I have zero sympathy for Cunningham. A congressman gets paid nearly $200,000 a year. The median wage in the United States is about $25,000 a year. If you’re in political life and you steal money and they catch you doing it, you belong in jail. Democrat or Republican. I cry no tears. Good riddance to the crook.

In the end, that burrito got the better of me.

It was ever thus.

Did Hell just freeze over?

For the first time, Wilson, you and I are in basic agreement over something. The only bone I'd pick is to say that the relative levels of income do not matter when it comes to this. Graft is graft, whether you're paid $25K or $200K.

Put it this way: If you go to Mexico or pre-hurricane New Orleans, you'd find out that the police aren't paid enough to live on. Corruption is inevitable in such environments. Still unacceptable, but certainly more understandable. But when the corrupt one is starting off with seven or eight times the average American wage, I personally find it all the more outrageous. It's why I find myself reacting as vehemently as I do, and my attitude is no different for Repubs and Demos.

But, of course, that's because I apply a single standard to everything. Not an inflexible standard, but a single standard. As opposed to the American rightwingnut, who is perfectly comfortable with lies, war, death and torture as long as his favorite wingnut Republicans are doing it.

By the way, another myth about the Liar in Chief just bit the dust today. His recent rah-rah speech on the war was the product of a polling expert. It figures. Frankly, the way to understand your Fake President is to listen to what he says and assume the direct opposite.

http://w3t.org/?u=ej5

Is it safe to say that the temporary comity between Wilson and Rich is now drowned in the rising waters of smug, self-satisfied, moral superciliousness?

Or not?

Couldn't you even generate two logical paragraphs, before you start the Baghdad Willy routine?

I do not buy the line that corruption is inevitible in impoverished environments. My own father's experience, growing up in the redneck ghetto of Appalachia, gives the lie to that. Just as in wealthy environments, the vast majority are honest -- but a few bad apples show up and make things bad for the rest. In his environment, those who were corrupt, usually, already had their money to begin with ... they just wanted more.

If the cops aren't getting paid enough, then they need to fire their management and get new jobs that pay better. They are not stuck in either New Orleans or in police work. Either they are right -- and the elected leadership will be held accountable by the public for their stinginess -- or they are wrong -- and everyone is better off. The feedback between liberty and consequence is tight and strong here.

Corruption is more inevitible when the government has inserted itself into the world of commerce (including labor) to a degree well beyond its structural capability to manage -- and ignores the inalienable rights of its people while doing it. That is the case, IMO, in socialist Mexico -- the feedback loop between liberty and consequence has been broken by government involvement, allowing corruption to flourish and impoverish the people -- not the other way around.

As for Bush's speech:

(1) never trust the first report from a war zone, or the NYT ...

(2) by your standard, you should protest EVERY presidential candidate, from all parties ... for they expect us to elect them based on poll-tailored speeches. The only possible exceptions to this are the "cowboys" like Reagan and our current President.

(3) ever consider that the pollster's influence could have been this?

"The American people expect the truth, Mr. President -- it's time to drop the "uniter not divider" civility and go head-to-head with the arrogant elitists who lead your opposition."

Just keep going off half-cocked, Wilson ... you make Greyhawk's (and my) task easier.

Cunningham has had an inflated opinion of himself for a long time. He has been rude to some military families I know and was known long ago for his unwillingness to fly against the Top Gun instructors. The theory was that he was unwilling to be embarrassed. That comes from the first Marine Top Gun instructor.

From there it took just a little more hubris to think he could get away with that dumb stunt of selling his house for $700,000 more than it was worth to a defense company guy.

by your standard, you should protest EVERY presidential candidate, from all parties ... for they expect us to elect them based on poll-tailored speeches. The only possible exceptions to this are the "cowboys" like Reagan and our current President
I don't care if a president uses pollsters. Having their policy speeches drafted by a pollster goes a little far, though. In the Fake President's case it's especially outrageous given that he and his Jawohl! crowd constantly bleat about how he doesn't care about the polls.

That, like everything else farted out from the Bush crew and their amen chorus, is total bullshit as shown by His Fraudulence delivering a "plan" written by his pollster.

Speaking of corruption, New York's corrupt Republican state government worked closely with George W. Bush's corrupt federal government to allow fat cat crooks to loot the 9/11 funds intended to help small businesses wiped out by the attacks. Not that the Jawohl! crowd could give a rat's ass, because if it's done by Republicans then it's not corruption.

http://w3t.org/?u=eja

Wilson, you remind me of the monkeys at the zoo -- throw any kind of dung they can get their hands on at the wall, to see what sticks.

Over on Grey Eagle's blog, you have yet to respond DIRECTLY to the evidence she presented that gives the lie to your assertions that this war is designed for America to control the oil. Instead, you blow off the patrols as a "fig leaf" and continue with your rants.

All this is evidence of running out of defensible ideas -- in fact, I'd say that your tank hit "E" a long time ago ... and the fume level there is approaching a vacuum.

So instead, you act as a parrot for MoveOn/Soros anarchy.

Don't worry, Rich. Your Liar in Chief will cut and run next year. Then we can both be happy.

http://w3t.org/?u=ekq

Lex,

it's never safe to say super..... You need special equipment for that.

She sells seashells by the seashore ...

Wilson keeps going on about this "Liar-in-chief" character.

Not being American, I don't know who he's referring to. John Kerry? Ted Kennedy? John Murtha?

Please help me out here. There's so many liars to choose from, I don't know which one is the chief he's referring to.

Thanks.

The one and only George W. Bush, who deserted in Vietnam, lied about his service record, lied during both of his presidential campaigns, lied to entice the U.S. into a war that it is now losing and lied about the use of torture. He will lie as he cuts and runs from that war, too. That is why your Fake President, George W. Bush, is the Liar in Chief.

Funny you should describe Murtha as a liar. Goes to show that the rightwingnuts are phonies when it comes to patriotism and support for the military. You hate your country and you hate the people who fight for it -- unless they are rightwingnuts like yourselves.

...am I the only one picturing Kolb looking like the Emperor from the Star Wars series. All grey and deformed from the hatred and such?

(...okay, I might be the only SF geek posting here, so it's possible.) ;)