Donk Ethics Hypocrisy vs. 'Pubbie Political Cowardice

It is a snootful all by itself to behold the same party that steadfastly defended La Clinton Nostra throughout the last decade now attempting to slither beneath the "good government" cloak to try and assassinate the character and reputation of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

But let's leave the past in the past, and just considered Hillary Clinton's own malfeasances since she's been in the Senate - which utterly dwarf the allegations lodged against "the Hammer."

[I]f the claims of former fundraisers are the standard by which political trouble is measured, Senator Hillary Clinton's problems are much bigger than DeLay's.

For years Jack Abramoff, who is currently the subject of a Justice Department probe, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for DeLay's political causes and hired DeLay's aides, reports Newsweek. For his part, DeLay and his aides say he knew nothing about the suspicious fundraising.

That doesn't sound nearly as bad as the allegations facing Clinton, whose former finance chairman David Rosen has already been indicted for trying to hide cash from the Federal Election Commission in connection with an Aug. 2000 Hollywood concert fundraiser.

Like Abramoff, who says he's not angry at DeLay, Rosen isn't ready to implicate the former first lady in any crimes - at least not yet.

But unlike the top Republican, the case against Clinton includes not one but two witnesses who say she "knew everything" about what Rosen was doing.

"Hillary Clinton personally called the producer of the concert part of this event," claims Peter Paul, the Hollywood mogul who bankrolled the August 2000 event.

"She asked him to lower the fee that he was charging of $850,000 at my request," he added, in an interview last year with the Fox News Channel. "So I don't understand how she could possibly say that she didn't know."

Lest anyone doubt Mr. Paul's word, there's Aaron Tonken, whose specialty was rounding up stars for charity events in Tinseltown - and who distributed most of the cash Peter Paul used to pay for the Hillary bash.

In his recent book King of Cons, Tonken describes his sit-down with the former first lady in the backseat of a limo, where he gave her a chapter and verse update on the money her top aide was hiding from the feds.

"I told her about virtually every penny I'd spent on her behalf," Tonken recalled. "I told her about the money and what a pleasure it was to spend it on her candidacy."

Both Tonken and Paul kept meticulous records on the gala Hillary fundraiser - records prosecutors used to indict Mr. Rosen.

Of course, the press has virtually ignored the claims of the two Clinton accusers, while reporting every tidbit of dirt anyone cares to share about DeLay.

Of course.

But then, for left-wingers these things are always "ends justify the means" affairs. Honesty, integrity, and consistency have nothing to do with it. If smearing Tom DeLay can get rid of him and get the House back for the DisLoyal Opposition, and covering up Mrs. Clinton's corruption can slide her back into the White House in 2008, then that's what they'll do.

Seems so obvious from out here in the grass roots. Why can't we right-wingers muster that level of utilitarian clarity? Or at least enough to extract a sufficient price for the other side's insatiable lust for another Watergate to deter their scheming back to a manageable level?

I've never understood how or why Republican testicles re-ascend when they cross the Potomac. Maybe the nation's capital sits atop a huge deposit of undiscovered political kryptonite or something.

But is it too much to expect that overpowering experience - and the results of the last three elections - might finally subsume that minority-party mentality once and for all?

Pity that question is still so rhetorical. Otherwise GOP governance might be more than just a symbolic shell - and the Dems' whitewashed sepulchres might house fewer dead men's bones.