Latter-Day Crook
Last week the Las Vegas Review-Journal broke a scandal involving Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid centering around his relationship with a Nevada church whose pastor has been indicted for misusing federal grants obtained by the pencil-necked geek.
Like Chuckaquiddick and Pelosigate, Dirty Harry's questionable collection plate-lining has gotten next to zero publicity from the Extreme Media, which goes a long way toward explaining why Reid's connection with notorious Chinagate figure John Huang has also slipped under the press radar:
"Other Mormon senators" like then-Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, who had heretofore blocked Judge Paez' 9th Circuit nomination on Senator Sessions' cited grounds, but after Dirty Harry's corrupt shoveling folded like a K-Mart deck chair.
Go back and read through my late-90's weekly blogs and you'll see just how typical a GOP reaction this was, both in general and particularly as it pertained to the majority's pathetic excuse of a Chinagate investigation. Then-Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson (yes, the same man who "shepherded" Chief Justice John Roberts through the confirmation process) let Committee Democrats completely hijack the probe, dictate its parameters and budget, and skew what investigating that did take place into a comprehensive anal exam of Republican fundraising in the 1996 election cycle. Some anonymous GOP aides marveled at how brazen the Dems were in blackmailing the majority on an issue on which they themselves were so sorely vulnerable, and still Republicans ran away instead of telling them what they could do with it.
The 109th Congress has had more than a few echoes of that 105th edition, especially in the past few weeks. And the same press bias that excoriated Republicans for the "crime" of meekly attempting to hold La Clinton Nostra accountable to campaign finance laws is just as zealously out to get Republicans from Bush and Cheney and Karl Rove to Bill Frist and Tom DeLay, even while they black out the criminal difficulties of Senator Schumer, Congresswoman Pelosi, and now Senator Reid.
But there is one new factor not present even eight years ago - the blogosphere (aka the mainstream media). And while that doesn't exactly seal Dirty Harry's political doom, it does mean that he'll have at least some "'splainin' to do," while "the Hammer" is passing him in the opposite direction.
Like Chuckaquiddick and Pelosigate, Dirty Harry's questionable collection plate-lining has gotten next to zero publicity from the Extreme Media, which goes a long way toward explaining why Reid's connection with notorious Chinagate figure John Huang has also slipped under the press radar:
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid accepted donations from key Clinton Chinagate fundraiser John Huang - and later pushed for Senate confirmation of the judge who let Huang off with a slap on the wrist….
[I]n addition to obtaining the grant for Reverend Davis' organization, Reid gave his church "$100 in December 1999, $500 in November 2002, $200 in September 2002 and $500 in February of this year from his campaign and political funds," the Nevada paper said.
At least some of that money came from Chinagate's Huang. Senator Reid donated $250 he received from Huang to Rev. Davis's church in 1997, and another $250 of Huang's money to the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Las Vegas.
But Reid's relationship with the controversial Chinagate figure doesn't end there.
In June 1999, Huang's case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Richard Paez, who had six months earlier been nominated to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals by President Clinton.
Critics says the assignment presented a massive conflict of interest for Judge Paez, a concern fueled by the sentence he meted out to the Clinton donor in August 1999.
Senator Reid's former donor received a mere $10,000 fine, 500 hours of community service and one year probation.
When Paez's 9th Circuit nomination came up for Senate confirmation, Republicans cried foul. Senator Jeff Sessions complained that Paez had violated Justice Department sentencing guidelines that required Huang to serve jail time, calling the plea bargain "a dangerous agreement" and "a debasement of justice."
But Senator Reid went to bat for Huang's judge, after being asked to reach out to other Mormon Senators by Mrs. Paez, a fellow Mormon.
"Other Mormon senators" like then-Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, who had heretofore blocked Judge Paez' 9th Circuit nomination on Senator Sessions' cited grounds, but after Dirty Harry's corrupt shoveling folded like a K-Mart deck chair.
Go back and read through my late-90's weekly blogs and you'll see just how typical a GOP reaction this was, both in general and particularly as it pertained to the majority's pathetic excuse of a Chinagate investigation. Then-Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Fred Thompson (yes, the same man who "shepherded" Chief Justice John Roberts through the confirmation process) let Committee Democrats completely hijack the probe, dictate its parameters and budget, and skew what investigating that did take place into a comprehensive anal exam of Republican fundraising in the 1996 election cycle. Some anonymous GOP aides marveled at how brazen the Dems were in blackmailing the majority on an issue on which they themselves were so sorely vulnerable, and still Republicans ran away instead of telling them what they could do with it.
The 109th Congress has had more than a few echoes of that 105th edition, especially in the past few weeks. And the same press bias that excoriated Republicans for the "crime" of meekly attempting to hold La Clinton Nostra accountable to campaign finance laws is just as zealously out to get Republicans from Bush and Cheney and Karl Rove to Bill Frist and Tom DeLay, even while they black out the criminal difficulties of Senator Schumer, Congresswoman Pelosi, and now Senator Reid.
But there is one new factor not present even eight years ago - the blogosphere (aka the mainstream media). And while that doesn't exactly seal Dirty Harry's political doom, it does mean that he'll have at least some "'splainin' to do," while "the Hammer" is passing him in the opposite direction.
posted by JASmius at 7:35 PM
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