A Young Turk's Point of View

Tip of the Hat to Cenk Uygur, on The Young Turks: Rebel Headquarters.

In a piece entitled The Republican Protection Racket, he points out this Congress’ failure to investigate Congressman Foley’s proclivity for adolescent Congressional pages, though apparently several Republicans knew about the disgusting emails and internet chats. Uygur contrasts this to the penchant for investigations shown by Congress during the Clinton administration.

Back in the mid-1990s, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, aggressively delving into alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration, logged 140 hours of sworn testimony into whether former president Bill Clinton had used the White House Christmas card list to identify potential Democratic donors. (He wasn't.)

Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), then chair of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, investigated whether taxpayers were footing the cost of stationery and postage for the fan club dedicated to President Clinton’s cat, Socks. (They were not - and it turns out Barbara Bush’s dog Millie had a fan club too.)

Uygur writes:

Duke Cunningham took millions of dollars in bribes. The people who were buying him off bought him a yacht called the Duke-Stir. He had a bribe menu on Congressional letter head. How many ethics investigations? Zero. Zilch. Nada.

Bob Ney took gifts and favors from Jack Abramoff. He has confessed and is about to go to prison. How many ethics investigations? Zero. None. Not one.

Then there is Hastert's shady land deal. Bill Frist's insider trading. Tom DeLay's money laundering. The list goes on and on. Every one of them had their ass covered by the rest of their Republican colleagues, crooks, whatever you want to call them.

…

Not one investigation into what's gone wrong with the war in Iraq, the $9 billion dollars missing in Iraq, why a CIA agent's name was leaked, why Osama bin Laden hasn't been caught or any of the corruption scandals.

I guess it would be crazy to think that a Republican controlled congress with a record like this would investigate whether or not King George the Incompetent lied about pre-war intelligence. Even though they promised they would after the election. That would be the 2004 election. Check out the incredible history of lies and broken promises by Republican Senator Pat Roberts, of Kentucky here…

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”