Washblog

Not that he will listen, I think it would be a wise thing if he did... or simply live up to his term promise and simply not run. But Democracy 21 issued a statement today calling for Doc Hastings to step down as ethics chair.

Democracy 21 believes you have failed to carry out the important institutional responsibilities you hold as Chairman of the House Ethics Committee. We call on you to resign this position. Democracy 21 believes that Representative Alan Mollohan (D-WV) was correct in his decision to step down as Ranking Member on the House Ethics Committee until serious legal and ethics questions raised about his conduct have been resolved. Democracy 21 also believes that, for different reasons, you should step down as Chairman of the House Ethics Committee, "an entity that hasn't existed throughout the 109th Congress," according to a recent editorial in the Washington Post (April 15, 2006).

As Mollohan may be the latest poster boy for republican's to say "see, it's not just us", I say I could give a rat's ass. Corruption is corruption and that is what the congressional ethics oversight is all about. And at the helm, Hastings has been a complete failure, embarassment, and joke. What I think the GOP fails to understand is that the people who care about appropriate behavior in Congress don't care about the "D" or "R" before the name. We do care, however, that investigations of wrong doing take a precident to partisan politics. The recent re-opening of Representative Jim McDermott's ethics case is a clear cut case of just that and offers yet another pathetic example of just how partisan and low the GOP will go to further a failed agenda and grasp at the last straw's of a failed leadership in Washington DC.

Transperancy is nothing but good. But in this case, it appears to be bad for Doc Hastings.