Still Not A Democrat

In my final post as a twentysomething, I thought that I'd clarify, again, that I am an Independent. Always have been, and (unless we get more political parties in this country) I probably always will be. Now, I know that people who are registered Democrat get crap from Republicans and vice versa, but us Independents? We get it from both sides. In fact, I get called a "fence sitter" at least once a week by someone very close to me. Now, I'm not going to name any names, but let's just say her initials are Megan Thom.

Now, I know that a lot of what I say in my blog probably makes it sound like I'm a Democrat because I'm always attacking this Republican the other (Pete Ricketts and Tom DeLay, I'm looking in your direction). But it's not about Party, it's about the truth. When I catch people spouting lies, I call them on it. And (with the exception of Ricketts, who was only running for office) the people most often spouting this nonsense are the people in power, and up until recently in our representative government, that meant Republicans.

Now, I'll admit, I was elated when the Democrats took back Congress, but not because that meant Democrats were now in charge. It was partly because I think that friction is good for the government, and when one Party controls the House, the Senate, and the Executive (again, the Republicans) well, that tends to lead to some serious mismanagement (think Katrina and Iraq). Mostly, though, I was excited about the Dem's platform of cleaning up corruption that they ran on. In fact, they're already doing some good stuff in that regard, like finally having investigations into the contracting for Iraq's reconstruction projects, for example. Things were looking good. I no longer was referring to Congress as the "Broken Branch." I had hope that maybe, just maybe things were going to be different from now on.

But, then along came a little case involving William Jefferson, a Democratic Congressman from Louisiana. This guy is, pardon my French, a douche bag (yes, 'douche' is actually French). You may or may not remember this guy, but he made headlines back in May because the FBI raided his office on Capitol Hill. This was a pretty big deal because the FBI probably crossed the Separation of Powers line (since Congress has their own police, the United States Capitol Police). To me, though, the big issue is what lead to the raid: the FBI allegedly have Jefferson on video taking a $100,000 bribe and had already searched his apartment, where they found $90,000 in his freezer.

Now, I'm never one to let one bad apple spoil a whole bunch. With 21 members of Congress currently under investigation (17 Republicans versus 4 Democrats), I was willing to cut the Dems some slack. Since they can't make Jefferson step down, I figured they'd relegate the guy to the point where he was ineffectual until, you know, he was sentenced and then actually had to step down. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Not only has Jefferson not been pushed to the sidelines, Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to appoint him a seat on the Homeland Security Committee. A guy who is under investigation for taking a $100,000 bribe will now be granted access to classified documents regarding the safety and well-being of this country. This not only sounds insanely stupid and even dangerous; it sounds rather hypocritical coming from the leader of the House Dems who ran on a platform of cleaning up a corrupt Capitol Hill.

Hey, Democrats! Want to stay in power? Here's a hint: don't do the same sort of crap that got the Republicans kicked out of office. And to anybody reading this who actually cares about clean government, do me a favor, huh? Contact Madame Speaker Pelosi and let her know that we want the Democrats to stick to their promises and end the cycle of corruption in Washington. After all, one corrupt branch of the government is enough for me...