If you ever notice a "Physician of the Year" certificate on the wall of your doctor's office, you might want to look a little more closely. Your doctor may have gotten it by giving $1,250 to Tom Delay.
ABC News:
To see what the award process was all about, Mueller sent in his $1,250 contribution and ABC News paid for his travel to Washington for the scheduled events March 14-15, which included a tax-reform workshop as well as appearances by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and President Bush.
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Mueller soon found he was not the only winner. There were hundreds of Physicians of the Year present, many of whom found the criteria for being selected equally as opaque.
"You know, nobody knows, so don't feel bad about it," Mueller said one attendee told him. "I think that more than likely it's to get us Republicans together under the pretense that maybe you will work a little harder to keep Republicans in office."
Another winner was more blunt. "I don't think it's worth it from the standpoint of your own qualifications, but I think it's worth it to support the party," he said. "Basically it's one big monstrous donation to the party."
"It's like the old diploma mills," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a government watchdog group. "It's the kind of scam that we've seen congressional investigations look at when they take place in the private sector. But here, since members of Congress are doing it, we're not going to see any investigation."
You can read on. This story was on last night's World News Tonight, in which Jennings announced he has lung cancer, so even more people were watching the broadcast than usual. And this isn't just another DeLay scandal, though it's certainly that. It also implicates the entire Republican party, including the president.