More Evidence That Democrats Can't See Their Own Hypocricy

(hat tip Fireman)

In their zeal to filet DeLay the Democrats, as usual, overlooked their own "questionable" ethics behavior. In the past they might have gotten away with that, which has provided idiots like Nancy Pelosi and others the confidence to berate the GOP mercilessly for considering themselves "above the law," and so forth.

But, as with so many issues, the left fails terribly in their attempts to adjust to a new country, one that doesn't rely so heavily on the main-stream media, which typically has allowed the left a free pass in situations such as this. That safety net is now gone, with the MSM under far more scrutiny and, of course, alternative media sources that fill in the blanks where the media leaves off.

Such is the case with the DeLay scandal, where Democrats are now scrambling to avoid falling victim to their own witch-hunt.

...an aide to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had not reported a 2004 trip to South Korea until a Washington Post reporter asked her office about it. Eddie Charmaine Manansala, Pelosi's special assistant on East Asian affairs, filed a disclosure form for the $9,087 trip a few hours after the newspaper's inquiry and sent a note to the ethics committee saying, "I did not know I was supposed to file these forms and I apologize for its lateness."

Whoops.

Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) even asked the ethics committee to investigate him after a reporter for the newspaper Roll Call pointed out that a travel disclosure form from 2001 listed the lobbying firm Rooney Group International as paying for a $1,782 trip to Boston, which would be a violation of House rules.
Abercrombie's aides said they have since determined that the lobbying firm's expenses were reimbursed by the nonprofit group that Abercrombie addressed on the trip, the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts. House rules state that the prohibition against lobbyists paying for members' travel applies "even where the lobbyist . . . will later be reimbursed for those expenses by a non-lobbyist client."

Perhaps Abercrombie should apologize and put this ugliness behind him. Still, that would still leave some high level Democrats in the cross-fire.

As reports about DeLay's travel with lobbyists mount, Republican leaders are attempting to shift attention to questionable activities of Democrats. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) warned on Sean Hannity's radio show last week that there are "four or five cases out there dealing with top-level Democrats," whom he did not name.

Some pundits have listed as many as 39 congress members that have their family on the payroll in one way or another, among them prominent Democrats who apparently don't believe that exempts them from taking shots at DeLay for the same thing.

Speaking of shots, MSNBC couldn't resist taking this one at Republicans for this latest round of tit for tat.

The threats and maneuvering mark the end of an ethics truce that has existed between the parties since the battles that led to the downfall of House speakers Jim Wright (D-Tex.) in 1989 and Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) in 1998.

Note that the "truce" wasn't ended with the DeLay witch-hunt, but by the GOP response to it.

Democrats have unwittingly signaled open season on any member of congress who may have flirted with ethics violations. Of course many of those congress people will be Democrats, which apparently was completely unforseen by lazy liberals who thought they could count on the media to not tell the whole story.

When will they ever learn?