House Ethics Committee meets today

The House Ethics Committee meets today, and judging from the comments of Chairman Joel Hefley, it looks like they know how to stay bought:

"The so-called good government groups always want us to do an outside counsel," said committee Chairman Rep. Joel Hefley, R-Colo. "I have never supported doing an outside counsel.

"This is an internal police mechanism for the House of Representatives," Hefley said.

Well, at least he's keeping an open mind about it. Taking On Tom DeLay has a RollCall.com article about this from earlier in the week. As a reminder, here's what that notorious bastion of liberal orthodoxy the Dallas Morning News said about this:

Let's say you get called for jury duty. It happens that the person on trial once gave you money. Would you expect to get picked for that jury?

Heck, no.

You'd expect to be sent home, pronto, and for good reason.

Even if you, as an upright and fair-minded citizen, could put the financial tie completely out of your mind, how could those of us looking on, who can't get inside your head, be confident in your impartiality?

That's essentially the situation in Washington, where Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas stands accused of unethical fund-raising practices. Four of the five Republicans on the committee investigating him have received money from his political action committee.

Indeed.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on July 22, 2004 to Scandalized! | TrackBack