Meet the new crook, same as the old crook

I find myself laughing in a sad, gallows humor sort of way most mornings as a read the news. I watched "Meet the Press" this weekend and saw new House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Crooksville) say about uber-crook Jack Abramoff, "Some of his (Abramoff's) underlings worked with some low-level employees of my office. I'm telling you I never met the man." Now it turns out that, what a shock, Boehner is starting out his reign of lies and corruption boldly, proudly and worthy of Olympic gold.

Turns out according to Boehner spokesman Don Seymour that Boehner now does recall meeting Abramoff. There was also numerous contacts with Boehner's staff and Abramoff's lobbying firm including Boehner's former chief of staff. But hey, he never met the man and only little people in his office who he didn't even bother to learn their names had contacts with Abramoff and his crew. Boehner has declined to give up more than $30,000 he got from Abramoff's Indian tribe clients, saying his own work on tribal issues justifies the contributions. He did not receive any money from the tribes until Abramoff represented them. Meet the new crook, same as the old crook.

So I already got my daily, heck hourly, delivery of a Republican pack of lies and the sad, lamentable laugh and head shaking was over shortly thereafter. But it was not to last. The Washington Post reports that House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Payoffville) "is renting his Capitol Hill apartment from a veteran lobbyist whose clients have direct stakes in legislation Boehner has co-written and that he has overseen as chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee." The lobbyist landlord's clients "including restaurant chains and health insurance companies -- hired him to lobby on issues at the heart of Boehner's work, including minimum-wage increases, small-business tax breaks and tax-free savings accounts to help cover insurance costs, congressional lobbying records show." Fortis Health Plans and restaurant chain Buca di Beppo, hired Boehner's landlord lobbyist to lobby his tenant to fight minimum wage laws and get tax breaks. This on top of Boehner in the mid-90s handing out tobacco lobbying checks on payoff day to House members on the floor of the House while tobacco subsidies were being considered and taking more than $150,000 worth of junkets, translation: vacations, paid for by private interests since 2000.

The cherry on top is Boehner's 1996 intercepted conference call with Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay, Dick Armey and other Republicans when they plotted to defy the will of the House Ethics Committee. Josh Marshall sums it up this way, "To make a long story semi-short, Gingrich, DeLay, Dick Armey, Boehner and several others got together on a conference call to plot a counterattack against a finding of the House Ethics Committee -- something Gingrich was explicitly prohibited from doing as a condition of the punishment he received for various ethical infractions. Boehner, though, called into the call on a cell phone. Because of that, a Florida couple picked up the conversation on a police scanner. They recognized Gingrich's voice, thought it sounded important and recorded it. They in turn gave a copy of the recording to Rep. McDermott who was then, co-chair of the Ethics Committee. McDermott later leaked copies of the recording to news organizations to show that Gingrich et al. had broken the rules."

The cherry? Boehner later sued McDermott alleging violations of privacy. Privacy. Remember that? So the new rules are that the public has no privacy but government does and a lobbyist's tenant who was flown around the world to world-class vacation resorts by private industry like some "I'm with the band" congressional groupie is now the new House Majority leader. Like I said, meet the new crook, same as the old crook.