That’s the title of Matthew Continetti’s latest Weekly Standard column, a must read column in my opinion. One of the central themes of the article is that Democrats have had trouble getting a grip on governing, something that I wrote about here. Here’s the opening salvo of Mr. Continetti’s article:

It was May 17, and Rogers, a Michigan Republican, was standing on the House floor listening to Rep. Jack Murtha chew him out. Rogers knew why. He sits on the Select Committee on Intelligence, and had tried to eliminate $23 million that Murtha, the antiwar, big-spending Pennsylvania Democrat, had earmarked for the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC). The NDIC is a costly, controversial, and scandal-plagued bureaucracy located in the heart of Murtha’s district. Rogers wanted to put the $23 million into human intelligence operations and recruitment, programs he says are shortchanged in next year’s intelligence appropriations bill.

Murtha disagreed. Committee Democrats backed him, and Rogers’s amendment killing the center was defeated in committee. That didn’t stop Rogers. He filed another amendment, this one directing the Justice Department to audit the center, which since its creation in 1993 has gone through more than a half-dozen directors and cost taxpayers about $400 million, all the while duplicating work that is done elsewhere. Again, Murtha and committee Democrats opposed Rogers. They defeated the audit amendment.

The story doesn’t end there. After Kansas Republican Todd Tiahrt backed Rogers in committee, Murtha went after Tiahrt on the House floor, jabbing his finger at his colleague and threatening retribution. Tiahrt isn’t discussing the exchange, but the moment was captured on C-SPAN.

That still didn’t stop Rogers. Using a favorite Republican procedural tactic known as a motion to recommit, he called for the intelligence bill to be sent back to committee just before the full House voted on it at about 1 A.M. on May 11. Murtha was furious. Democrats tabled the motion to recommit, and a half-hour later the intelligence bill passed more or less on party lines, 225 to 197.

Murtha made sure other congressmen were around when he went after Rogers. He wanted to send a message. The exchange lasted around two minutes. Murtha used foul language, telling Rogers he would be sure to kill any of Rogers’s earmarks if they came up in the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, which Murtha chairs. Rogers protested, saying that’s not the way things are done here. That’s the way I do it, Murtha said. Murtha doesn’t dispute Rogers’s account.

The problem was that Murtha had just violated House rules. In their efforts to “drain the swamp” of congressional corruption after taking office in January, House Democratic leaders issued a rule saying members were forbidden from conditioning support for earmarks on another member’s voting record. Rogers, a former FBI agent, saw an opportunity. On the evening of May 21 he offered a resolution on the House floor censuring Murtha for violating House rules. The House defeated the motion the next day, on a party-line vote with only a couple of defections. Rogers had gone toe-to-toe with Murtha and lost. But not before embarrassing House Democrats.

There’s several points just screaming to be made here.

• John Murtha runs the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee like it’s his kingdom. Murtha got upset when Mike Rogers tried stripping ‘King’ Murtha of his bribery machine appropriations powers.
• John Murtha’s empire couldn’t function if not for his bribes and intimidation.
• In Murtha’s empire, little consideration is given to how appropriations impacts US military policy. Simply put, the only consideration is how Rep. Murtha can browbeat and intimidate committee members into supporting his agenda.
• Rep. Murtha chooses which rules he’ll pay attention to. That’s what his finger-wagging stunt was.
• Rep. Murtha is anti-reform. What other explanation is there for him to lead the charge against having the NDIC audited? Murtha and his anti-reformist allies in the Caucus of Corruption House Democratic Caucus voted against accountability on a party line vote.

That incident should be made into a YouTube video & spread across the internet. Then that incident should be turned into a commercial and run in the districts of each freshman Democrat, with the question being asked why they voted against the accountability of an audit.

Here’s another shot across the House Democrats’ bow:

Democrats enter their sixth month in power having passed only one item on their “Six for ‘06″ agenda into law: a staggered increase in the minimum wage. But even this was passed with substantial concessions to Republicans (tax cuts to offset the cost to small businesses) and as part of an overall defeat, the Democrats’ retreat on Iraq war spending. Until last week, Democrats were adamant that any war bill contain a timetable for American withdrawal from Iraq. But they backed down at the last minute, passing a bill 280-142 in the House and 80-14 in the Senate that has no timetable and no restrictions on troop deployment.

Democrats started the session as a bunch of confident bullies but have long ago morphed into an ineffective, spineless lot. Among their ‘accomplishments’ are to vote for the biggest tax increase in American history and against bureaucratic accountability. That isn’t the type of record that a political party should feel confident about running on. In fact, I suspect that Democratic strategists are worrying themselves sick over this list of ‘accomplishments’.

On no issue are Democratic difficulties more apparent than ethics. Next to Iraq, corruption was the most important issue in last year’s elections. It was solely responsible for a few Democratic gains, such as Nick Lampson’s victory in the heavily Republican district that Tom DeLay once represented, and Tim Mahoney’s close victory over Joe Negron, the Republican who had the misfortune of running for Mark Foley’s former seat in a strong Republican district in Florida.

Yet many veteran House Democrats fought meaningful ethics reform, gutting a measure that would have placed restrictions on a congressman’s ability to jump from Capitol Hill to K Street and forcing the
House leadership to hold a vote on a separate bill requiring lobbyists to disclose the amount of money they “bundle” from clients and send to politicians. It was the House Republicans, again led by Texas’s Smith, who played a constructive role, adding amendments that apply the new regulations to state and local lobbyists, extend the bundling-disclosure provision to donations to political action committees, and require lobbyists to identify the earmarks they want entered into spending bills.

As I said earlier, John Murtha is the poster child of the anti-reform movement. Sadly, he’s got lots of liberal ‘company’ in that movement. Here’s some noteworthy ‘leaders’ of the movement:

• William Jefferson, the Louisiana Democrat with the $90,000 in cash the FBI found in his freezer;
• appropriator Alan Mollohan, the West Virginia Democrat who during his 14 years in Congress has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to his rural district. Mollohan is under investigation for using some of that money to enrich himself.

Add it all up and what you get is a political party who voted against accountability, voted against censuring a corrupt, thuggish old man who broke the House rules, who voted for the largest tax increase in American history and who doesn’t have any significant legislative accomplishments.

That isn’t the change that voters voted for last November.

Technorati Tags: John Murtha, Culture Of Corruption, NDIC, William Jefferson, Alan Mollohan, Lobbying Reform, Tax Increases, Scandal, Do Nothing Congress, Democrats, Mike Rogers, FBI, Todd Tiahrt, GOP, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

1. [...] Original post by Gary Gross and software by Elliott Back [...]

   Pingback by The Murtha Democrats at Conservative Times--Republican GOP news source. — May 27, 2007 @ 10:52 am

1. Do you mean to actually tell us that the donkeys are as corrupt as the elephants, if not more so?

   Dang! Who’da thunk it?

   And, still on point, why haven’t we heard any more about Ms. Feinstein’s little multimillion self-enrichment problem? Seems to me Murtha and even Cunningham are pikers compared to her…

   Vipers.

   Comment by Carlos — May 27, 2007 @ 2:35 pm

2. Don’t forget Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and of course Diane. They are ‘corrupt’ also and need to be looked at.

   Comment by John Houghton — May 28, 2007 @ 7:33 am

3. Don’t forget about that TRAITOR- Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions!

   Comment by Benn — May 28, 2007 @ 7:28 pm