage are not going to do it.

  7. 7.

    MisterPundit

    August 15, 2005 at 1:08 pm

    Sometimes when I read the Daily Kos, I am just shocked by what I find.

    No kidding. I nearly swallowed my coffee cup. Please, next time Kos comes up with something sensible, put some warning labels on it so we’re better prepared :-)

  8. 8.

    Pelikan

    August 15, 2005 at 1:16 pm

    I know you’re all being ironic for the most part, but it should be pretty obvious to all that Kos readers aren’t all insane, it’s just that the insane ones are the most vocal. 90% are, at worst, very partisan. I would choose even the craziest over your average FreeRepublic member any day too.

    Kos’s other main soapbox lately has also been that we should listen more to reps from the mountain statess, such as Gov. Schweitzer, can anyone tell me why that’s so bad?

  9. 9.

    Steve

    August 15, 2005 at 1:18 pm

    Basically, honesty and accountability in government is one of the few things everyone can agree on, Right or Left; it also happens to be one of the few things that politicians of both parties agree on, they just happen to take the opposite position.

  10. 10.

    KC

    August 15, 2005 at 1:22 pm

    For some reason, this post had me go to Juan Cole’s site to see how things are going in our other Congress. In his latest post he suggests that the Iraqi Parliament, according to the interim constitution, is supposed to be dissolved in the absence of a constitution. What’s even more interesting is that Ibrahim Jaafari will effectively be the country’s one man ruler until there are new elections. Kind of troublesome, I think.

  11. 11.

    Marcus Wellby

    August 15, 2005 at 1:22 pm

    Well it is part of a much larger difference between the blogs of the left and those of the right. For the most part, the lefty blogs hammer Dems almost as much as Republicans. Sure, they rallied around Kerry during the election, but many were less than pleased with him as a candidate (as a MA resident I knew he was a freakin’ nightmare, and a boring one at that). Sadly, with the exception of this blog, few on the right are as critical of the current GOP.

    Kos is quite quick to call bullshit on Dems when it is needed. So is John, regarding the GOP. Probably the reason these are the only two blogs I still visit. Though, I tend to avoid the comments at Kos — its the left-wing equivelent of the yahoos at RedState.

  12. 12.

    Rome Again

    August 15, 2005 at 1:31 pm

    I thought of you when I read that yesterday John, and I also concur. See? We can agree on some things.

  13. 13.

    Demdude

    August 15, 2005 at 1:40 pm

    For some reason, this post had me go to Juan Cole’s site to see how things are going in our other Congress. In his latest post he suggests that the Iraqi Parliament, according to the interim constitution, is supposed to be dissolved in the absence of a constitution. What’s even more interesting is that Ibrahim Jaafari will effectively be the country’s one man ruler until there are new elections. Kind of troublesome, I think.

    I also read Juan Cole. It seems to be a good place to get some in depth insight into the workings of the Middle East.

    Does anyone have some suggestions of other in-depth blogs discussing the Middle East? (Not looking for blantantly rantings from any side, just discussion.)

  14. 14.

    Stormy70

    August 15, 2005 at 1:47 pm

    Y’ever notice that the most corrupt politicians seem to come from Texas?

    Add Illinois and New Jersey to the rant, as well.

  15. 15.

    Mike S

    August 15, 2005 at 1:49 pm

    Add Illinois and New Jersey to the rant, as well.

    Ohio is quickly joining that list as well.

  16. 16.

    KC

    August 15, 2005 at 2:10 pm

    Demdude, I’ve looked for other sites with in-depth information on Iraq, but haven’t found any worth going to regularly. For political developments, Cole’s is the best (this isn’t to suggest Cole is right about everything). There are also a number of Iraqi run blogs, like Riverbend, that are interesting.

  17. 17.

    Brad R.

    August 15, 2005 at 2:17 pm

    Illinois, New Jersey and Ohio are good on a local level (and so is my home state of Massachusetts, for that matter… don’t even get me started on The Big Dig…), but on a national level, nobody does it like Texas.

