Now, I might be confused, Merkwurdigliebe, but I don’t think I saw anyone ask, “Did every last Democrat think it was the Republican party’s fault?” or, “Did a statistically significant majority of Democrats think it was the Republican party’s fault?” or, “Do the Democrats have an official spokesperson around here who can tell us if they believe it was the Republican party’s fault?” No, in fact, you asked if ANYONE said it was the Republican party’s fault. Bricker and Moto found someone who did, indeed say that. Question answered.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton;10561212. The Democratic Congressional Caucus wants you to resign. Every pol in Illinois but yourself wants you to resign. The people of Illinois want you to resign. Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert want you to resign. Everybody wants you to resign.
.[/QUOTE]
Yes, but why should he? Generally Pols resign after a promise not to prosecute or after a deal. That’s what he is waiting for, and that’s what he’s going to get- at least the deal part. So, instead let’s ask the Prosecution: “Why not just give the corrupt idiot the deal now rather than later so he can resign and we can get back to business as usual?”
Of course, now I’ll be PITed for thinking that there *should be *a deal. But there’s no “should” it’s “will”, that’s just the way things work, like it or not.
I’m thinking the prosecution is using the threat of an indictment to see if they can get him to name any names (and schemes) they don’t already have nailed down too.
The point is that Bricker uses evidence of one Democrat blaming Republicans in general for Ted Steven’s behavior to call all Democrats who are not blaming all Democrats hypocrites. See the problem?
Fair dinkum.
Just in that thread, too, he wasn’t the only one.
Now, I hasten to add that that was a minority position in the Stevens case, but in other matters like the Abramoff investigation that was thrown around as proof of general Republican corruption.
Now, I have never pleaded here that Republicans are especially pure on this front - but since 2006, when these things were a major factor in the Republican loss of Congress, we have had scandal after scandal. And most of these have implicated Democrats - from Rangel to Kwame Kilpatrick to Spitzer to Edwards to Jefferson. The former mayor of Newark went to prison. And the entire state of Pennsylvania was rocked by a major scandal involving the Democratic House caucus - bonus money was paid to legislative staffers in exchange for both political work and campaign contributions. So far Mike Veon, the former Democratic whip, has been indicted.
Now, certainly there have been Republican scandals in this timeframe. But the Democrats risk not being in a position to capitalize politically on them because of a perception that their own house isn’t in order - and if that were to come to pass, they’d have themselves to blame.
No, I don’t. He said that he believed that if Blago was a Republican, people on this board would have claimed that it was his Republican-ness that led him to such depravity. You asked for an example of when that had happened. He gave you one.
Coming from Wisconsin I can proclaim that it’s not his Democrat-ness…it’s his Illinois-ness.
d&r
The House Republicans are allegedly doing the same thing. The thinking is that the Republican AG went after the Democrats first to keep his job. He’s promised to go after the Republicans next, but no one’s holding their breath.
Robin
I didn’t know Tom Ament and Alderman McGee lived in Illinois.
I’ll wait and see as well, but I will point out two things:
Even if the Republicans were doing the same thing (and I wouldn’t put it past them, especially Pennsylvania Republicans) it doesn’t excuse what we know DeWeese and Veon did.
Secondly, House Democrats were shoveling far more bonus money out the door than any other delegation - twice as much as House Republicans and more than five times as much as Senate Democrats. Now, that isn’t conclusive, but it sure is indicative of something.
Sorry, but that’s not how it is. NOTICE, there are no frothing partisans trying to defend the crooked son of a bitch. No one is trying to accuse “the other guys” of setting him up or framing him. Everyone agrees he is simply a piece of shit.
Sure and fine. But I hope some people remember this incident, especially Illinois Democrats. Because the man did get reelected with the support of many of them - including many people on this board and most elected Democratic officials in Illinois.
That would include a certain president-elect some people here are fond of.
Now, I’m not faulting anyone for this - you have to weigh a lot of factors when deciding who to vote for, and party identification isn’t an illegitimate thing to consider. But again, lots of vitriol was splashed over this website when Bush was reelected - people who voted for him were blamed for all manner of ills and dismissed as blindered partisan lunkheads.
Maybe in light of all of this we should back off from that kind of language, or at least recognize it as not productive.
No one’s saying anyone’s innocent here. I myself am glad Veon and DeWeese are gone. I was just saying that the Republicans also did it, and that there is some thinking that Corbett held off on prosecuting Republicans in order to win re-election since he was running against a particularly strong Democratic opponent. He did, by the way.
The converse to your point is just as true. Just because the Democrats did it doesn’t excuse the Republicans.
Robin
Perhaps the Dems and Pubs have reached a back room deal. The Dems can have the lion’s share of state level corruption, and the Pubs get the bulk of Federal corruption. Governor Rod boke the rules and was busted because selling a senate seat was poaching on Federal territory.
All I can say is, if they elected and THEN re-elected him, then dammit they got what they deserved (?). Between you and me, I wouldn’t mind or care if people were demanding a “duck walk” or screaming for his head on a pike. This asshole surely does deserve a healthy serving of vitriol. So do any “powers behind the throne” that knew what he had been doing and supported him anyway. Corruption does not stop on one side of the aisle. Neither does stupidity.
This moron was both.
He was insinuating that Democrats are willing to blame the entire Republican party when they get caught with corruption, but will blame Democratic corruption on said pol being a bad apple. That’s the underlying premise of the above belief, is it not? It was intended to be a slight to Democrats for being unable to distinguish between a bad apple and endemic problems.
That’s what the point of that statement was, right? You can’t draw conclusions like that with one example. It’s also quite amusing that he’s doing what he’s accusing Democrats of doing by using a very small sample size and generalizing it as being true for all people in said party.
but whatever, I’m willing to concede the point to not hijack the discussion further.
Look, I never voted for the guy (I didn’t vote for Governor, period), but that’s really not fair.
I know this was posted in at least one other Blago thread, and it reads as if it’s a joke, but it’s really one of those “it’s funny because it’s true” things:
The only other option was an even worse lizard, or looked like it at the time. Perhaps you’d like to move to Illinois and give it a try? I’ll vote for ya. Only $20.
I misspoke. DeWeese was re-elected and retained his position in House leadership. Veon is, in fact, gone.
Robin
He is blustering, over sentimental and weeps when another senator is sick. He is showing his age.