Imagine this screaming headline in The Washington Post or New York Times: “Senate Candidate Caught Kiting 143 Bad Checks Totaling $41,417.”
Could one of those papers be describing Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell? Nope. Some other Republican? Guess again.
It would be none other than United States Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).
In 1992 when she was in the House of Representatives and a candidate for the Senate, liberal icon, mainstream media darling and High Priestess in the Church of the Enlightened Environmentalist, was found to have written all these bad checks on the House Bank. — You know, that’s the bank that’s run exclusively for members of Congress — The checks did not bounce like they would have for you and me, as they were covered by “overdraft protection” from the bank.
Don’t you wish you had that kind of overdraft protection from your bank?
Then-Congressman Boxer had passed the bad checks over a three year period. If any one of us, including Delaware Senate Republican nominee Christine O’Donnell, had passed all that bad paper we would have been put in jail.
The punishment for her crimes? Barbara Boxer was elected to the United States Senate that same year.
Although many members of Congress were swept up in the Great House Banking Scandal of 1992 by writing bad checks and overdrawing their accounts, 22 members, 18 Democrats and 4 Republicans were singled out by the House Ethics Committee as having been the most egregious.
It gets even better.
Recently it was revealed that Capitol Hill staffers owe a whopping $9.3 million in back taxes.
And not to be outdone, 41 White House staffers owe a combined $831,000 in back taxes. Three are in the Office of Government Ethics– perhaps they need a refresher course.
Mark Twain once said, “There is no native criminal class except Congress.” Facts would appear to prove him right.
So when I hear so-called “watchdog” groups like CREW aka Citizens for Responsibility in Washington demand that the U.S Attorney investigate Christine O’Donnell for alleged campaign finance abuses I have to wonder why not go a step further and call for a Federal grand jury to investigate the whole damn Congress!
In fact, expand the probe to include the whole 68 square miles surrounded by reality that is the nation’s capitol from K Street to Georgetown and both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
But when you look at the bios for some of the staff at CREW you will see why that won’t happen anytime soon. Its Executive Director worked on Capitol Hill for none other than good ol’ common man, foot-in-mouth Joe Biden of Delaware among others.
Hey, isn’t that the same state that Biden used to represent in the Senate? And isn’t Christine O’Donnell running for that very same seat that Biden would have a stroke if it went to a Republican especially a bumpkin like O’Donnell? Now ain’t that a convenient coincidence?
I don’t know Ms. O’Donnell. She seems nice enough and is well spoken. And the Republicans of Delaware gave her the nomination to the Senate by an overwhelming margin against plutocrat and charter member of the Washington establishment Mike Castle.
She is quickly learning that politics is a contact sport. She will rise or fall on her own merits as it should be.
But the media pack of wild dogs and the class conscious Washington elite will do everything they can to “Palinize” her, belittle her and make sure she isn’t heard from again — destroying her life in the process.
And they wonder why the common folks are angry and are heating up the tar and gathering the chicken feathers out in Bumpkinville, USA.
Like all of us Christine O’Donnell has problems and faults. We have all done things in our life that we would like to forget and not see dragged through the public square. I guarantee you Bill Maher is no saint.
But before our “betters” in Washington, pundit and politician alike, decide that Christine O’Donnell or Rand Paul or Sharron Angle aren’t fit to be members of their restricted country club they would do well to check the backgrounds of some of their current members—including their own.
People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. And Washington, D.C is the biggest dang glass house in America– and everybody has a big bag of stones.
Patrick Dorinson blogs at The Cowboy Libertarian. He lives in California.
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