Rudy - A Study of the Beltway

[red-beard]

An interesting read - All Politicians and thier staff may start out with ideals, then they lose them. And of course, Delay is resigning...

Rudy
April 4, 2006; Page A22

No, not the tale of the Notre Dame football walk-on who became a movie hero. We're referring to Tony Rudy, who last week became the latest former member of Tom DeLay's staff to cop a felony plea for abusing his office to get rich quick.

A remarkable part of this story is that there isn't any doubt about the guilt of this crowd. Like Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist sentenced to nearly six years in jail last week in a Florida fraud case, or Michael Scanlon, the bullying former press secretary who bragged in emails about scamming Indian tribes, Mr. Rudy has no real defenders. No one thinks this is a "political" or partisan prosecution. He pleaded guilty to trading official favors -- including attempts to influence legislation -- in return for personal gain. He sold out whatever principles he brought to Washington for easy money.

Also getting more public scrutiny is Edwin Buckham, a former chief of staff to Mr. DeLay, who is referred to in documents associated with Mr. Rudy's plea deal as "Lobbyist B." Mr. Buckham and his wife, Wendy, were recently the subjects of a Washington Post story suggesting that they had received about one-third of the revenues of a nonprofit advocacy group they had set up in the name of promoting their political ideals (the U.S. Family Network). Their take: more than $1 million, much it supplied by clients of Mr. Abramoff. So far as we know, the Buckhams haven't commented on the Post article or the Rudy plea deal.

We took a lot of grief from Republicans for an editorial a year ago warning that Mr. DeLay and his crowd had gone Beltway native. It turns out we understated the problem. A spokesman for Mr. DeLay said last week he was unaware of all of this wrongdoing and is shocked by it. But even if he isn't directly implicated, the former House Majority Leader was at best a terrible judge of character. His former associates could yet end up filling an entire wing at Club Fed.

What caused this outbreak of greed is impossible to know for sure. Clearly a sense of entitlement set in among some Republicans, who forgot why they were elected and began to believe that power was its own reward. We can recall when Republicans, back in the early 1990s, proposed to reduce the size of their Capitol Hill staffs in order to reduce the scope of Congressional mischief. That idea went away pretty fast once they became a majority.

The Abramoff story still has a long way to run this election year, and one way or another the Members themselves will not emerge unscathed. If Republicans lose their House majority because GOP voters stay home in disgust, Team DeLay will be one of the reasons.

[Jim Richards]

Originally posted by red-beard
Clearly a sense of entitlement set in among some Republicans

But I thought Repubs were against entitlement programs.

[Rick Lee]

Rudy was the only one of this gang who worked for DeLay while this wrongdoing was going on. Clearly, Abramoff wasn't in it for lofty ideals. He was a superlobbyist - not where starry eyed, politically ambitious folks start out. Buckham and Scanlon also were not Congressional staffers when they went bad. Rudy worked for Abramoff before he went to work for DeLay, so it's not like he was starting at the bottom.