Dean takes on DeLay
As usual, when there's big money lobbying going on in the halls of Congress, Tom Delay is involved. It's notable that only Dean has had the resolve to critique DeLay for his involvement in the GOP's latest impropriety involving the Westar energy conglomerate :
That's exactly the kind of language that we need nowadays - lest deterrent lose its teeth. The other candidates, all Senators, are presumably too entangled in Congressional decorum to be able to take on DeLay. But not Dean.
The head of the Democratic Party asked the attorney general on Friday to seize records of leading Republican lawmakers regarding more than $55,000 in political donations by an energy conglomerate that was seeking favorable treatment from Congress.
The request followed news reports Thursday on internal documents of Topeka, Kan.-based Westar Energy about campaign donations and the company's desire to get "a seat at the table" of a House-Senate conference committee on the Bush administration's energy plan.
The Westar documents said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Senate Banking Committee chairman Richard Shelby and Reps. Joe Barton of Texas and Billy Tauzin of Louisiana had requested the contributions from Westar. A DeLay fund-raising organization collected $25,000 of Westar's contributions.
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Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor, also urged an investigation of the four members of Congress, saying that if DeLay and other lawmakers did agree to sell political access "they should be prosecuted for violating bribery laws."
That's exactly the kind of language that we need nowadays - lest deterrent lose its teeth. The other candidates, all Senators, are presumably too entangled in Congressional decorum to be able to take on DeLay. But not Dean.
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