News came today that Tom DeLay has run out the clock and will not face prosecution for his role in the Abramoff scandal. He is just the latest scandal figure to escape justice.
Most of the crimes he committed with Abramoff were done more than 6 years ago and the worst crimes were done more than a decade ago. One of two thing could have happened when the Abramoff scandal broke. There could have been a full and swift investigation or there could have been a long, drawn out process that eventually ends with a whimper. The latter course was the one followed.
The Bush DOJ made sure that the staff on the investigation team was regularly changed and given a steady stream of new managers. The investigation was slow-walked to death and it worked. As for Congress, the Republicans killed the ethics process to block ANY examination of the scandal and when the Democrats took charge somehow a look back at the Abramoff scandal never got on the “to do” list. We can look back ten years to poke Charlie Rangel, but when it comes to Republicans and Jack Abramoff–investigating the violations is on the bi-partisan “do not do” list.
I have been following the ins and outs of this stuff for years and I can see why the DOJ is walking away. These are hard cases to make in court. Momentum is everything and the wasted years of slow-walked investigations and out right obstruction are lost time that one can not get back. Then there is the recent Roberts Court ruling on Honest Services Fraud which has made any investigation of any corrupt politician or corporate officer far more difficult and far more likely to be subjected to more delays and more legal challenges. And so the guilty get a pass and Tom DeLay has been given a ‘get out of jail free’ card.
This is the story of scandal in America. Everybody in Iran-Contra walked as well. Years later most came back to fuck America even harder (and yes, Abramoff was one of those fuckers).
The crooks are free to grift again. The victims will not see justice. The women raped. The folks sold into bondage. The workers whose wages were stolen. They, like many before them, will never be made whole. The best one can hope for is that some day their story will be told and that folks like Tom DeLay will be known far and wide to be the shit sucking fuckwads that they are.
Happy Monday.
Cheers
dengre
Throwin Stones
I appreciate your insight DennisG.
Steve
The famous Texas prosecution of DeLay for money laundering, meanwhile, continues to churn onward.
Dennis G.
@Steve:
Like Al Capone, perhaps it will be the smaller crimes that finally nailed the rat bastard.
I just hope that the FSM is preparing a special circle in hell for the bugman.
Cheers
Throwin Stones
Sounds like SNAFU to me. Publish it, I’ll but it.
Mike in NC
What a rancid maggot. But he’ll get a cabinet post in the Palin administration. God bless America!
General Stuck
I think former congresscritters get put to the back of the pack, and Delay wisely hit the road early on. Abramoff was arrogant in a way that made him sloppy and an easy mark for prosecutors. But we don’t know the evidence against Delay and how well he insulated himself, and it sounds like Abramoff didn’t drop a dime on him, or anyone else. Especially Ralph Reed, plus I wouldn’t be surprised if the Obama DOJ didn’t want a trial that would fire up the wingnuts even more.
I don’t much care about Delay. He is gone from government. What I am waiting for are the results of the on going SP on the torture regime of Bush and Cheney. I doubt we will hear much about it until after Obama’s reelection, if it is successful. And I suspect there are other investigations going on quietly into military contracting during Bush, which wreaked of criminal antics.
Violet
@Dennis G.:
Tom DeLay makes my skin crawl. I wouldn’t let him near a child. Gives me the creeps.
Delia
I love it when I read a moralistic little piece by some member of the punditocracy about endemic corruption in some Middle Eastern or Asian or African nation, and it’s carefully explained to us how these deeply rooted problems are preventing the Advance of Freedom and Democracy in that part of the world. I just love it.
Throwin Stones
@Throwin Stones: buy, not but.
FYWP!
Allison W.
OT: anyone seen this?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100816/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians_facebook
General Stuck
@Violet: I remember reading a long time ago, the thing that prompted to go into politics was anger over the EPA banning one of the best pesticides used in the Naked Lunch profession. I forget which one it was, and am too lazy to look it up. That’s a fairly creepy incentive to eventually rise to the House Majority Leader.
Lolis
The crazy thing is our political and justice system is still way better than most other countries.
Larry Signor
@Delia: Damn fine point.
Linda Featheringill
Sweetheart:
Justice is something we aspire to. We seldom reach it.
And the rich and powerful and connected people frequently get away with anything, up to murder itself.
It’s been that way for some time. “The Great Gatsby” is about that dearth of justice. And that is why “the rich are different from you and me.”
mai naem
@General Stuck: It was DDT. I’ve read that the reason the bed bug is coming back in the US and not in Mexico is because DDT is legal in Mexico and illegal in the US. Not saying that it should be legal or anything.
