Trent Lott/William Jefferson – A Double Standard

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House of Reps Boots Democrat from Committee

It’s about time that bribe taker and thief, William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, was booted off his committee assignments in the House of Reps.

Now, obviously we should not ask him to resign until the investigation is complete, but it is perfectly sensible to tell him to vacate his position on any committees where he can influence legislation.

The House stripped Democratic Rep. William Jefferson of his committee seat on Friday in an unprecedented action against a lawmaker ensnared in scandal, but not under indictment.

(article)

Interesting that they feel they have to say how “unprecedented” this “action” is, though. In fact the whole article is couched in the flavor of how badly kindly ‘ol Mr. Jefferson is being treated by all those mean folks in the House.

But, here is the question I have… The offices of William Jefferson were entered on May 20th and it was then that it was revealed the huge amounts of cash, cash identified as marked FBI money, that he had hidden in a freezer proving his bribe taking. Yet, we are only now seeing him forced to step down on June 16th.

That is nearly a month of time passed.

Now, though it is the other body -- the Senate, Let’s go back to the Trent Lott situation a few years ago to see an interesting double standard.

Trent Lott made a comment that had the Democrats falling all over themselves clamoring for his resignation in 2003. And, remember, this was just a comment, NOT a freezer full of bribes to the tune of $90,000!

At a December 5th birthday party for soon to retire Senator Strom Thurmond, Lott said of the famous Southron that, “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either,"

The Dems wanted Lott ruined for this supposedly racist comment. He apologized on the floor of the Senate for the comment by the next Tuesday (Dec. 10th) and was out as Majority Leader by December 20th.

For those taking notes, that is a mere 15 days. Lott was taken out as majority leader in a mere 15 days.

Yet, William Jefferson went nearly a month before he was gone from his position of importance. And, the entire time, few voices were calling for his stepping down. Certainly none in the media called for Jefferson’s head on a platter. And only a few people in his own Party called for him to vacate his committee position.

Can anyone tell me where all the outrage in the press is over William Jefferson holding his position on the House Ways and Means Committee, the most powerful committee in the House? Can we compare this to the uproar the press spun up when Trent Lott made his silly little comment?

Isn’t it amazing the difference?