No, this isn’t a review of Cool Hand Luke. It isn’t even a review of Strother Martin’s movie career. It’s actually one of the main themes in Robert Novak’s latest column. The main purpose of the column, though, is to talk extensively about John Murtha’s addiction to pork, especially pork sent to people who contribute heavily to his campaign warchest.

On May 10, as the Intelligence bill neared passage, Flake took the floor of the House to relate how Capitol Hill works. Told there were no earmarks attached to the bill, a skeptical Flake sought the measure’s classified annex but was sent on a wild goose chase for earmarks, first to the clerk of the House and then to the parliamentarian. When he finally found 26 earmarks, it was five hours after the deadline to submit amendments to the bill. Flake requested a secret session of the House on Intelligence earmarks, but got no support from either party.

Five days later, in a letter to House Republican Leader John Boehner, Flake revealed (without describing them) Murtha’s two earmarks for the Johnstown-based Concurrent Technologies. One provides $2.5 million for the Mobile Missile Monitoring and Detection program. The other supplies $3 million for the Joint Intelligence Training & Education with Advanced Distributed Learning Technological Phase II.

Murtha’s earmark requests attest (as required by the new reforms) that “neither I nor my spouse had any financial interest” in either project. What he did not attest was that officers and employees of Concurrent Technologies contributed $56,475 to Murtha from the 2000 election cycle to the present. That includes $4,500 from CEO and President Daniel DeVos and $5,000 from Vice President Emil Sarady.

We the people demanded that Congress wipe out corruption. We the people demanded real reforms. Instead, we got John Murtha and Nancy Pelosi stonewalling the reforms that would’ve dramatically reduced that corruption. In fact, John Murtha is the poster child of corruption and excessive cronyism. John Murtha isn’t a hero or a Democratic hawk. He’s just a corrupt old man who’s handed out billions of dollars of earmarks on defense contracts.

Let’s take it a step further. I dare anyone to name a single Murtha policy initiative that’s benefited our military or national security. I’d submit to you that his ‘legacy’ will be his participation in ABSCAM, his advising Clinton to abandon the mission in Somalia and his declaring that the US military couldn’t defeat the terrorists and jihadists in Iraq.

Unfortunately, the House GOP ‘leader’ hasn’t acted with any zeal to eliminate earmarks:

Flake, in his May 15 letter to Boehner, made “another appeal” for House Republicans “to take a more proactive position in opposition to earmarks.” The minority leader did not respond. Instead, on May 21, Boehner wrote Speaker Nancy Pelosi that Murtha’s $23 million earmark for a National Drug Intelligence Center in Johnstown was “a questionable project” secured by “highly suspect methods.” Indeed, the project was not placed on the earmark list, as required by the new rules. An effort by Republican Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan to eliminate this project led to Murtha’s notorious threats, in violation of House rules, to eliminate Rogers’s own earmarks “now and forever.”

In fact, Rogers, a 43-year-old former FBI agent, has 10 current earmarks to protect, costing more $45 million. Flake is a rare Republican who understands that pounding on Democrats will not cure the GOP’s earmark addiction. “I am concerned,” Flake wrote Boehner, “that the only action taken regarding earmarks by Republicans thus far this year is to ask for clarification of the earmark rules, in order to ensure that we can take full advantage of earmark opportunities.” Boehner, who personally does not use earmarks, told me “I can’t agree with that.” But he did not respond to Flake.

I said that John Boehner wasn’t a leader when Tom DeLay was forced out as Majority Leader. I also said that he’s too much the Washington insider to be a reformer. I’ve stood by those opinions from then until now. Novak’s column is vindication for that opinion.

If Washington Republicans were smart, something that I don’t believe, they’d make the Democrats’ failure to take corruption seriously a main theme of their 2008 campaign. Unfortunately, Tom Cole doesn’t think that spending was a contributing factor to the GOP’s 2006 defeats. Anyone that thinks that way won’t think that the corruptive effects of earmarks are a big deal either.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey first skirted the new rules by claiming no earmarks were contained in the supplemental appropriations. Last week, he decreed that henceforth, earmarks in his bills would not be revealed until a measure passes both the House and Senate.

It’s time that Porkbusters got hot under the collar about that type of arrogance. It’s time that we told Chairman Obey that we tell him what to do, that he doesn’t tell us which rules he’ll choose to obey. It’s time that we told Washington what is and isn’t acceptable.

After all, it’s our money.

Technorati Tags: John Murtha, ABSCAM, Corruption, Somalia, Earmarks, Nancy Pelosi, David Obey, John Boehner, Tom Cole, Democrats, Jeff Flake, Mike Rogers, GOP, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

1. [...] Cross-posted at California Conservative Categories: Military, Iraq, Inside the Beltway, Intel, Pelosi, Corruption, John Murtha, Crime, Scandals, Reforms, Special Interests, Election 2008, Defeatocrats | [...]

   Pingback by Let Freedom Ring » Blog Archive » What We Got Here Is a Failure to Communicate — May 28, 2007 @ 7:53 am

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

   Pingback by What We Got Here Is a Failure to Communicate at Conservative Times--Republican GOP news source. — May 28, 2007 @ 7:56 am

3. [...] California Conservative: John Murtha is the poster child of corruption and excessive cronyism. John Murtha isn’t a hero or a Democratic hawk. He’s just a corrupt old man who’s handed out billions of dollars of earmarks on defense contracts. [...]

   Pingback by UrbanGrounds » Blog Archive » More Questionable Earmarks from Murtha — May 28, 2007 @ 6:39 pm

1. The time has come for a NEW government. The current corrupt US government has failed the people and I for one will not contribute any longer to this corruption. Just a short reminder of the ACTUAL Declaration of Independence.

   That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security

   Comment by Mitch the Bitch — May 28, 2007 @ 9:35 am

2. Even those who cry “Pork!” are pate-deep in that corruption. Rogers is a classic for that.

   I haven’t heard of every one of the Reps and Sens, but my guess is that if someone said 99% of them were involved in porking, the figure would be low.

   Vipers. And, if they really aren’t involved in the porking, spineless lizards.

   Comment by Carlos — May 28, 2007 @ 3:14 pm