Church Lady
President Obama has been in office for almost 18 months and the Justice Department is headed by his Attorney General. How the fuck do you blame Bush for this one? Seriously???? Jesus, man up and face it – either there was nothing there to prosecute or Holder just did DeLay a very big favor. Pick which one you prefer.
General Stuck
@mai naem: It’s funny. I was going to quip that Delay being pro DDT, meant he was for destroying our national bird, the Eagle. And to my surprise when I googled DDT Bald Eagle, the clipboard gave me a choice of “myth”. I followed it and found something that shouldn’t surprise me, but did. A whole list of wingnuts claiming DDT and the decline of Bald Eagles was some kind of libtard myth, or something. Led by Fox News of course.
JamesC
@Church Lady:
I suspect it is because he wisely notes that even with an AG appointed by the current president, the underlying infrastructure and process remains afflicted by a bad, eight-year-old case of Bushitis.
That’s not something that clears up easily. You’ll need a lot of shovels, and even more sanitizers.
The Populist
What a joke. Gov. Siegelman gets busted for something ridiculous yet idiots like DeLay, Vitter and other scum walk free.
Anne Laurie
@Delia:
As the great Finley Peter Dunne (via his best-selling mouthpiece, Mr. Dooley) said about the finger-wagging pundits of America’s first Gilded Age: It pains the accomplished American professional grifters (lobbyists / politicians) to see the little coloured peoples going about the all-important science of public corruption with so little art or finesse. Watching the anti-colonialists of the early 20th century try to imitate their Western conquerors with more enthusiasm than talent was just painful for the pundits paid to cheerlead for the accomplished Masters of the Dirty Deal. And a century-plus after that not-so-golden age, our own punditry is still sniffing about the failure of mere wanna-be dictators and warlords to meet the ethical nadirs of our own Masters of Deceit…
Batocchio
Funny how the big scandals are mostly one party, huh? Funny how they never “learn” their lesson?
There’s a direct line from Watergate through Ford’s deal to pardon Nixon through Iran-Contra to the many abuses of the Bush administration. In many cases, the players are even the same – Cheney, Rumsfeld, Abrams…
MattR
@Batocchio:
I’d say they learned their lesson quite well. They can do whatever the fuck they want without serious repercussions.
Joseph Nobles
Too late for this year, but look for Delay to run for Congress again in 2012. Hell, he just became presidential fodder.
Josh
Dennis, isn’t it “Rangel”?
Anon.
The best we could hope for? No, we could hope that Tom DeLay dies in some horribly poetically appropriate way, being shot by Abramoff or something. Won’t happen though.
Brendancalling
Actually, the best we can hope for is that some angry citizen with a good memory blows his head off.
wilfred
Yes, a pity.
Well, time to look forward, not backward.
Dennis G.
@Church Lady:
Thank you for sharing your deeply magical thinking.
Let us test your logic.
You hire a contractor to build your house. The job should be done in 18 months. 24 tops. Your contractor hires and fire an endless stream of subcontractors and makes one bad choice after another. He builds a substandard foundation on sandy soil. He does not make the foundation and the wall plumb and square. Some subcontractors do good work, but it is always built on a bad foundation.
After 4 years you hire a new contractor. They study the site and the work done and conclude that because of the endless errors of the first contractor your house can no longer be built.
In your world the first contractor is blameless and the second is responsible because he delivered the news. In my world, I would point to the first contractor as the responsible party.
But I guess magical thinking has taken you this far in life, so why would one expect you to embrace reality at this late date.
Cheers
jlo
Is it just me that finds it a little weird in this post racial society we live in that the only two members of congress who have done anything so bad as to require an ethics trial happen to be, um… black?
Dennis G.
@Josh:
Yep. Fixed. Thanks.
Paul L.
Progressive Narrative 101
The Obama DOJ drops a case and the FIX WAS IN.
Political Hacks declare ACORN innocent and progressives treat it as the Wrod of God/Gaia.
If the Bush administration was running interference for Republicans why did Duke Cunningham go to jail and Ted Stevens get railroaded by DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility withholding exculpatory evidence?
Church Lady
@Dennis G.: When you show me where the Obama Justice Department blames the lack of prosecution on the Bush Justice Department (which won’t be a problem, if true, because Obama blames everything on Bush), then I will agree that your searing analysis is as brilliant as you seem to think it is. As of now, the Justice Department refuses to comment.
I’m no fan of Tom DeLay, and am certainly glad he’s gone from Congress, but I do believe in “innocent until proven guilty”. Hell, you don’t even believe in innocent until indicted.
cheers