A Washington morality tale

Once upon a time there used to be a Democratic Senator from Indiana who was the son of a famous and much admired once upon a longer time ago Democratic and very liberal Senator from Indiana.

This Democratic Senator, the son, I mean, was never much of a liberal and as it turned out not a particularly loyal Democrat.

At a critical time during the debate over the Affordable Health Care Act, this Democratic Senator threatened to blow the whole thing up if the already overly industry friendly legislation wasn’t left that way.   Any attempts to make it more affordable for the people who needed insurance and he wouldn’t vote to end the Republican filibuster.

Now, this Senator’s wife happened to work in the Insurance industry.  Not as an agent.  Not as a clerk. Not as a secretary.  Not as an accountant or actuarial.  Not even as a real executive.  She was an extremely well-compensated member of an insurance company’s board.  Her job, essentially, was to be married to a U.S. Senator so he could be counted on to do the industry’s bidding in Congress.

Apparently, she did her job very well.

And, apparently, nobody in Washington thought this was wrong.

Passage of the act caused the President and his Party all kinds of headaches and woes in the elections that followed.  But this Senator suffered none of them himself because he decided not to run for re-election.  He would have won.  The Democrat who ran in his place lost.  This was predictable.  The Democratic majority in the Senate shrank, the odds against overcoming filibusters increased to the point that the only way the Democrats would ever get anything they wanted passed again was to surrender most of what they wanted to the Republicans at every turn.

Now the former Senator has returned to Washington as a lobbyist.

For corporate interests.

He is not a stupid man, but he is not that brilliant either.  He is a lawyer but lawyering has never been his real job.  It’s not his real job now, even though lawyering is what he’s supposedly doing.  Most of his adult life he’s been a politician.  He was hired as a lobbyist because of his political connections.  For his political connections.  To exploit his political connections.

Mostly what he does is set up expensive lunches between his clients and his old friends and colleagues in Congress and in the Federal bureaucracy so that his clients can essentially bribe those friends and colleagues to do what the corporations they work for want done.  When he’s not doing that he’s taking people to lunch himself where he tells them what sorts of bribes they can expect if they do what his clients want them to do.  And when he’s not doing that he’s going to meetings where after pretending to make the case his clients want him to make he delivers invitations to one or the other type of lunches.

Apparently no one in Washington thinks this is wrong.

What they do think is wrong is that a Congressman from New York, a truly good and loyal Democrat, knows at least six women who apparently do not mind looking at photographs of the Congressman’s bare chest.

Updated Saturday afternoon with virtual face-palm:  Damn.  Can the guy manage to be any more embarrassing?

Comments

[Sherri]

The young woman who was the intended recipient of the Congressman's other photograph, the one not of his bare chest, has claimed in an interview that she did not want a picture of said body part and that she didn't get the intended joke and that the photograph was out of line with the conversation they had been having. To me, that makes the behavior of the Congressman much more troubling.

[Lance Mannion]

Other photograph? Uh-oh. I think I've fallen behind on this one.

[Vadranor]

You forgot to mention that he signed a contract to provide commentary on Fox News.

[Sherri]

I'm referring to the picture of his underwear clad erection, that he sent to the community college student in Seattle. She claims that she did nothing to invite such a photo and didn't think it was funny.

[Bill Altreuter]

I often think about how awkward Thanksgiving must be for this family.

[actor212]

Nicely put, Lance

Sherri, said recipient was originally quoted as saying she didn't mind. Ergo, we can immediately disregard anything she has to say on the subject as having been warped.

[Sherri]

Sure, since a 21 year old community college student is suddenly the center of a media storm for having a received a photo that a Congressman is denying sending her, let's take her first comments as the final word.

[spiny]

Exactly right Lance- Evan Bayh should have been excoriated by the press, but instead the corporate media regards selling out your constituents interests for corporate dollars as the norm, and frankly it's what they expect from all our "sensible" politicians- the president included. That they would rather cover a minor sex scandal 24/7 than the fact that we are increasingly legalizing corruption of our government tells you all you have to know.

[redactor]

It's entirely a matter of perspective, as Lance points out. Until the media gets upset about Evan Bayh's behavior, I cannot take them seriously about Weinergate. Apparently Weiner's constituents feel the same way.

Which is not to condone Weiner's behavior, only to say that there is a great deal more to morality than being circumspect about what you display on Twitter.

[Lance Mannion]

Thanks, folks, I wish Weiner was more worth the effort.

Sherri, I think I'm still behind. I thought she never saw that picture because Weiner had deleted practically immediately. I know her life's been turned upside down and he's responsible because he didn't consider what would happen if he messed up or anyone found out---and really because he shouldn't have been doing any of this after he got married---but that's not why the Villagers are on their high-horses.

[Sherri]

Lance, according to the interview she gave to the New York Times, Gennette Cordova did receive the picture from Weiner, and it wasn't in line with the tenor of the other messages they had exchanged. I agree with you that what Bayh has done deserves more opprobrium than it has received, and that the Villagers will hop on anything sex-related to distract from important things. However, I have a problem with just excusing Weiner's behavior as no big deal. Consent matters.

[Rana]

Sherri - agreed. The difference between the two acts is that Weiner has imposed himself on others without their consent, while Bayh has prostituted himself and acted as a pimp for willing customers. Both are unethical, but one act is consensual (meaning all involved are liable) and the other was not (meaning that there is a victim as well as a culprit).

[El Jefe]

Rana,

That was nicely and clearly put. (Which I say both because I agree with it and because concision was never my friend like that.)

[Lance Mannion]

There doesn't need to be any contest between Bayh and Weiner. Both can be scum. But Bayh is representative of a culture of corruption. He was perfectly willing to kill the ACA to protect his wife's industry's profits, which means he's willing to let people die for money. That's pretty bad. My point was that the DC establishment doesn't see this kind of corruption as bad or even as corruption. It's not him, that's why I didn't use his name. It's the whole damn lot of them.