And the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy grows yet another tentacle :)

But seriously, this will dove-tail nicely with Deans "Republican Culture of Corruption".

Now if we could just get more elected Democrats to play along....

The point of the blog is to advocate reform in Congress.  We won't overlook Democrats.  But the simple truth is that Dems on the Hill today don't have enough power to be that corrupt.  Corruption of this sort almost always involves selling influence and power.  Since the Dems have neither, they have little to sell.  Where we'll keep close tabs on Dems is making sure that reform is more than just a political slogan.  Reformers today should press Democrats to give political teeth to the cause they now have a clear political interest in backing.  Even in the final years of their majority the Democrats were never as corrupt as the Republicans are now.  Still, the need for reform was there.  Many of the old-timers in the Democratic caucus would I'm sure just before to go back to how things were in 1994.  People who believe in reform should push the Democrats to back specific reforms that will bind them as much as they will Republicans when they finally return to power. 

People who believe in reform should push the Democrats to back specific reforms that will bind them as much as they will Republicans when they finally return to power. 

Hey Josh, I found some good boilerplate language to use on this initiative:

...we propose not just to change its policies, but even more important, to restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives.

Josh--eagerly awating auction house--it will be a tremendouse service.  Meanwhile, here is a

crib sheet derived from my  rapid fire response to my conservative stepfather who sent the text of an ad allegedly taken out by a guy named George Esseff Sr  in the WaPo in response to Dean's mention of the republicans who had not done a hard days work in their lives.  Feel free to correct, adorn with links, or use as you see fit. 

 **********

Bob--I am glad you sent me this.  It gives me a good chance to summarize the kind of honest republicans Dean is talking about. 
 
I suspect Howard Dean was referring to republicans like
 
*Tom Noe, who has bilked the state of Ohio to the tune of $50M while funding campaigns for virtually every state official there, and, George W Bush.  HIs marvelous investment plan?  The state of Ohio could fund its workmans compensation fund by investing in RARE COINS!   A winner if there ever was one until someone mysteriously made off with the RARE COINS!

*Randy `Duke' Cunningham who has a habit of making huge amounts off homes and boats for defense contractors who have gained from contacts with this leading representative on the house defense committee or from those who have a yen to be getting presidential pardons for their activities in bribing people
 
*Jack Abramoff, who has made MILLIONS lobbying for Indian casinos while calling them monkeys, working with his Buddies Tom DeLay and Bob Ney to preserve sweat shops and sex slavery in the Marianas Islands while more honest, hard working republicans like Frank Murkowski wanted to shut this business down
 
*John Thune, new senator from South Dakota, embroiled in a financial scandal there with a car dealer.
 
*The current governor of Kentucky, Ernie Fletcher, a good republican who is likely to go down in another financial scandal.
 
*Karl Rove who has apparently dis-honestly helped out a CIA agent working to keep this country safe from weapons of mass destruction
 
*Richard Pombo, a good republican congressman from CA who worked hard to get in big subsidies to wind energy (I am not averse to that in principle) without revealing that his family has a big stake in one of the major CA wind farms
 
*Dick Cheney who, despite calims to the contrary, continues to pile up dollars as the former CEO of Halliburton, who benefitted financially from sales to those axis of evil countries Iran and Libya,  and whose former company is being investigated for bilking billions of dollars from the US hard working taxpayers while still being rewarded lucrative contracts from the DOD
 
*Neil Bush, who parlayed his family name into a directorship at Silverado Savings and Loan which tried to profiteer off land speculation from the Denver International Airport and wound up going belly up to the tune of billions, all paid for by hardworking tax payers
 
*Jeb Bush, who made lots of money with his buddy Armando Codina, but managed to get the hard working tax payers to pay up $4M of a real estate deal gone bad.  Just for fun you might try googling 'Jeb Bush + Manny Diaz + Miguel Recarey + Camilo Padrera'
 
*George W Bush who managed to drive Bush exploration and Harken Energy into the ground (profiting from what were most likely insider stock sales before the latter tanked in the early nineties) always being saved from financial ruin by friends of the Bushes like the Bin Laden family, do some lovely deals with the notorious BCCI bank, and benefit again from family connections, taxpayer subsidy, and eminent domain takeover for the new stadium by being the front man `owner' of the Texas Rangers baseball team all of which apparently qualified him for being governor of Texas and POTUS. 
 
Yes, these are the hard working republicans Dean was talking about.  Honest all.

Very good point about the elected Democrats. Will no Democrat step forward to file an ethics complaint against Rep. Cunningham? I find this very telling. Specifically, this lack of a complaint is telling me we may need new leadership in the House, or lacking that, perhaps even a new party.

My latest letter to the editor, please feel free to borrow from it.
 
Lately in the news we’ve got the FBI kicking down the doors of Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R) and associates in an investigation into his habit of getting wealthy businessmen to pay him double or triple market rates for home and boat sales, and then sell them at a loss. (1)
There’s also Senator John Thune (R) who is now in hot water regarding his political and financial relationship with a local car dealer Dan Nelson, who filed for bankruptcy after having secured millions in loans from financial institutions where Thune served on the board of directors. Prior to that Nelson had served as Thune’s political advisor. (2)
 
Then we’ve still got the slow moving investigation of whether House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's travel expenses were paid by a lobbyist or his clients. Of course Delay denies the charges but lets remember that last year alone he was rebuked by the ethics committee three times. (3)

And topping off the corruption countdown we have the Plame case. Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has spent two years working the case of whether senior Bush officials broke the law in the outing of CIA covert operative Valerie Plame. Her name was first revealed to the press on July 14, 2003, just eight days after her husband, Joseph C. Wilson, wrote in an article in the NYT claiming that members of the Bush administration, and Bush himself in the Jan 03 state of the union, were repeating false allegations about Iraq’s nuclear capabilities. (4) It now seems that the White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove may have played a role in the Plame smear campaign.

One thing, regardless of which “two senior administration officials” leaked Plame’s name to Novak, Cooper and Miller, this case makes obvious the truth of the Downing Street Minutes' claim that the administration was fixing the facts to make the case for war. This administration didn’t hesitate to try to ruin a CIA agent’s career, perhaps ruining an important covert CIA operation, (5) before they would have let the truth get in the way of the war. (6)

I thought that the Bush administration was going to bring moral values back to government after Clinton’s shenanigans?
 
 
1) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/01/A R2005070101905.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/08/A R2005070801536.html 
2) http://www.keloland.com/NewsDetail2817.cfm?Id=0,40913
http://www.kotatv.com/localnews/story.asp?ID=21250
3)  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/01/A R2005070100133.html
4)  “Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.” http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/printrn20030714.sh tml
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30D12F7355E0C758C DDAE0894DB404482&incamp=archive:search  
5) http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/3/16838/88864
 http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2003/10/10/ap parent_cia_front_didnt_offer_much_cover/
6) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/07/A R2005070702215.html