  18. 18.

    Luddite

    August 15, 2005 at 2:18 pm

    Brad R:

    Can I have Ranch Dressing on my Cheeseburger Fries? I need a wee bit more saturated fat in my diet and the Cheeseburger Fries alone just won’t do it. :-)

  19. 19.

    Demdude

    August 15, 2005 at 2:23 pm

    Thanks KC.

  20. 20.

    neil

    August 15, 2005 at 3:23 pm

    Sounds pretty good to me.

    I look forward to seeing this sort of post on conservative blogs when the Republicans are out of power. Defending your position as king-of-the-hill seems to make one much less likely to recognize enemies in one’s midst.

  21. 21.

    Mike

    August 15, 2005 at 3:28 pm

    “Marcus Wellby Says:
    Well it is part of a much larger difference between the blogs of the left and those of the right. For the most part, the lefty blogs hammer Dems almost as much as Republicans. Sure, they rallied around Kerry during the election, but many were less than pleased with him as a candidate (as a MA resident I knew he was a freakin’ nightmare, and a boring one at that). Sadly, with the exception of this blog, few on the right are as critical of the current GOP.

    Kos is quite quick to call bullshit on Dems when it is needed. So is John, regarding the GOP. Probably the reason these are the only two blogs I still visit. Though, I tend to avoid the comments at Kos—its the left-wing equivelent of the yahoos at RedState.”

    I think one of the reasons for that is that Kos and the other sites hammer Democrats mainly due to the fact that they aren’t liberal enough in their eyes. In other words, Kos, Atrios, DU, etc. want the Democratic party to move totally into Moonbatland where they’ll NEVER win another election. Read the tone of what they had to say about Hillary Clinton and her sucking up to the DLC.

  22. 22.

    ppGaz

    August 15, 2005 at 7:29 pm

    This Dem sez, the only thing worse than a corrupt elephant, is a corrupt donkey.

  23. 23.

    Pelikan

    August 15, 2005 at 10:01 pm

    Now Mike, that’s cheap, there are two ways to go about this.

    If you start throwing around insults, then we all tussle and it gets pointed out you’re on the same team as Free Republic, and that mob screams for a nuclear strike on a mid-eastern country, ANY mid-eastern country on a daily basis, so whoo! There’s nutcases all around…

    Or maybe you could just be happy for a change that the opposition is showing some common sense and appreciate it. Kos was talking about corruption, not about welfare for gay trees. When was the last time you thought about how corrupt your party might be?

  24. 24.

    Sandy Madison

    August 19, 2005 at 8:56 pm

    There was once a campaign called, “Throw the Bums Out.” It picked up great steam fast since millions of voters were certain corruption was the problem. It’s now gone by the boards as so many of these nonspecific complaints do.

    Seems everyone knows there is something wrong, but they don’t know exactly what or what to do about it. We all got close to the issue with campaign finance reform which will certainly guard against too few giving too much for narrow self interest, however, there lingers the question, “What exactly is wrong and what will we do to fix it.”

    It seems if so many agree that the question is important and also agree that the present set of elected leaders aren’t operating in the interest of the people, then the solution must have something to do with how the people choose these representatives.

    The old model of two parties isn’t sufficient to provide real choices. In all other aspects of our lives we have many, many choices. Democracy’s basic principle recognizes a wide range of choice as being best. We do too apparently because we’re fighting to provide the Iraqi people with 100 choices on their ballot, even while we only have two with any reasonable chance to win.

    That reasonable chance is the indicator gathered by how many precincts across the nation list more than two choices on the ballot.

    It seems to me that the thing to do is increase the number of party choices. A political party is the only method to place a ticket on the ballot. A ticket being a set of candidates who will work together at the various levels they are elected to in conjunction with each other.

    The bottom line is we need a party that is created and controlled by the people.

    I do visual political observations, that is political cartoons. I invite you to see my most recent and read the reason for it. http://www.cafepress.com/whitehousecrazy

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