Similarities are adding up between Doolittle, Ney

[babylonsister]

Repost for those that missed it the first time~this lightened my heart!

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/17115462.htm

Similarities are adding up between Doolittle, Ney
By David Whitney
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The similarities are adding up.

When Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., stepped down from his position last week on the House Appropriations Committee because of the unfolding Abramoff investigation, he added yet another ominous similarity between himself and Rep. Bob Ney, the Ohio Republican who is the only member of Congress so far to have been brought down by the scandal.

Ney pleaded guilty to conspiracy in October and is serving a 30-month prison sentence for accepting gambling chips, luxury travel and other benefits in exchange for taking official actions that helped GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his clients.

Doolittle has not been charged. But FBI agents raided the suburban Virginia home he shares with his wife, acting on a search warrant that can only be issued by a judge based on agents asserting there is probable cause to believe a crime has been committed.

more...

[marmar]

1. Despite a disproportionately high Democrat-to-Republican investigation ratio under BushCo....

It seems that 99.5 percent of the time, the only dirt that they're able to dig up is on Republicans. :think: Mirriam-Webster is going to have to rework the dictionary:

Re pub li can = n, a member of one of the two major American political parties, generally the one considered to be more conservative. In the early 21st century, under the presidency of George W. Bush, Republican became a synonym for corrupt individual.

[Old and In the Way]

3. It's a real problem for the national Republican Party.

I'm convinced that they can't run honest politicians who have independent integrity. Way too big a risk. They have to be corruptible / blackmail-able / compromisable. It's a real quandry...they really thought they could bury the Democratic Party a few years ago and rule this country as a 1 Party State. I think they now realize that ain't gonna happen, but they really can't support candidates who won't take their marching orders from Karl Rove.

[MADem]

2. Gotta love those names, too...I mean, if you were writing a morality play, what better names?

"Do Little" and "Nay"--I can't wait to see how the former puts himself on the opposite side of BushCo's Justice Department...now THAT will be a gymnastic feat! And his wife sure Did Little to get that dough, didn't she?

....By the end of the week, a Doolittle strategy was beginning to emerge. He said he would have much more to say in the coming weeks about the raid at their home, suggesting he would try to put the Justice Department on the defensive for taking computers and records his wife needed to help clients with tax problems - a kind of intimidation he said was "quite shocking" given her history of cooperation. ....Doolittle also has a former aide, Kevin Ring, who went to work for Abramoff, sought help from the congressman on behalf of clients and now is believed to be talking to federal prosecutors.

Ring abruptly resigned from his job at the law firm of Barnes & Thornburg - ironically, the same place Volz worked after the Abramoff empire collapsed - at about the same time FBI agents were raiding the Doolittle home. ....(he) likely is following the same path as Volz, agreeing to cooperate with federal investigators in an effort to minimize the consequences for himself. Ring, like Volz was for Ney, is in a position to know what Doolittle had done for Abramoff's clients.

"What typically will occur is that if they're putting you in a vice but you have information than can bring in a bigger fish, that's your hook," said Kenneth Gross, an attorney with the Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom law firm. "It can even bring you immunity, or a lighter sentence, or no sentence at all."

But unlike Ney, who admitted receiving gambling chips and free trips in exchange for helping Abramoff, it appears that prosecutors are focusing on Julie Doolittle's company as the likely payoff for favors through payments for phantom work. .....

[Old and In the Way]

4. "Doolittle, Delay, and Ney" Sounds like an epithat for a deceased Republican Law Firm.

[MADem]

5. You got that right!!!

I always did like "Dewey, Cheatham and Howe" from the Three Stooges, but that was fiction--your example is all too real!!!!