Revised, with links fixed, Thursday evening.
Oh, that's right, months ago. He just hasn't made it official yet.
Senator Evan Bayh, alleged Democrat from Indiana, has announced he’s as ready, willing, and eager to help kill real health care reform as Joe Lieberman or any Republican.
Without making any excuses for the Quisling from Connecticut, you have to give Lieberman this. He does represent a state where there’s a large city that’s essentially an office park devoted to the Insurance Industry, Hartford, "America’s Filing Cabinet."
There’s an actual overlap between his corruption and his responsibility to represent his state’s interests. It makes sense that Connecticut wouldn’t mind having a Senator sympathetic to the Insurance Industry, just as it makes sense that Michigan would want their Senators to be sympathetic to the auto industry and Iowa would want theirs to be sympathetic to farmers. Connecticut doesn’t need to have one so deep in the insurance companies’ pockets, but that’s beside the point at the moment.
The point is this. Why does Indiana need a Senator who is that deep in the pockets of the insurance industry too?
Indiana has any number of struggling factory towns, three large and highly regarded universities---Notre Dame, Purdue, and IU---and farms. Lots of farms.
Evan Bayh, the supposedly Democratic Senator from Indiana, learned a valuable lesson from last fall's election. Barack Obama won the Democratic primary in Indiana. Barack Obama carried Indiana in the Presidential election, the first time a Democrat has managed that in forever. Obama accomplished this mainly by bringing out the vote in the industrial Northwestern corner of the state and rallying younger voters and Independents. Bayh looked at this and decided that as a Democratic Senator from Indiana what he needs to do from here on out...
...is represent the interests of Republicans living and working on the East Coast.
How come?
Oh. Wait.
Top-performing companies based in Indianapolis include Anthem Inc., Conseco Inc., Eli Lilly and Company, Guidant Corp., Duke Realty Corp., Hunt Construction Group, National Wine & Spirits, and Simon Property Group. Major employers include Clarian Health, Dow AgroSciences, Roche Diagnostics, and more than 20 others.
The insurance industry has long been established in Indianapolis; several insurance companies have located their headquarters and regional offices in the city.
That’s from City-Data.com.
But this is key:
As the debate over health-care reform intensifies, Bayh's wife is receiving lucrative payouts from some of the companies that could be most affected by that legislation.
Bayh contends the $2.1 million that his wife, Susan, earned from public health-care companies from 2006 to 2008 represents no conflict of interest. Questions persist, however, for at least two reasons. First, Evan Bayh has been unclear about his positions on many issues related to health-care reform. Second, there's the timing of Susan Bayh's rapid rise into corporate governance.
Susan Bayh, who was a midlevel lawyer for the politically active Eli Lilly and Co. while her husband was governor of Indiana, did not serve on the board of a single public health-care company until it was clear her husband was about to ascend to the U.S. Senate. Only one month before Evan Bayh was elected to the Senate in a landslide vote, his wife was appointed to serve on the board of what would become the nation's largest health insurance company -- and arguably the company with the most at stake in the health-care reform debate.
That’s from the Indianapolis Star via AmericaBlog.
See also.
This is Evan Bayh himself, Alleged Democrat from Indiana, responding to the idea that his wife’s making millions as a board member for an insurance corporation influences his votes:
I can honestly tell you that if my wife did not have a job, none, I can't think of a single decision I've made that would be any different. I look at what's best for our state and our country and my own conscience. My integrity matters more to me than anything, so I always do what's right for the people who put their trust in me.
Always been a rule of thumb for me. Whenever someone starts bragging about his conscience and his integrity, it’s a good bet he has neither.
Bayh gets extra snake-oil salesman points for working the words “honestly” and “trust” into his pitch.
You know what, though. I believe him. If his wife didn’t have those jobs, I’m sure he’d be right out there with Lieberman aiding and abetting the Republicans because he’d have still worn the For Sale sign around his own neck and the insurance industry would have found another way to buy his soul.
_______________________
And then there’s Blanche Lincoln Alleged D-Allegedly Arkansas.
...but you're perfectly okay with Michelle Obama's salary at the University of Chicago Hospital tripling from $121K to $317K immediately after he was elected Senator?
Posted by: Dutch | Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 02:37 PM
Bizarre non-sequitur FTW!
Posted by: GeoX | Friday, October 30, 2009 at 02:48 AM
"Without making any excuses for the Quisling from Connecticut, you have to give Lieberman this. He does represent a state where there’s a large city that’s essentially an office park devoted to the Insurance Industry, Hartford, 'America’s Filing Cabinet.' "
...And don't forget Stamford, which is another office park that's essentially devoted to banking interests, and where all of his funding comes from.
Bayh has always been a very conservative senator, as near as I can tell. I think if there is any progressive reform of anything this year, it will not come out of the Senate.
Posted by: mac macgillicuddy | Friday, October 30, 2009 at 10:09 AM
Dutch, you're embarassing to the far right wing of the Republican party. Please find new talking points.
Lance, Bayh's comment is a twist on the old "Why, some of my best friends are..." saw. It defends nothing, because it sets up a straw man and knocks the stuffing out of it.
Better had Bayh said, "If my wife didn't have a job, I'd merely ask Conseco for another contribution."
Posted by: actor212 | Friday, October 30, 2009 at 10:37 AM
GeoX,
You'll have to forgive Dutch. He's, um, ignert. He somehow thinks that Nelson Rockefeller and Jacob Javits were Democrats.
Sad little man. Sad little ideologue.
Posted by: actor212 | Friday, October 30, 2009 at 10:57 AM