The National Treasury Party

March 14, 2008

Mississippi plaintiffs attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy in a judicial bribery case. The surprise plea came during a hearing on pretrial matters. His trial was set to begin at the end of the month. Scruggs and co-defendant Sidney Backstrom both pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe a judge. Scruggs's son, Zach, also is charged in the case but hasn't entered a plea. --from the Wall Street Journal
This is the latest fruit of the Republican Contract with America. Scrugg's is Trent Lott's brother in law. Now you know why Trent resigned and registered as a lobbyist.
There are no doubt some differences between bribes and earmarks but you have to be a particle physicist to distinguish them. Five terms of Southern Presidents has brought us a level of corruption that is staggering even by American standards. Clinton moderated its worst effects but once the Republicans controlled both branches, it was bombs away. It was the same when the Democrats controlled it all in 1964. We are confronting a profound constitutional challenge: our institutions are not functioning. There is no congressional oversight. There is little management of government by the Administration, and not just the incompetent lugheads currently in residence. Homeland Security and the border issues are just two examples. It would help some if several hundred congresspeople, including Lott went to the can, but it is not the solution. All thoughts welcome

If you believe the Democrats may have some answers, please read Charles Krauthammer's succinct and brilliant sketch of identity demagoguery by Hill and Obama. Punditry does not get better than this.

Adventures In Identity Politics - Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post

Our political crisis has been developing since the Kennedy years. It is certainly accelerating now. Having "reformed" the Congress and the parties to assure that there is no backroom influence, politics has been reduced to personalities -- that is simply demagoguery. We can blame TV for this, we can blame many things but the elimination of "party interests" and the substitution of rules -- campaign finance, fairness etc-- has dramatically increased corruption, turned Congress into a brainless maw and made political campaigning permanent and indistinguishable from government and governing.

Our enemies should relax and let us continue to do ourselves in. They cannot do nearly as well as we are. We now have a one party system, The National Treasury Party whose factions squabble over their places at the trough.


March 14, 2008

Mississippi plaintiffs attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy in a judicial bribery case. The surprise plea came during a hearing on pretrial matters. His trial was set to begin at the end of the month. Scruggs and co-defendant Sidney Backstrom both pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe a judge. Scruggs's son, Zach, also is charged in the case but hasn't entered a plea.