Speaker-To-Be Nancy Pelosi's choice for Majority Leader, Jack Murtha, has as many if not more, ethical shadiness as Tom DeLay. Michelle Malkin has commentary and Abscam video of Jack Murtha trying to make a deal with bribery.
At teh same time, tainted lobbyist Jack Abramoff points to between 6 and 8 "seriously corrupt" Democratic Senators. Of course, Democrats may have been hoping that Abramoff would go away or taint only the GOP when the Republicans were in power, but it turns out that Abramoff "helped" the Dems as much as the Republicans.
Cleaning up the "culture of corruption" is going to be hard when the picks for leadership look like they have been corrupted in the same way in which the Dems painted the GOP as corrupt.
DeLay may have broken the law. Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney apparently did or they would not have plead guilty. But it is difficult to be an agent of ethical change when the leaders being appointed are a part of the culture. Murtha is caught on tape dealing for a bribe. Why then is Pelosi backing this guy?
Captain Ed points to the past and notes that the Democrats are not better at ethics, just lucky so far.
Of course, ethical challenges are nothing new in Washington and sometimes the "ethically challenged" paintbrush gets slung about is a sloppy fashion. There is a far cry from taking lots of special interest PAC money (which is completely legal and overly regulated) and discussing the terms under which you will take a bribe. I am generally not in favor of using "ethics" as a partisan tool since, as we can see, it cuts both ways. However, in this case, what was good for the GOP goose must also apply to the Democratic gander.
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