The week starts with a quiet hush falling over the growing Abramoff scandal like the calm wind and blue skies between the devastating outer bands of the Hurricane Jack as the Cat. 5 scandal make its way to the projected DC landfall.
There are two things of note. First an insightful column in the Washington Post by Fred Hiatt:
Unlike in Russia, it turns out that prosecutors and judges can't be controlled, no matter who appoints them: just ask DeLay, Jack Abramoff or Scooter Libby. Unlike in Russia, neither can the press. The congressional Republicans' cringing abdication of their branch's traditional oversight role has helped diminish attention to scandal and malfeasance, but it can't erase bad news altogether.
And the there is Pete McCloskey organizing GOP primary opposition to Abramoff pals Reps. Pombo and Doolittle.
More...
The Hiatt column,
Chinks in the Republican Armor lays out the DeLay led effort to build an unstoppable GOP machine--that could even survive the loss of Tom himself--and how it is falling apart:
The image was of links in a chain of power that the Democrats could never break. The GOP, having captured both houses of Congress and the White House, could press lobbyists to hire only Republicans and give money only to Republicans. The money would guarantee dominance in state legislatures. The legislatures would redraw congressional districts so that Democrats could never win. And if anyone objected, too bad; Republican-appointed judges could be counted on to slap down any complainers. [snip]
It's been remembered that the chain holds only as long as most people vote next year the way they voted last year.
Today it is conceivable, though by no means assured, that Democrats' vote total in 2006 could grow, and Republicans' shrink, by enough to shift control of the House or Senate. [snip]
None of this guarantees that the Democrats will win next year. But it does mean their fate isn't entirely out of their hands; much will depend on them -- on the policies they develop, the candidates they recruit. The machine isn't indestructible.
So as the K Street Project is exposed as a GOP scandal incubator and ten years of GOP rules is proven everyday to be bad for America, we could be on the verge of a major change in 2006. But we can't rely on the GOP to self-destruct. We have to keep pushing.
We have to continue to research the growing GOP scandals and push them to public awareness.
We have to focus on the corruption and the incompetence of the GOP from the WH on down.
We have to recruit good candidates in every District, challenge the GOP candidates on their connection to corruption, nationalize the election and give the voters a big broom to clean the House.
And we need to give principled members of the GOP the courage to stand up to the thugs who have taken over their party. Folks like Pete McCloskey:
Now the former environmental lawyer and Republican congressman from the San Mateo area is seriously pondering doing battle in the GOP primary next June against Rep. Richard Pombo of Tracy, whom McCloskey regards as an affront to the Republican principles of his day.
McCloskey also is taking aim at a Pombo ally, GOP Rep. John Doolittle of Roseville, by financing acerbic billboard ads and scouting for primary election challengers.
"You've got everything I've spent my life involved in since I was 21 years old -- the Marines, the environment, honesty in government, independent judiciary -- all of those things are being challenged by a Republican Party of which these are ringleaders in Northern California," McCloskey said during a long conversation last week on his back porch. [snip]
"I ain't going to get elected," he said. "But somebody's going to know they were in a hell of a fight."
Paul Norton "Pete" McCloskey Jr. knows something about fights. After graduating from Stanford Law School, 2nd Lt. McCloskey commanded a Marine Corps rifle platoon in the Korean War and led six bayonet charges. He was awarded a Navy Cross, a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts.
His political battles have been no less trying. McCloskey defeated Black, a much better-known candidate due to her childhood acting career, to win a House seat in 1967 representing the San Francisco Peninsula.
He unsuccessfully sought in 1969 to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which had authorized military action in Vietnam, and he ran against Nixon in 1972 for the Republican presidential nomination, earning just one delegate. A year later, he called for Nixon's impeachment.
In 1982, he sought the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate, finishing second to Wilson who was then San Diego mayor. McCloskey's House term ended soon after. [snip]
He has been increasingly irritated with his party's direction on environmental policy, ethics, the Iraq war and other issues, prodding him and nine other former GOP House members to write a series of critical letters to Republican congressional leaders earlier this year.
He also formed Revolt of the Elders, an independent expenditure committee that works against Republicans he and allies consider dubious. The group financed anti-Doolittle ads on a Roseville billboard last summer. He's also been speaking out around the nation as well, even visiting Houston to call for the defeat of Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas. [snip]
Listening to McCloskey muse about Pombo, there is little doubt that the congressman's views on the species law riles him . But McCloskey also points to the support Pombo and Doolittle provided to a measure last year to give Congress the ability to overrule Supreme Court decisions, as well as Pombo's recent proposal to sell off public lands.
McCloskey also frequently returns to ethics, citing the campaign contributions that Pombo and Doolittle accepted from lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is under federal investigation for influence peddling. [snip]
"I know there are still Republicans like me," he said. "We're undoubtedly in the minority. But in my judgment, the majority in the Republican Party -- the Pat Robertsons, the Grover Norquists, the Karl Roves -- I think they are bad for the country. And I think they have made one of the two political parties bad for the country."
As more Republicans join McCloskey in disgust of the current leadership, my hope for taking this country back from the one-party-only-GOP-extremists improves.
It is time to take these guys down. Hurricane Abramoff is coming. Quickly behind it is Hurricane Duke. And the fragile structures of GOP hype, intimidation and lies are about to fall.
Despite all their efforts the GOP is loosing control: over the press; over the public; over Democrats, Independents and Republicans; over the DOJ; over the courts; over policy; and over anything and everything.
Let's get to work