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Sat Jan 7 11:07:17 PST 2006

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IT'S CORRUPTION, STUPID
Jan 5th 2006  

A last chance for the Republican leadership to clean house

THE Republicans may dominate most of America's government, but their
prospects in this year's mid-term elections look increasingly dicey.
George Bush has no shortage of familiar problems--from a botched war in
Iraq to the fuss over wiretapping (see article[1]). But none has more
potential to topple the conservative movement he leads than corruption. 

 The case of Jack Abramoff--the super-lobbyist who pleaded guilty to
sundry crimes this week--is a nightmare for the Republican
establishment. To begin with, it is much easier to follow than most
such scams. Here is a Beltway Bandit whose banditry was so obscene that
it shocked even other Beltway Bandits. Mr Abramoff charged various
Indian tribes--innocent in the ways of Washington but newly enriched by
casinos--around $80m in lobbying expenses and used his ill-gotten gains
to build an empire of influence. Millions flowed to favoured lawmakers
in the form of Scottish golfing holidays, food and booze in swanky
Washington restaurants (one of which Mr Abramoff owned), tickets for
sports events and sundry other perks. All the while, Mr Abramoff
celebrated his own amorality, referring to his clients as "morons".

The Abramoff affair, the biggest corruption scandal for a generation,
will surely entangle some Democrats. But most of those caught up in his
affairs, however innocently, are Republicans. Tom DeLay, the former
majority leader already under indictment in Texas for campaign-finance
irregularities, was one of Mr Abramoff's golfing buddies. Michael
Scanlon, Mr Abramoff's partner in crime, who has already pleaded
guilty, used to work for Mr DeLay. There are also plenty of congressmen
and senators scuttling to explain and return donations. 

The danger is that, as with the cronyism exposed by Hurricane Katrina,
Mr Bush and his lieutenants will claim this as a case of a few bad
apples. In fact, the Abramoff affair is a case study of how the
conservative movement has gone wrong.

 Mr Abramoff originally arrived in Washington as one of the young
conservative idealists who wanted to shrink government and drain the
Washington swamp. He supported Newt Gingrich's crusade to get rid of
the ruling Democrats' "culture of corruption". Nowadays, Mr Abramoff,
like so many other Gingrich revolutionaries, has been engaged in
influence-peddling on an epic scale. Rather than trying to cleanse K
Street, the capital's lobbying centre, the Republicans had a "K Street
project" to conservatise the industry.

 This has produced millions for the Republican Party. But much has been
lost in the process. Gone is the enthusiasm on the American right for
slimming government. Under the free-spending Mr Bush, everybody has
become a "big-government conservative". Gone, too, is any enthusiasm
for term limits; indeed, most Republicans spend their time trying to
gerrymander districts to keep them there for life. And there is little
willingness to change. You might have imagined, for instance, that the
fury about money going to build two "bridges to nowhere" in Alaska in
the wake of Katrina would have scuttled the projects. But the bridges
are going ahead.

For the Republican establishment, Mr Abramoff's plea is a final warning
to clean house. In Mr Bush's case this means not just purging the White
House of cronies (he has less sway in Congress), but also vetoing
spending bills. The number of "pork-barrel projects"--ones that get
round normal budget rules--increased from 2,000 in 1998 to 14,000 last
year. The political cost of inaction could be high. Most Americans long
ago made up their mind on the Iraq war and they actually agree with Mr
Bush on the wiretapping fuss. But there is no surer way of losing
elections than sleaze.

This creates an opportunity for the Democrats, though it is hard to see
them taking it. Their party notably lacks a Savonarola, even a flawed
one like Mr Gingrich. Their main objection to pork is that it has been
diverted to Republican causes, not their own. The man who has shown
most enthusiasm for tackling corruption is John McCain, a Republican
senator who has railed against Mr Abramoff's ilk for years and tried
(not always successfully) to change the rules to make the exchange of
favours for votes more difficult. Mr McCain, who still harbours
presidential ambitions for 2008, may yet prove to be the big winner
from the current mess. Good luck to him.

-----
[1] http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_ID=5359801

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