The Washington Post, this morning, is demonstrating that they aren't biased in favor of liberals, nosirree. What, just attack Republicans? Us? No way! This fascinating column by Ruth Marcus, prominently positioned on page A21, demonstrates that they aren't going to just roll over on corruption just because it's a Democrat being talked about! Nope, Marcus is actively going after Jack Murtha, going so far as to say that "On its own, Murtha's ... conduct is disqualifying."
"The Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history," Pelosi pledged on election night. Five days later she wrote Murtha a letter endorsing his bid to become her No. 2.Not the most promising start.
Given that everyone knew for the two months leading up to the election that a) congressional ethics and corruption were issues and b) Murtha was in line to become the House Majority Leader if the Democrats took control of the House, this must be some issue that's only come to light in the past couple of weeks. Given the amount of time and ink that the Post spent on whether or not George Allen might have used the 'n' word when he was in college 30 years ago, surely they'd have spent the time, in an election cycle where corruption was an issue, covering the ethics of the expected-to-be-incoming Congressional leadership, right? So clearly, there's been some new allegation against Murtha, something that's come up only since the election, something that they couldn't get a fix on beforehand, and therefore that they couldn't cover before the election.
Uh, sorry. I guess that's wrong. Murtha's ethical problems, the accusations of corruption, stem from his behavior during the ABSCAM investigation. In 1980. This is corruption from so far back that anyone who's graduated from college in the last 15 years has probably never heard of it. And the Washington Post has decided that it's a relevant issue now, but wasn't before the election. I expect that we'll see more stories about Democratic corruption now that it's too late for them to affect the election...
