Culture of Corruption Alert
Is the media interested in Democrats pay-to-play schemes?
By Kevin Holtsberry Posted in Barack Obama | Breaking News | Corrupt Democrat Watch | Countrywide Financial | Sen. Chris Dodd — Comments (10) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Is it just me, or is the Democratic Party developing a "culture of corruption" based on nefarious "pay-to-play" schemes?
As evidence I would like to offer the developing scandal surrounding Countrywide Financial and the sweetheart loans for politicians. If you haven't been following the issue, Tim Carney adds some detail and connects the dots:
"We call it the 'Bank of America bill on steroids.'" A House staffer told me that, demanding anonymity, but speaking on behalf of aides to GOP members of the House Financial Services Committee.
He was talking about the bill whose Senate version has been brought to the floor this week by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-CN, and Sen. Richard Shelby, R-AL. Dodd-Shelby would let mortgage lenders off the hook for bad loans, shifting the burden ultimately to taxpayers. Dodd has received approximately $70,000 in campaign contributions from Bank of America in the last year-and-a-half.
Dodd-Shelby hit the Senate floor this week amid controversy over sweetheart loan deals Dodd and other powerful politicians received from Countrywide Financial, the lender with the most exposure to subprime mortgages at risk of default.
So let me understand this: Dodd got a sweetheart deal that saved him $75k, Bank of America has given him $70k in campaign contributions in the last 18 months, all while Countrywide and Bank of American stand to benefit from a bailout and he is not only the Chairman of the relevant committee but the sponsor of a bill that is up for a vote?
For more read on.
Does anyone honestly believe that if Dodd was a Republican this would be such a low key scandal? This has all of the ingredients the media loves to hammer: special treatment, campaign contributions, the power to help out "special interests", etc. But are any of the editorial pages calling for Dodd to step down? Where is the call for endless investigations and hearings? Why is this bill's passage even a possibility?
It is hard to deny that one of the reason for Democrats success in recent years has been the way they have hammered the GOP for having a culture of corruption and accusing them of fostering a play-to-play mentality. And a ossified and timid GOP leadership has too often allowed this label to seem apt.
But isn't it funny how when this very charge seems so applicable to the Democrats the media outcry can barely be heard. One gets tired of asking "Where's the outrage?" But that doesn't mean it isn't a legitimate question.
Speaking of hypocrisy and double standards, where is Saint Obama in all of this? Isn't he running to change Washington? Isn't this the type of special interest politics he regularly decries? Wasn't he on the stump pounding the corporate greed which led to the mortgage crisis? And yet he remains suspiciously quite about Dodd and his fellow Democrats highly questionable actions.
Oh, that's right, Obama takes the money too:
Only Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have received more Bank of America money than Dodd during the current election cycle.
So much for Hope and Change. Now that I think about it, it is equally naive to hope the media changes its tune. As others have pointed out, the media only loves a scandal when prominent Republicans are involved.
The media might not have the guts to investigate this issue, but The Directors are right this deserves investigation.
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Culture of Corruption Alert 10 Comments (0 topical, 10 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Given all the recent information that has come to light vis a vis Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd, this bill needs to be held up as long as possible, either by McConnell or by Bush with his veto pen.
“.....women and minorities hardest hit”
...is that these guys are willing to sell out for such paltry amounts of money. Dodd saved about $75,000 and got $70,000 in contributions from BofA. I'm a man of modest means but even to me this seem like such a paltry amount on which to offer up one's honor. But I guess that's the explanation afterall --- they value their honor and integrity so little that this meager amount is proper compensation.
John
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Why would God invent something like whiskey? To keep the Irish from ruling the world of course.
The DODD part of Dodd-Shelby helps out poor people struggling to keep a home, while the SHELBY part of it is a bailout for rich bankers who gamed the system.
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Obama's guiding principle: "I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks."
There is a culture of corruption, but trying to pin it on Democrats misses the mark. The culture exists and is very bipartisan. Dodd belongs in the same category as Bob Ney, Duke Cunningham and Tom DeLay, all of whom sold out in the same way. The Supreme Court, in Buckley vs Valeo, decided that the use of money in politics is a form of free speech, and therefore not much can be done to control it. Money is not speech - it is the means of corrupting the political process.
McCain ( and Feingold ) tried and LImbaugh, DeLay & Co have attacked him for it ever since. I love that - one of the most corrupt people ever elected to Congress attacks McCain for lack of integrity. McCain's view on this is a very good reason to vote for him. Take the money away and bills like the mortgage legislation (which is not entirely terrible) would have to be debated on its merits. What an idea.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidty.
RM217
simply reinforce the fact that you're a complete idiot.
With respect to your mini-screed on Tom DeLay - who I have no particular use for - please remind us agan just wht he's been convicted of. After all, if he's "one of the most corrupt people ever elected to Congress" there must be a conviction out there somewhere.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.
and if I am McCain I start to hammer him on it, unless of course McCain supports it as well.
I think we need to leave the partisanship aside. I have frankly grown tired of the "can you imagine of so and so was a Republican". Frankly, it is only slightly less annoying than when the Democrats pull it.
Here is what is important. B of A bought out Countrywide for what is a very sweet deal with one caveat, the took on a lot of bad debt. If B of A could figure out how to get rid of that bad debt without taking a bath, they would turn the buy out into a boondoggle. Now, comes word that a major piece of legislation has the government taking on all of this bad debt, and thus, handing to B of A a great buy out. Oh, and B of A, just happens to be giving the major sponsor some serious cash right before it all happens. This scandal is right out of the movies.
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor
It's the sort of thing that got him in trouble once before and which I believe is the primary animus driving his work on McCain-Feingold, his comments about lobbying corrupting Washington, and his continued work to try to eliminate special interest money from election campaigns. Maybe if there were a lot of serious arm-twisting,... but even then it's tough for me to imagine.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/bush-threatens-veto-senate-housing...
This should get us a better bill, and cast some more light on the corrupt practices of Dodd and Conrad on this.
“.....women and minorities hardest hit”
Four Democrats hip deep in the corruption, and one Republican who wrote what he thought was an honest constituency letter. Nary a peep until the Republican Leadership tossed that Republican under the ethics bus. True, some of the Dems got the boot and were convicted of corruption charges. And it is true the John McCain got the mildest rebuke of the five, barely the equivalent of a verbal warning in the employment field, but he still considered it to besmirch his honor. I will always take a principled stand against McCain-Feingold, but I do understand WHY John McCain sponsored it. And the root cause is still a corrupt media.
SHHHHH . . . man.... Dodd isn't even a republican, man.... so like stop harshing my mellow and pass the pot, man....
I'm a Democrat voter, man, so I don't like.. buy into this militaryindustrialcomplex stuff you're talking about, man... like... war is bad and stuff, so we need to just.... like.. stop it...
*randomly laughes*
'cause like, if we just stopped the bad stuff, then we'd be like... good and stuff...
so stop trying to talk about Dodd, man... 'cause he's a democrat and stuff.....
< end liberal weenie mode >
Dead on, nail this creep to the wall.
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Dependence is Slavery.