Thursday, October 19, 2006

Twelve years in the desert - the GOP after 1994

From the glorious victory of '94 to the decaying party of 2006, it's been an even sleazier fall than I'd recalled... (emphasis mine, these stories are coming too fast to track)
Queer and loathing on Capitol Hill | Salon.com

... after he shut down the federal government twice and was cited for ethics violations, Republicans on the eve of the impeachment trial of President Clinton forced Gingrich's resignation. (They had private knowledge: Gingrich promptly abandoned his second wife for the mistress he had maintained on the House payroll for years.)

The next designated speaker, Bob Livingston, resigned almost at once when pornographer Larry Flynt threatened to release tape recordings of Livingston's moaning with a mistress, which Flynt had purchased from the scorned woman...

... DeLay was the Republican Stalin, the ruthless consolidator and centralizer. His "K Street Project" forged an iron triangle of lobbyists, special interests and Republicans whom he believed would rule forever. But DeLay overreached and was indicted for corruption...

.... these and other [GOP staff] aides have been exposed as a network of mostly closeted gays who advanced and protected one another while working for politicians whose careers were propelled by gay bashing...

...Last week, Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio pleaded guilty to bribery, caught in the tangled web of Republican super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff...

... Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, renowned for his conspiracy theories and personal hunt for WMD in Iraq, came under investigation for corrupt practices. His daughter, whose lobbying firm, Solutions North America Inc., worked on behalf of friends of Slobodan Milosevic and a Russian gas company out of her father's congressional office, was raided by the FBI....

... Karl Rove's assistant Susan Ralston (formerly Abramoff's assistant) had resigned for facilitating Abramoff's access to and favors for and from Rove and others, including Ken Mehlman, Republican National Committee chairman and former White House political director. This week another Republican congressman, John Doolittle of California, announced he was turning cooperative witness in the continuing federal investigation.

... Rep. Don Sherwood of Pennsylvania, a "traditional values" Republican who settled out of court in a $5.5 million suit filed by his mistress for attempting to strangle her...
Clinton, surrounded by crazed but hapless enemies, gave them the weapon they needed to destroy him. Gingrich crafted a great victory, only to see his heirs devastate the empire he built. Really, the play writes itself.

Win or lose in November, the GOP is a debauched party.

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