Thwarted

Do you want a contemporary definition of helplessness? It is being a conservative Republican watching "anti-earmark" legislation ooze its way through the congressional alimentary canal.

Yesterday Admiral Ed provided this summary of the Democrat "behemoth":

1. The new bill allows the Majority Leader, not the Senate parliamentarian, to unilaterally decide whether or not a bill or conference report complies with the earmark disclosure requirements. In other words, Harry Reid makes the decision whether legislation he brings to the floor complies with the new standard. How ... convenient.

2. The new bill eliminates the requirement that earmark lists be searchable. It's easier to hide in a crowd, isn't it?

3. The original version prohibited the inclusion of earmarks that benefitted its sponsor. Now that prohibition has been restricted to earmarks that only benefit its sponsor - which means that an earmark that raises the value of a member's property is OK if it raises someone else's property value, too. It makes the prohibition almost meaningless.

So much for the reform Democrats promised in 2006. They can't even deliver what they promised in January.

Mark Tapscott concluded:

Reid and Pelosi are for the most gutting concrete earmark and ethics reform while preserving just enough of the appearance of reform to be able to claim to have fulfilled their 2006 campaign promises.

But, before any furor could be raised about this entirely predictable and cynical Donk double-cross, the very next day (today) comes this breaking story:

Agents from the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service raided the Alaska home of Senator Ted Stevens (>>>R<<<) yesterday as part of a broad federal investigation of political corruption in the state that has also swept up his son and one of his closest financial backers, officials said. Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator in history [just in case the WaPo would let you forget] is under scrutiny from the Justice Department for his ties to an Alaska energy services company, Veco, whose chief executive pleaded guilty in early May to a bribery scheme involving state lawmakers.

Contractors have told a federal grand jury that in 2000, Veco executives oversaw a lavish remodeling of Stevens's house in Girdwood, an exclusive ski resort area forty miles from Anchorage, according to statements by the contractors. ...

Stevens, 83, is under a federal investigation for his connections to Bill Allen, founder of VECO Corporation, an Alaska-based oil field services and engineering company that has reaped tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts.

Just to remind you of the score: Democrats = corrupt, but nobody is paying any attention; Republican (singular) suspected of corruption, Enemy Media giving it wall to wall coverage.

Okay, Don "Bridge To Nowhere/'It's All My Money!'" Young is under the same investigation. But who is investigating the Democrats? You can bet the Rodham FBI will never touch 'em, even as they're herding Republicans into cattle cars. And the Bushies? They'll still be working 24/7/365 until mid-century to voluntarily comply with the bazillion and three Donk subpeonas waiting in their in-boxes.

And then we come to this gag-inducing piece de resistance:

The British newspaper the Guardian reports that the watered-down version of thics reform will apparently get Republican backing after all in the Senate. Despite removing requirements for certification by chamber parliamentarians for earmark compliance, the elimination of searchability, and the restriction of the definition of personal benefit to an impossibility for enforcement, the Minority Leader [Mitch McConnell] and the Republican Whip [Trent "Oink" Lott] both indicated that they would press the caucus to pass the bill.

What possible reason would McConnell have for committing such an act of rank stupidity? What else? The textbook RINO fear that if they don't vote for a bill that is another sort of RINO (Reform In Name Only), they'll be targeted by the other side as "enemies of reform" - a reform the Dems are chortlingly gutting themselves. And if minority 'Pubbies take the courageous route and denounce this "ethics bill" for the sham it is, guess whose wrinkled ass gets thrown back in their faces?

They say defeat has consequences. For all those tightie-righties out there who helped sabotage their own party in last November's mid-term elections in large part on the Republicans' over-fondness for earmarks and pork, this is one of them: the other side throwing a corruption orgy, using a facade of "reform" to conceal it from public view, and tarring the only people with the slightest inclination toward cleaning up the mess with the sole blame for it.

The only "lesson" the GOP is learning is how to be the permanent minority again. Which will put swine on the endangered species list in the very near future.