Reprehensible Behavior

It has been rightly stated that the Congress of the United States is the most powerful deliberative body the world has ever known. To that, we can add that it is the most corrupt legislative body the world has ever known. And the most arrogant. Nothing breeds contempt for the people who elected these miscreants to office more than the fact that the people continue to elect them, over and over. The capital is awash in money - from taxes, special interest groups, individuals, and others who want something special and who are willing to pay whatever price to get it. Such monies go through the hands of our elected representatives and it's only human that they should succumb to the lure of wealth and fame and prestige and power. Nothing so corrodes the soul as the will to power and our legislators have that will in abundance.

And the degree and brazen show of corruption is so egregious as to boggle the imagination of the more inhibited worshipers of money. The Jefferson "Cold Cash" drama is but the tip of an enormous iceberg. Jefferson got caught because his effrontery was so blatant that even the government could not turn a blind eye or deaf ear to his outrageous conduct. But while Jefferson may be soon for the criminal justice system, the remainder of Congress go on committing acts of outright graft under the guise of providing goods and services for the people in their care. The National Review reports, "Earmarks have come to symbolize a congressional culture of incontinent spending and rank favor-trading." House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey adds, "I detest the fact that earmarks have turned the Congress into an ATM machine for members’ districts.”

The outright avarice and contempt of the American political system exhibited by 'Pork-barrel Johnny' Murtha and 'Earmark Ted' Stevens are just the overt examples of the graft that cuts deep into the ranks of our elected reprehensibles...uh, representatives. As the daily news shows, Congress is incapable of righting itself, so immersed in its own folly as it is. It is Scrooge running its fingers through the wealth of the nation and dispensing a million here, a billion there to its favorites. This regal institution should be ashamed of its outlandish behavior, but yet it revels in its greed.

Why haven't any of the candidates for president, democrat and republican, spoken out against these unethical practices? Where are the campaigns to clean up Washington? Where are the campaigns to make Washington more responsive to the people? Is there a lack of call for reform because most of the candidates themselves are from the same den of thieves?

Get out of the war in Iraq, fine. But the major battle for the soul of the country will take place in Washington and with the power-hungry, money-devouring Representatives and Senators who are yet devising new taxes to get more of the nation's wealth in their hands.